Building a Jazz from Fender parts

Alanko · July 25, 2020, 03:47:23 PM

I've noticed that Fender have been selling both US and Mexican bodies and necks for some time. Oddly they have a line of roasted maple necks that seem to be exclusively available as aftermarket parts. I know that buying new parts is probably terrible value for money overall, but I'm going ahead anyway.

I'm always in the market for a Jazz Bass, but find it hard to bond to them. I'm giving it another shot, and I will document the process here.

As a rule of thumb I buy Mexican Fender basses second hand, and usually strip out the stock pickups and wiring and replace where necessary. I also tend to level, crown and polish the frets as well. However Covid-19 seems to have reduced the pool of available instruments, so I can't snaffle up a used bass at the moment. Beyond this, my preference is for Mexican basses built during the era they introduced the black headstock decal (maybe 2010s?) up until they revised the lineup as the 'Player Series'. In terms of the used market people tend to want the same money for a dinged up 1990s corner-cutter Mex bass as they do for a mint 2019 bass with the plastic film on the pickguard. There is no consistency in the price of used MIM Fender basses in my experience, and I'm shooting for a fairly small niche where I think they were at their best.

With all of this in mind, I've just bought a black Jazz body and maple Jazz neck online. I have most of the other bits I need already. Watch this space!

amptech · July 26, 2020, 11:45:48 PM

I've installed quite a few Jazz necks here in the shop new from Fender. I'm not too impressed with the baked maple stuff, not sure why..
But the necks are generally fine, they seem to have been quality checked and for some reason many of them look better visually, pretty wood grain etc. compared to new instrument necks in the guitar shop above me. There is a guy locally that has a ton of P basses, and at some point he decided to have them all converted to J neck! Fretwork on the new F'ers are good, as I recall it's usually just the nut that needs som work and they're good to go.

Alanko · July 31, 2020, 04:01:20 PM

The body and neck arrived today, and I agree about the fretwork. I've not gone over it with a rocker, but the frets seem properly crowned. Old MIM fretwork tended to be quite flat-topped, with polished out tooling marks on the flat area.

I have a set of Dimarzio Area J pickups already, and I've started building a wiring harness with 500k pots all round... I want a bass with plenty of brightness to dial back on.

Bubbalou88 · August 04, 2020, 07:15:13 AM

I have bought 2 new Fender Jazz bass necks Both have been very good and only required proper setup once installed!

OldManC · August 06, 2020, 04:05:39 PM

I'm putting together parts for a '51 P clone and bought a maple board Fender replacement neck for it. The back of the headstock is marked "Made in Mexico" just like the full guitars and basses they sell that are made there. I guess it was too much to home for the "Fender" brand there, like my (American) replacement Jazz necks had. The fretwork, finish, and overall feel and quality are excellent. I was hoping it would at least be a B neck because I'm not a big fan of C necks (too many years playing Thunderbirds and A neck Ps). This thing is an A neck (1 1/2" at the nut) and the perfect depth and profile for me. I'm waiting on the body now (from Guitar Mill) and pretty excited to get this thing rolling.

I'm excited to see your progress, and I think you will end up having the exact bass you wanted by doing it this way.

Bubbalou88 · August 10, 2020, 10:13:23 PM

My Fender parts bass
2013 Fender FXR Jazz Body with 2011 NOS Fender Hwy One Jazz neck. All new electronics, Hipshot 27:1 HB7 tuners, Kluson Hi Mass bridge and Seymour Duncan SJB-3 Quarter Pounder Jazz pickups, Fender American Pickguard with body routed so I only have to loosen and tilt neck slightly to adjust truss rod.

Alanko · October 02, 2020, 01:53:03 PM

I got there in the end!

This took a while to really get right. I knocked the parts together pretty quickly, but didn't really gel with the instrument. I bought a maple neck, and I've swapped this between the Jazz here and two P Bass bodies I have (one white and one sunburst).

The bass above is the Jazz body I bought for this project and a MIM Jaguar Bass neck I already owned. Its a Jazz neck with a Jag decal. I went with the 500k pots and Dimarzio Area J pickups. The cap is quite a high value, maybe 64 nF or something like that? I have a wee bag of red caps I pulled out a dead EQ pedal and I used a bigger value cap than the usual 47 nF as I wanted a dubby tone where necessary. The control plate and knobs are made by Hosco and the bridge is a Fender Badass II style unit.

