Jazz Bass: Wiring & Assembly

I finally got this bad boy assembled and wired up today. This time around, as the bridge pickup cavity wasn't really shield-able, I didn't bother shielding either of the pickup cavities at all. I just whipped out the Slugga snail-tape and shielded the control cavity. The omission of the shielding on the pickup cavities seems to have done very little to increase the noise level - something to remember for future builds. I have read elsewhere that it isn't necessary, and even some who say it affects the brightness of the pickups so go figure.

Shielding by "Slugga".

With just 4 solder points, I had the remainder of the control wiring together and making noise in no time. Man, I love the ease with which these F-type kits go together. 4 wires soldered, and everything is done? Magic. Pitbull really do provide the goods with these pre-soldered control cavity covers.

Jazz Bass Wiring is amazingly quick with a pre-soldered control cover.

And so with the wiring done and the covers screwed down, she is finally making a nice clean, low boomp - boomp sound; especially from the neck pickup. Niiiice. Can you tell I'm not a bass player?? Well, I'm not. But I'll still try to do a sound demo once she's finished. How hard can this bass playing be ??? :P

Seafoam goodness gives a really nice looking instrument.

The all important headstock signage.

Ready to join the flock!

I still have to do a fret level, a re-crown, and adjust the height of the nut, but to be honest she's playing quite nicely already. In no time at all she'll be a permanent resident of the guitar rack!

Jazz Bass: Bringing the Shine

Finally got an hour or two to myself after the chaos of the Christmas season. I put it to good use, polishing the body of my Jazz Bass build and getting more Tru-Oil on the neck. Polishing started with 1500 grit, then moving on to 2000 grit and finally Meguiars Ultimate Compound. After two rounds of compound the shine is finally starting to come out. It may need a third!

Ultimate Compound for polishing.

Once I'm happy with the surface after the Ultimate Compound, I'll hit it with one round of Meguiars ScratchX 2.0 just for good measure. In the past I haven't been able to see a noticeable difference with the ScratchX but hey - why not.

In addition to polishing the body, I have managed to get a few more coats of Tru-Oil on the neck. It's definitely starting to look and feel great!

Tru-Oil almost complete on the neck.

This build is coming down the home straight now. Once the polishing is done I'll be able to line the control cavity with copper tape, get the pickups screwed in and soldered and she'll be ready to rock. Not long now!

Jazz Bass: To Cover on Not to Cover

Decisions, decisions.

Ok, so I'm not a bass player. I'm not even much of a guitar player. So when I make decisions about hardware etc, I usually go on aesthetics more than anything else. For my Jazz bass I need to decide on hardware - to cover or not to cover? Those bass players out there - do these huge-arse chrome covers make the jazz bass less playable?

50s retro cool to a more playable instrument?

Personally I've always liked them - I think that they give the bass a real 50s retro vibe. But will I hate playing it in the end? What do you guys out there think?

Jazz Bass: Headstock Shaping and Tru-Oil for the Neck

Sorry guys, it's been a long, long time since I posted any updates on any builds to this little bloggerino. Unfortunately I've been terribly busy with work, and am finding less and less time to either build (which is utterly fucking depressing) or even to write about it. Anyway I'm hoping to address this situation in the coming weeks - with several builds close to completion, I would really like to share the results with you all.

Anyway, today's post concerns the Jazz Bass build which recently changed it's colour to Surf Green and got a few coats of acrylic clear. It's looking pretty good I dare say, and while the clear coats cure, I have finally found some time to shape the headstock and sand the neck smooth.

The standard Fender Jazz Bass headstock template.

I managed to find a bunch of Fender bass headstock templates on the TDPRI site, and hoped they would be enough to seal the deal. I decided on the stock standard jazz bass template and printed the pdf 100% scale. Problem was, the template (as usual) didn't really match the headstock blank from the factory. In the end I was forced to use the template to mark out the circular end of the headstock, and then just free-hand the curved fin along the bottom. Not really a problem - even with my shoddy drawing skills there's nothing a belt sander and drum sander can't fix right? Right. Anyway, the stars seemed to align, the jig saw did as it was told, and even the sanding disc and slap wheels didn't burn out the edges. Sweet

With the headstock shaped, I sanded the neck down to 360 grit and raised the grain a few times with water before staining. This time around I went for a weak solution of Colortone Vintage Amber (I do love those vintage tones) and did 3 passes in quick succession in an attempt to pop as much of the grain on this nice looking maple neck as I could.

