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I cut my first nut! NBD

jbybj

jbybj

Supporting Member
Jun 11, 2008
6,809
16,381
Los Angeles
#1
Some of you may have seen this unique body for sale here on TB a few weeks ago. Well I have a penchant for things weird and off the beaten path, (I even love Wishbasses), so I bought it. Shortly thereafter I found a neck on USA Custom Guitars Web specials, one piece maple with Indian Rosewood board, with Precision bass dimensions. I purchased a new Hipshot vintage style bridge, and some Hipshot HB2 tuning machines. All that is left to arrive are the set of DiMarzio Area J pups.

I finished the neck with about 8 coats of Tru oil, also refinished the wood covers for the pickups and the control cavity, but left the body with it's original clearcoat. Supposedly the body was made in 1966, and it has some tasty cracks in the burl and the finish. I'm not gonna touch it.

Today I drilled the neck holes and attached the neck. Then drilled and installed the tuning machines, and cut my first nut from some purpleheart scraps I had. I originally intended this to be a temp nut, just so I could string it up and get her ready for the pups, but I may end up keeping it for a while. I have a local luthier who makes a mean bone nut, which will probably be the way I'll go.

After finessing the nut a bit, and installing a shim, it plays pretty nicely. I can't wait to see the looks on the bandmates faces at the next rehearsal.

Without the pickups it weighs in at 8.5 lbs.

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Strung it with some D'Addario half wounds, sounds sweet acoustically. I will post clips when I get her wired up. The pots and out jack came with the body. My multimeter says that they are working as expected, we'll see.........

JBY
 
#5
Klopp18 said:
my grandfather used to make clocks with wood like that. i've never thought of using that as a body. that's pretty sweet! how much you got into it?
Click to expand...

About $650, and 2-3 hours of labor. The cool thing about the wood is that it's mostly it's natural shape. The only human intrusion into the shape is around the upper horn.

I'm already quite happy with the playability, and the way it balances on a strap. If the Area J's are all I expect them to be, then I'll be a happy thumper.
 
#11
johnk_10 said:
not bad for your first one, but your spacing is a bit off. it looks to have a larger space between the A & D than the E & A and D & G.
Click to expand...

tricky those nuts are. I marked it up with the string centers evenly spaced, only to realize that with the fatter strings, you get less real estate between strings that way. Add to that maybe a millimeter of error in my dremel placement, and there you go.
It feels o.k. when playing, but I haven't glued it in yet, which tells me that I really don't plan on keeping it too long.........
 
#17
So I wired up the DiMarzio Area J's tonight, and I'm very happy. I won't get to post any clips til the weekend, but I have a practice tomorrow with my classic cover band, so I'll get to hear it in an active environment.

I've never really played a lot of J basses. I've played my own 69 for the last 34 years, but that's the only thing I have to compare to. It sounds very similar. The Area J's tone is like 80% of my 69, and 20% of an EMG 35J. DiMarzio describes them thusly

It is not loud, but it has a very focussed attack, so it has power where it counts - at the center of the tone. The lows are very clear and clean, and the highs are both smooth and open-sounding. We’ve reduced the magnet-pull,

So I mounted them a bit closer than I would a stronger pickup, and it seems to respond well. Nice and close increases the output, makes them sound a little compressed, and the reduced magnet pull lessens the damping on the strings.

I have DiMarzio Model J's in another bass, which I like very much, but the Area J's sound closer to my Fender.

Tomorrow I will learn about my new bandmates. Do they fall on the "ugly/weird" side, or the "holy crap/cool" side, of the amazing Oak Burl, knarly Jazz bass............ I already loved it, and it's growing on me every day.

James
 

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