Following on from the first JM IV I built earlier this year, which is currently available for sale, I figured I'm gonna want to keep a JM IV to take with me when I move to the UK next month. It will be good to have alongside the Spitfire Bass - which is a single coil/single pickup platform.
The series/parallel config is so great and is the most bass fun you can have without a pre-amp, and having a spare pair of old Jazz bass pickups and most of the other hardware lying around has made it an easy decision.
Going into my 7th build, I have got body construction down a bit quicker - from cutting out from the blank to hitting the paint booth was about 6 hours. Fast for me! (There was a fair bit of maths and French curve tomfoolery in the first hour, because I want to make sure this one fits into a standard Fender Bass case! JM IV #1 ended up in a slightly longer case - it literally ended up one inch too long LOL)
Finally Paul's (stereordinary) excellent acrylic templates have been getting a workout, and between using both the body and pickguard templates as french curves, David who runs the workshop and me, we came up with a slightly tweaked planshape that will fit into a standard Fender case and still be the full 34" scale. I did get close to giving up and going for a P Bass build...but giving up's for pussies right?
Getting the 60's Jazz bass pickup spacing in and working it around the pickguard was easy for the red JM IV, but this new build required more thought, as I didn't have any thoughts on the bass' overall length fist time round. The neck pocket of course had to be deeper south in the body. Doing this also forced a change in the pickups I wanted - I was all ready to build a pair of Jazzmaster wide flat bass pickups using 8 magnets a la a Jazz Bass pickup, but the re-working of the Jazzmaster body meant that there simply wasn't enough room on the pickguard to make two wide flat pickups fit in and a) look OK and b) work sonically as a pair. So it was decided to go with the Jazz Bass pickups again for build #2. One day I'll make JM Bass pickups and make the design fit into this body and tweak the pickguard outline but I've only got a few weeks to get this build done and ready to leave with me.
Here is the body just before drilling the wiring tunnels.I've left out the myriad of uninteresting construction shots...
The top circuit tone/volume wheels will be deleted on this build, as they are unnecessary for the series/parallel concept, so tunnels are good - when removing the pickguard for service/maintenance I will just have to unscrew the top circuit selector switch and the bottom 3 way selector switch from the pickguard. The routing is also slightly modified to leave solid wood under the pickguard where one's fingers and knuckles rattle when playing slap grooves. Sounds funny when practising unplugged if you have a cavity in that spot. (Trying to think of everything this time)
All tunnels drilled she's ready for sealer!
Some lovely wide grain in these three pieces of alder - which also mean it's relatively lightweight.
Here's the pickguard material. My local surfboard shaper laminated up this material which I had left over from when they built my most recent surfboard. The bass is going to mirror the look of the board. Similar color scheme to the first Tele Bass I built.
I got the tint coats on the body yesterday, and will finish it off next Tuesday with some clear.
Next task will be dressing the neck blank and doing a nice skinny rosewood veneer for the fretboard.
I want to do dots and binding but at this stage we can't work out how to do this on a radiused fretboard neck. Fender of course did it on their Jazzmaster guitars and Jazz Basses, but they musta had a very cunning jig to pull this off...
Any input on this would of course be most welcome - otherwise the neck will be unbound with some nice pau shell dots in it.
Stay tuned - I am also restoring a 66 Jazz bass back to its original sunburst - always a messy proposition but always so rewarding when you get to do a burst! Another thread...
