Jazz Bass Project-SOLID Electric Bass Built From Parts

 

A number of parts were laying around for years. These included pick-ups, control plate with pots, string tree, neck plate and bridge plate from a busted up '73 Fender Jazz Bass, along with a set of unknown tuners. Some scrounging on Ebay led to an aftermarket body and Mighty Mite neck, and the building was on. A few trips to Guitar Works in Evanston were in order along the way, and eventually, the instrument was taken to Geoff Benge for fret work and setup. Here's how it went.

Parts all over the place. Mystery-wood body, Mighty-Mite neck, various J-Bass parts. A fine mess.

Tuners installed.

 
 

 

 

Neck and bridge on.

Neck bolted on, rear view

Copper shielding tape in cavities, ready to add electronics.

Pick-ups are in. The bridge pick-up had to be rewound. Later, the neck pick-up failed, and had to be rewound as well. Some rewiring also was needed.

Pick-ups soldered to control plate. Grounding plate in.

 

Control plate attached. It had to be cleaned up a little, and the jack replaced.

 

Pickguard on. The holes on this body lined up poorly with everything. Had to chop a little here. Not too pretty a fit. Whatta ya gonna do?
 

 

Another view. Time to string it up and play (or pray?).
 

 

Strings and string tree on. Needs a little tweaking, but it plays and sounds great. (Okay, it needed a LOT of tweaking.)

A few decal designs to choose from. Bottom right seems like the likely choice.

 

Finished (Almost)!!!

But a tortoise shell pick guard is a nice finishing touch.

It always seems to cost a lot more than you figured, but good results count. This turned out great, and is getting a lot of use.

 Thanks for stopping by.

P-Bass Project-SOLID Electric Bass Built From Parts

Here we go again. The J-Bass was so good, It was time to build another bass, starting with a used Mexican standard Jazz bass neck and tuners, in good shape, but needing a new nut. All the parts were purchased on Ebay and all were Fender parts, excepting the cheap aftermarket P-Bass body and the pick guard. It came together with surprising ease, with one small glitch. The only holes on the body that lined up correctly were the neck bolt holes (Thank goodness!). After assembly, correct intonation was impossible, and the bridge had to be relocated. The results are excellent. It is an terrific sounding bass (I was told that the pickup is of Japanese origin.) that can be taken on an airplane without fear.

 

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