Exactly how much does your Fender bass really weigh?

[Baird6869]

Interesting excercise as I would have never guessed the results. I would have thought the 5ers were 10+lbs and the Geddy to be lighter.

The best part was watching my wife's face when she caught me in the basements with a bass on a fish scale. She now is 100% positive I am insane.

Here we go.....

1997 MIM Jazz Fretless with Badass II - 9.25lbs!!! The heaviest of all of them.

1992 Jazz V Plus - 9.0lbs

Geddy Lee Jazz - 9.0lbs

1997 Jazz V Deluxe - 8.5lbs

1993 MIM P - 8.25lbs

Squier VM Fretless (ibanezcollector relic) - 8.28lbs

1974 P (without pickup and bridge covers) - 7.75lbs!!


My other basses out of curiosity (both are tied as my lightest):

1992 Sadowsky NYC (swamp ash, Jazz style) - 7.5lbs

2007 Gibson SG Reissue bass - 7.5lbs

 

[savit260]

You'd think that the extra "r" would make it heavier, rather than lighter, wouldn't you?

Only kidding!

Wow, 7lbs, that really is light - I don't think I've even seen a 7lb Sadowsky .

Any pictures, perhaps ?

OOPS! Fender.. haha Typo!

If I ever find a Sadowsky that I like better than this old girl (highly doubtful), I'll buy it, even with the chambered body's.

Here's a pic with the "stadium" rig! hahaha

and one out working.

 

[Fender32]

Interesting excercise as I would have never guessed the results. I would have thought the 5ers were 10+lbs and the Geddy to be lighter.

The best part was watching my wife's face when she caught me in the basements with a bass on a fish scale. She now is 100% positive I am insane.

Here we go.....

1997 MIM Jazz Fretless with Badass II - 9.25lbs!!! The heaviest of all of them.

1992 Jazz V Plus - 9.0lbs

Geddy Lee Jazz - 9.0lbs

1997 Jazz V Deluxe - 8.5lbs

1993 MIM P - 8.25lbs

Squier VM Fretless (ibanezcollector relic) - 8.28lbs

1974 P (without pickup and bridge covers) - 7.75lbs!!


My other basses out of curiosity (both are tied as my lightest):

1992 Sadowsky NYC (swamp ash, Jazz style) - 7.5lbs

2007 Gibson SG Reissue bass - 7.5lbs

Interesting bunch of numbers there, Baird, thanks for sharing .

There seems to be less variation than you might expect between those (quite different) Fender basses.

 

[Fender32]

OOPS! Fender.. haha Typo!

Yeah, sorry! I couldn't help myself !

Here's a pic with the "stadium" rig! hahaha

What an absolute gem that is . I quite like the bass too .

Seriously, I wonder if it's something to do with the timber drying out with time, which makes the oldest basses the lightest ? I guess that wouldn't explain why some of the newer ones are light too though, would it?

Still, it'd be nice to think that my Fenders will get lighter, as my back gets older and weaker .

 

[savit260]

Yeah, sorry! I couldn't help myself !



What an absolute gem that is . I quite like the bass too .

Seriously, I wonder if it's something to do with the timber drying out with time, which makes the oldest basses the lightest ? I guess that wouldn't explain why some of the newer ones are light too though, would it?

Still, it'd be nice to think that my Fenders will get lighter, as my back gets older and weaker .

That really is a great little amp for around the house, and I use it all the time with my Gibson Gospel for acoustic gigs. Worth it's weight in gold.

Better timbers were available back then. Simple as that.

Think of how many millions upon millions of board feet of instrument quality wood was used up between the "Guitar boom" of the mid 60's until now.

Stuff that was "run of the mill back then" would be considered "premium grade" today.

I had a late 70's P that was a brick when I bought it (4 years old) , and it was still a brick 20 years later when I sold it. If they do get lighter from drying out, it's not enough to really notice.
It ain't going to drop 2 pounds.

 

[dave19er]

okay, fresh off the bathroom scale:

'78 Jazz - 12 lbs
'92 American Vintage '62 reissue Jazz - 9.5 lbs

and for comparison:

mid 90's Modulus Quantum 4 - 9 lbs

 

[Fender32]

okay, fresh off the bathroom scale:

'78 Jazz - 12 lbs
'92 American Vintage '62 reissue Jazz - 9.5 lbs

and for comparison:

mid 90's Modulus Quantum 4 - 9 lbs

Hurrah! Somebody else has a heavier Jazz Bass than mine .

