Hi Fellas,
Wanted to post a few photos of a project I just wrapped up a couple of months ago.
It's a reliced “late 90's something” Mexican made lefty Jazz Bass transformed into a tribute to both the great Precision and Jazz basses of the past. Sorta has a late 60's look to. Basically it's a J-Bass body and neck embellished with a stylized P-Bass pickuard, Tele knobs, thumbrest and a set of "P" series pups.
Never for one moment was I trying to seriously fool anyone with the relic work. Heck, this model doesn't even exist in the real world
. Just wanted to transfer some of the well earned nicks and dings it had back when it was a standard black lefty while at the same time incorporating some of the features I wanted in my day to day bass. Namely a switchable circuit that gives me the dedicated P-Bass sound I wanted plus the option of a dedicated J-Bass pickup or a blend of both (3-way switch). All three of these selections can be dialed in to a variety of sounds with a “varitone” rotary switch containing a couple of Jupiter capacitors as well as a few Orange Drops. So, starting at the the 1/4” plug, it's a standard tone control, Jazz volume control, Precision volume and 6 position varitone switch.
The bass is 100% nitro from ReRanch, the body, neck and tinted headstock, the body is "blonde" with a slight tint on the edge, reminds me of a smoke stain. The “period correct” decal came from Oldfret.com. Thumbrest was cut from some Ash I picked up while at the Louisville Slugger factory a few years ago. The pickguard was cut and hand routed from a sheet of red tortoise I found for cheap on Amazon. The nut is a sandwich of brass and bone. Have no idea why I did this except that I saw it done on an ax over at the Rock and Roll Cafe in Houston one day....thought it was vintage and pretty cool looking. Pain in the butt to build and it took forever to get dialed in!
I kept and used my trusty old Gotoh high mass bridge from years ago, converted it to a seven screw mount. Combine that with a very detailed epoxy bedding job on the neck joint, a string thru body, and this thing has more resonance than it ever had before. Both pups are new Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounders driving 250k Fender pots.
I always had this goofy idea about a set of tuning machine spools that were locking AND spooled the string from the top down, keeping a bit more string pressure on the nut. Hell, I was doing everything else to this bass so...why not. I turned a set here in the shop and put 'em on. Don't know if they really help but it made one more oddity that makes the ax more personal to me.
BTW, the Jazz pickup position is just where it always was on late 90's Mexican J-Basses. The P-Bass pickup location was determined by measuring a few recent Precision Basses, mid 90's models on up to 2000 or so.
This is my very first relic job and it was fun and a challenge at the same time. About half my band mates fell in love with it and the rest of them said “Cheater!!!!” ha haaaa...at least they said it with smiles on their faces:-) The standard joke now at practice is to say “be careful, don't scratch that thing”, which always draws a sideways smile and a slow shake of the head from me. It's truly a human study all onto itself when it comes to relics and how some people view them, it's actually very funny in a way.
I've gigged with this thing a few times and I love how people react to it. Most love it a few have asked me which dumpster I found it in, but it always attracts any bass players in the audience which never fails to strike up a really cool conversation on vintage gear and all of the super basses of the past. After they gawk at it for a few minutes, and ask “60's, 70's, 80's?” I always come clean and tell them it was made somewhere around 2000:-)
Thought you guys might enjoy it and hey, it's a lefty! Sorry for the horrid detail of this post but after you do one of these, screw by screw, you get a certain attachment to them and of course the feeling of pride soon follows...and then the uncontrolable tendency to jabber a lot:-) Thanks for hangin' in there with me.
All the best,
Glenn in Texas
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