I had some fun choosing a pickguard. The red tortoiseshell example here is a £8 'Floer' pickguard from Amazon. I widened the bevel on it to 30 degrees to match a vintage Fender, then wet sanded the edges. Finally I wet sanded the whole guard with 3000 grit, then used a rotary polisher to make it glossy again. This sort of melts the edges and screw holes slightly which makes the pickguard look a lot nicer.

Oddly enough the bridge is slightly off to the right. Fender pre-drill the body for the bridge, and add some guide holes for the control plate and pickguard. This seems ass-backwards as pickguards are usually a universal fit, whereas bridges can be a bit irregular. The Fender Badass bridge is also pre-slotted for quite a tight string spacing which is a bit unusual.

I bought the white P Bass body last month and had to drill my own bridge holes using a straight edge and maths. Not sure why Fender got it slightly wrong on the Jazz body as I did a better job at home as a DIY effort. It isn't a deal breaker on the Jazz bass, but a bit annoying.

Also annoying is aftermarket Fender necks. They are pre-drilled for the Fender tuners used on MIM basses. You either have to pay too much for an OEM set, a Hipshot set designed to fit the MIM screw pattern, or find a set of used MIM tuners. A few months back I sold two sets of "spare" MIM tuners only to realise I needed a set again! Cue another trip to Ebay.

I've got the screwdriver bug now, so I plan to keep chopping and changing. The white P Bass body is getting a fretless MIM Jazz neck. Somebody was selling one on Ebay for less than the retailers have them listed for, so I snapped it up.

The maple Jazz neck is now going on the sunburst P Bass body. This is getting routed out for a Toaster-style neck pickup and extra volume control. It will be something like Stu Cook's modified P Bass. I'm hoping I can get some of the tones of my 4003 from this bass once it is complete.

Rob · October 02, 2020, 02:50:04 PM

Looking suave in every way!

Alanko · October 29, 2020, 02:33:20 PM

This bass is now a fretless bass!

I bought a used MIM factory fretless Jazz neck. The previous owner had simply filed out all the nut slots to .105 and then stuck strings on and called it a day. The fret marker inlays were higher than the surrounding wood!

I used Rustins Plastic Coating to put a finish on the fingerboard, having sanded the neck with a long beam to make sure the string paths were all even.

Rustins goes on like this:

It is quite a syrupy stuff. I applied it with a foam gloss roller, and found that dust and cat hair was landing in it as it dried.

And you then knock sand it all back between coats with 600 grit sandpaper to give you this look:

After seven coats, and letting cure for several days, I wet sanded and polished it with a rotary car polisher and Meguiar's Ultimate Compound, which gave me this:

Way easier than messing around with epoxy or superglue, and the finish is rock hard.

Rob · October 29, 2020, 05:15:51 PM

That is really nice!

Pilgrim · October 29, 2020, 08:41:25 PM

Beautiful!

Dave W · October 29, 2020, 11:22:09 PM

Nice. That fingerboard finish looks like it can handle whatever you throw at it.

amptech · October 30, 2020, 01:03:37 AM

Nice!

gearHed289 · October 30, 2020, 08:12:59 AM

Dig it!

Alanko · October 30, 2020, 11:23:20 AM

Quote from: Dave W on October 29, 2020, 11:22:09 PM
Nice. That fingerboard finish looks like it can handle whatever you throw at it.

Thanks all for the kind words!

Dave, it is a hard finish. I'm surprised about how hard the finish is. "Plastic Coating" is maybe a bit of a misnomer. It is the stuff Brian May used on his guitar in the '60s. As far as I know they haven't changed the formula. Calling it 'plastic' probably appealed as a marketing term back in the day.

According to Rustins it is a "two-part cold cure finish, based on Urea Formaldehyde resins, plasticised with alkyd reinforced with melamine". All I know is that it slaps on at room temperature and smells horrible as it cures. It doesn't like being applied over oils or existing finishes and will develop fish-eyes if there is any traces of wax or silica on the surface you are using it on.