BTW, I came accross this picture elsewhere on TB and thought that it was appropriate for this thread:

I know that feeling !

 

[mikeswals]

too funny!

 

[Kenny Allyn]

Got me curious ... I have a very accurate shipping scale, so here goes



8.5lbs Alder body

9.5lbs Ash Body

10.0lbs Alder Body I know the Dark Stars weigh more than the stock pickups

... I knew the 1975 was light ... but 9.5lbs is GREAT for a 70s Ash body Jazz!

 

[lowrez]

2006 60th anniversary jazz. 9.2 lbs according to my shipping scale.

 

[CharlyG]

I just picked up one of those scales, and here are my results:

98 Fender Jazz(P/J) Ash MIM with Warmoth Birdseye maple neck, gotoh bridge, concentrics and a three way on the control panel - 10.1 lbs

00 G&L L-2500 "bound birdseye maple neck" - 9.6 lbs

Just to compare:

06 Rick 4004cii - 8.3 lbs.

 

[Webtroll]

KK I got a goot scale to hang the basses on. My Squier Jazz with a D tuner and Schallers is 9.04 pounds, my 81 Precision Special is 11.09. The 11 pound bass feels heavy to me but the 9 pounder feels great. If I knew for a fact I could reduce the weight of the P by 2 pounds by swapping hardware I would (for 2 pounds vintage be damned!).

 

[Fender32]

Got me curious ... I have a very accurate shipping scale, so here goes



8.5lbs Alder body

9.5lbs Ash Body

10.0lbs Alder Body I know the Dark Stars weigh more than the stock pickups

... I knew the 1975 was light ... but 9.5lbs is GREAT for a 70s Ash body Jazz!

How much wood did you cut out for those Dark Stars, Kenny ?

As my (identical looking) '76 Jazz weighs 11.3lbs , I have to assume that you excavated appx. 1.5lbs of lumber, in order to make "The Beast" .

Or, maybe mine's made of solid gold and not maple at all .

 

[Webtroll]

I love the pearl blocks on maple, that's a sharp looking bass.

 

[El-Bob]

2006 60th anniversary jazz. 9.2 lbs according to my shipping scale.

when i saw your avatar i almost punched my monitor

 

[Kenny Allyn]

How much wood did you cut out for those Dark Stars, Kenny ?

Actually that bass was almost a basket case when I got it ... routs everywhere, someone had cut it up and tried to
re-patch it with what looked like kitchen cabinet material. It has some kinda routing under the pickguard too for what I don't know? It also has one of those very heavy counter-sunk old style Badass bridges on it.

On the PLUS side it has a great neck (after two techs worked on it) and the original black finish (very beat) ... All in all I don't think 1.5 lbs came out bass that didn't get added back I would say it's at about par. So 10lbs is about right I think.

On to a NEW Fender I just aquired ... well re-aquired, I owned this one about ten years ago and sold it to a pretty well known blues bass player ... It's been all over the place and he traded it back to me a couple of days ago ...

Anyway this one is an even 9lbs

Known as "Purple Haze" for its Burgandy Mist Purple color it is a 60s something bass with a lot of changed parts but it certainly has the VIBE! ... it's now part of my personal collection and NFS.

... This one ALWAYS stopped traffic when I played it years ago on Beale st.

 

[Deedubs]

1998 mia p bass= 9.2 lbs
2000 mim j bass= 9.8 lbs

 

[Davo-London]

1964 P = 8.3 lb (Alder)
1976 P = 9.3 lb (Ash)

What a difference that pound makes. When I hear 13 lb or even 10 lb I wince. I cannot believe some of these figures though - if you use bathroom scales. Jump on the scales yourself take a note of the weight then pick up the bass and hold it vertically and close to your body. Then note the weight again.

This should be accurate. Scales do not work well around zero.

Davo

 

[FrednBass]

I don't have a FENDER bass, but my custom-made P-bass weights 13 pounds

 

[Dave Siff]

'09 American Standard Precision 5-string, alder body, 9.5 pounds.