Headstock shaped, Vintage Amber applied and 1st coat of Tru-Oil.

After the dye was dry, it was on with the first soak coat of Tru-Oil and the maple just drank it up. Man, I can already see that the grain on this neck is really going to pop when the oil gets in there. About another 10 coats or so to go, so patience grasshopper, patience..

Jazz Bass: Surf Green it is

Well, another basswood build, another dye attempt, and another clear-coat fail. There seems to be a curse on the Holgate man-cave. This build has now become the second (or is it third?) dyed basswood body to receive dye and then end up being a solid colour. The black was looking good for a while, but in my haste pre-coffee one morning I didn't look too closely at the can and sprayed a jet of white primer over the body instead of clear vinyl. Complete noob mistake and a bloody shame.

Anyway, after a few tears I threw my hands up in the air, sanded what I had flat again, and set about covering the whole thing in primer. Looking at what MTN94 colours I had in the cupboard, I decided on a surf-green finish (a bit of a default for me it must be said). The MTN94 Bali Green was dutifully extracted and a couple of coats applied. This is how she ended up.

Bass gets two coats of MTN94 Bali Green

I must say, I do like the colour, and it'll look great under some gloss clear. Once the colour has had tie to cure I'll start back on the clean vinyl in earnest. Fingers crossed.

Jazz Bass: None More Black

There's not much happening in the man cave at the moment, what with 3 builds hanging with un-cured Acrylic clear coats. Luckily there is still another build that can progress while I patiently wait.

Over the last week I sanded the body of the JB-1 Jazz Bass build down to 400 grit and applied a trans-black dye job using Black Colortone stain. To pop the grain this time around, I didn't sand back the first coats to remove most of the colour. Instead, while the dye was still wet, I used a clean wet rag to literally drag the colour out of the surface; leaving the deeper grain still coloured. I repeated this several times, re-applying the black and dragging it back out, until I was happy with the overall effect. It's not a technique that will work if you want grain popped in another colour (eg black under blue etc) but for the same colour pop it works extremely well.

Trans-black finish shows the grain nicely

With the dye on, I was able to begin the clear coats on this bad boy as well. Make that 4 builds now hanging in the drying room (ie my shower recess). But at least this one needs plenty more coats.

In terms of assessories etc. I'm currently considering an all black look - black pickguard and black control plate cover. It may be a little over the top, so I'm reserving judgement for the moment. I'm also considering a custom 3-ply black pickguard that also covers the control plate area. Something like this:

An interesting pickguard option. Seriously considering!

Not sure I'm up for the fiddly edging required but again it's on the list for consideration.

Jazz Bass: Unboxing and Mock Build

Another day, and another new build - this time from my stack (that never seems to get any smaller ;) ). It's a Pitbull Guitars JB-1 styled on the Fender Jazz bass - a kit i picked up during the birthday sale way back in September 2014!

Finally cracking the box open, the kit looks in good shape, apart from a split at the heel of the body where two of the basswood pieces have joined. It's quite possible that this may have resulted from the kit's long stay in the stack.

Unboxing the Pitbull Guitars JB-1 kit.

A split in the heel at the body join

Far from a game changer, the split will be easily filled. What it may mean though, is that this kit is destined for a solid colour. To be honest I was leaning towards a solid colour anyway. There's little to no grain on show here and besides, I've also got an ash JBA-1 in the stack and that will be much better for stain!

As with all Fender-style kits, the mock build went together very quickly. The only hassle was finding the correct position and angle for the bridge. The problem was I couldn't use the outside tuners to hold the strings down the neck, owing to not wanting to push the tuner bushings into the headstock this early in the game. Without the tuners, I had to resort to a clamp on the headstock, and that made getting the string lengths equal (and therefore a straight bridge) very difficult. In the end I made it, as you can probably imagine since the photo below doesn't show a smouldering mess.

Mock build complete, bridge placed correctly, and ready for sanding.

In all honesty, if I was to voice a personal preference out of the various Fender solid body bass models, I would go for the P-Bass. It's the model Dee Dee Ramone used after all, and the kooky control plate on the jazz bass just always threw me for a loop. I know it's a styling choice carried over from the Jaguar, Mustang, even the Jazzmaster and it's ilk, but I like the P-Bass continuation of the scratch plate much better. Having said that, now that the mock build is together I'm pretty pleased with how it looks. I still haven't decided on colours - both body or scratchplate  (I'm even tossing up whether a black control plate would look good) - so that decision can be mulled over while I get the sanding done.

Next job though - shaping the headstock!