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Hatchet job? (Ending edited and inching toward a postitive)

Fletz

Fletz

Jan 16, 2009
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New Jersey
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#1
went to a reputable local guitar repairman to see if he could install a j pickup on my American design Experience precision bass. He said he could and he showed me other guitars he’d repaired, built etc. No jazz pup installations but he assured me he could do it. I bought a p/j set and brought it to him. A week and a half later it was done so I picked it up. In the moment, I plugged it in and it sounded good. No ground hum or buzz. Wasn’t thrilled with the rout but it wasn’t enough for me to gasp in horror. I finally got home and took it out. I played for a few minutes then took a closer look only to realize he did a god-awful job lining up the pickup. First I noticed the poles didn’t line up to the strings but thought maybe it was a slight bridge adjustment. Then I noticed that the jazz pickup is dramatically higher than up on the body than the precision pickups. (Not pickup height up and down but position wise into the body). See the pictures below. The blue bass is the one that I am talking about. I put the pencils on there for alignment. The black one was done by another guy when I was working elsewhere and was much closer.

What course of action would you take? It wasn’t cheap and it’s essentially ruined this bass. What do you think? Am I wrong?

UPDATED: Here is the latest where he offered to do right: Hatchet job?
 

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Last edited:
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#5
FunkHead said:
Wow! That may be the worst I have ever seen. And I have seen amateur jobs done with hand tools.
Click to expand...
Mammoth_Bass said:
Looks like a poorly done job. I’d ask for some sort of compensation... maybe see if he will pay to have it fixed however you will always have extra space from the poor routing job.
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yep. And it’s an American bass so it’s not cheap
FunkHead said:
I have the fix but it should be on the installers dime.
Here's what to do. Go to a MM style pickup in the Bridge position or a Fender Double J style.
Click to expand...

Interesting idea. But that’s not why I wanted the pickup. I wanted the j sound when solo’d and the classic p/j when mixed.
 
#6
Wow that’s way to high , I have 4 fender PJ basses, some in the 60s j position and others in the 70s and one has that exact pickup set. I could eyeball how off that is and all the strings are on the uppermost groove of the saddles, was it like that when you dropped it off? I’d imagine he noticed and tried hiding it but there is nothing to hide there. I’d imagine a talented luthier, not him, could drop it lower and fill/touch up everything decently.
 
#8
Funkinthetrunk said:
Damn...only way to fix that is by routing for a larger pickup like @FunkHead said.
Click to expand...

Nah. Not only way.
All you need to do is to get a qualified luthier to take out the jazz pickup and then build a wood piece out of whatever your body wood like say alder in the exact shape of a jazz pickup to fit the wrongly placed hole, Glue it in. Sand it flat on the top. the rerout the J pickup hole again in the proper location and repaint the entire bass body. Simple. :)
 
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#12
Fletz said:
yep. And it’s an American bass so it’s not cheap


Interesting idea. But that’s not why I wanted the pickup. I wanted the j sound when solo’d and the classic p/j when mixed.
Click to expand...
I know. It's a last chance ditch effort to save the body. I am truly saddened to see this. He knew how bad it was and should have explained it to you. Did he honestly believe that it would "slide"?
 
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#18
onlyclave said:
Answer the question. How does it sound? Recordings are blind.
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OP didn't walk into the shop and ask the guy to "Make the bass sound as good as possible without worrying about looks" so your comment is completely nonsensical. That said, OP already said it sounded good in his original post. Personally I'd be furious.

That's a really poorly done job. I'd first ask the guy who did the work, or the shop owner what they think about the job that was done. Show them other basses, especially stock Fender ones and point out how off it is. Then ask them in their opinion how they would go about fixing it, if they agree it's actually a bad job.

Imho, they should either buy a replacement body and replace it for you on their dime, or buy a replacement bass from Fender, and trade it for yours to recoup their loss.

Edit: Also, did you string it that way after you got it back and noticed it was off? Because they would have had to take the strings off to do the work and then put them back on, and in doing so, if you didn't take them off, they intentionally put them as close to the magnets as possible and absolutely HAD to notice it was way off.
 
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#20
MultiScaleMale said:
That's complete incompetence. It looks like he tried to use the screw on the bridge as the center point instead of actually measuring it. The routing job looks pretty pathetic too.
Click to expand...

I agree 100%. If I'm paying someone to do something for me, I expect it to be done correctly. That pickup installation is awful.
 
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