Jazz bass Mod becomes Build?

[colin2121]

Thanks for the info Fender.

[fender3x]

I decided that if I am going to all the trouble of finishing a new body for this bass, I might as well go all in and get a new neck too. I am not unhappy with the SX neck that I have...but I like the feel of my Pitbull custom ordered Jazz profile neck better. I think mostly it's the satin finish (the SX is thick, glossy and very yellow). I asked Tim if he could get me another one like the one I have...but I don't think that part of the biz is up and running yet.

So I went to eBay... The least expensive jazz profile neck I could find (US$60) was from Yinfente in China. The company seems mostly to specialize in violins and bows...but also makes some guitar bodies and necks. The one I bought got to me remarkably quickly, and is pretty much ready to finish with just one place on the fingerboard where there is a bit of a scratch. Should not be hard to fix. It has a Fender style headstock that I may try to re-shape a bit. It's bound with a light colored rosewood fingerboard and square Mother of Plastic inlays. The binding job is really very good. The neck is dead-straight and flat without touching the truss rod. All in all it seems like very good quality for about the same price as a PB neck. Hope my luck with this one is as good ;-)

[fender3x]

My pine basses are between 3.4 and 3.7 kg (assuming my luggage scale is accurate), and the Victorian ash bass was 4.2 kg.

I went back to look at your scratch Tele's. I am impressed how light they are. I have seen pine used for weight savings. Looks like it works. My swamp ash Fender P-bass weighs in at 3.9 kg. Both your pine basses do better. I am surprised by the weight of the Victorian Ash bass. If it's what I think it is (Eucalyptus regnans) it should weight about the same as as white ash. Basses made of that can weigh as much as almost 5 kg. This caused me to go back to your build pages to see if you had chambered it... It's lighter than my ASAT bass which has a basswood body. I wonder if the hardware makes that much difference? The ASAT has massive humbuckers and a high mass bridge.

[Trevor Davies]

I went back to look at your scratch Tele's. I am impressed how light they are. I have seen pine used for weight savings. Looks like it works. My swamp ash Fender P-bass weighs in at 3.9 kg. Both your pine basses do better. I am surprised by the weight of the Victorian Ash bass. If it's what I think it is (Eucalyptus regnans) it should weight about the same as as white ash. Basses made of that can weigh as much as almost 5 kg. This caused me to go back to your build pages to see if you had chambered it... It's lighter than my ASAT bass which has a basswood body. I wonder if the hardware makes that much difference? The ASAT has massive humbuckers and a high mass bridge.

The Victorian Ash Tele does have a slightly larger control cavity, no control plate, and the slight belly and arm contours. Also, the one single coil pup. I was also expecting it to be a bit heavier!

[fender3x]

Small progress. I got the headstock cut. Initially I wasn't going to cut it. I didn't take a pic of it before cutting, but here's a pic from the posting where I bought it.



It's obviously not the neck I received because the grain is different, but the cut was the same.

I was aiming roughly at the old 1960s Epi batwings. The one in the pic is from a 1965 Epiphone Newport bass which would have been within a year or so of my first bass, also an Epiphone Newport.



Here's what my attempt looks like, posing with it's Tele sister that is also on the production line.



I used an old router template from the last bass headstock I shaped. As you can see I had to draw it twice. The pencil marks have gotten a bit faint from handling, but after I traced the template outline on the first time, I realized that I should probably check to make sure the tuners fit. All my other bass builds use Hipshot Ultralites that don't take up a lot of room. But this bass will use Gotoh Res-o-lite tuners (GB640). I got the Gotoh tuners to replace some full-sized steel tuners, and wanted to be full sized so they would cover the screw holes. They are not as light as the Hipshots, but they are much lighter than steel. https://g-gotoh.com/product/gb640/?lang=en They may not be the lightest of light tuners on the market but they are the smoothest and most precise bass tuners I have ever had. I could say the same thing the Gotohs that I have on guitars as well.



Ultimately this shape fit inside the original fender form-factor and feels like a tip-of-the-hat to my first bass. Also it takes a bit of weight of the end of the neck/lever--which is good since my shoulder is the fulcrum.

[Trevor Davies]

Nice work. They look great!

[fender3x]

On my Tele build (in progress) I tried to add color to the body using Garnet Shellac. I am not unhappy with the outcome, but found it difficult to apply evenly, so not a 100% success. What I did like about it was using a water based hardener (PC Petrifier) with a maroon 3m sanding pad and a bit of sawdust as grain filler. This stuff is cheap, easy to apply, and does a pretty good job of sealing and grain filling. Not sure how much harder it makes the wood, but every little bit helps with paulownia. So, I plan to use that...and want something that could work like stain, but over the top of the sealed/hardened/grain-filled wood.

I have have been reading on the interwebs that using alcohol based-dye with platina shellac may produce better results than using colored shellac...and the range of colors is more extensive... So I have been experimenting a little. I had in mind something between a sort of translucent turquoise and seafoam green...



I showed it to two of my kids. My daughter liked the blue better. "More lively" she said. My son also liked the blue better. He said the green was "too Christmasy."

So I guess it's going to be closer to turquoise than to the green. My ASAT bass is a dark blue swirl. My "hybrid" is sort of a daphne blue. This is not quite the same as either of them, but should probably be my last blue one...assuming it works. One thing I learned with the garnet shellac is that it is a lot easier to apply a nice even finish to a flat plank than it is to all sides of a curvy piece of wood on a rotating spit.

[Trevor Davies]

The blue-red combo looks good!

The alcohol-based dye in platina shellac could open up a huge number of colour options! Do you make (Mix!) your own shellac?

[fender3x]

Yes, I make it from flakes. I have always used blonde or platina (aka ultra blonde) prior to my garnet adventure. You get a tiny bit of color from platina. You can see it if you put it on untreated maple, but not enough to think of it as a stain. I use it between products, like water based stain and water based top coat, and the difference in color is so subtle that I am not sure I would pick it out in an A/B test. I also make it in 1lb cuts, so thinner what you typically get premixed here.

McCreed got me interested in shellac. It's cheap, which in my case is good for experimentation. I don't have the clean up the brushes. When I am done, I just let them harden, and when I am ready to use them again I let them soak for a few minutes in alcohol. The shellac itself is so non-toxic it is literally edible. The denatured alcohol is not, but it's safe enough to use in my garage. It seems to stick to pretty much anything, and almost everything sticks to it, so it's good between coats. Even though the experience was not great with the garnet, I was able to remove the botched finish and reapply just using alcohol and without sanding--so in fairness it wasn't all bad either. It has a lot to recommend if I can get the color to go on evenly. Either way, I'll report ;-)

[XP Rider]

Could you point me to McCreed's information on shellac? Got me curious. I am looking for ways to improve my finishes.