The Jay Turser Rebuild - Finally done...

Well not sure if I ever posted part 1, but here's the write-up.

Not being the richest bass player, I got my hands on a JTB-900 in 2001 or 2002 from my cousin who was just starting a business in eBay for musical instruments. It has a solid ash and rosewood body, maple neck and a rosewood fingerboard and I loved the look of it.

I already had the Ibanez ATK300FL and needed something a lot lighter for long sessions. The Ibanez is still being used.

Over the course of many years, I played it on and off but noticed that the sound was not that great but livable. The wiring was not that great and the pickups were rather wimpy. It was more of a practice at home bass.

Last March I had let someone who said he was a guitar tech work on a couple of instruments and am amp for me. I dropped them off and said he could fix the issues and rewire it.

I had not known that he had been using meth, and two months later, I finally got it back. I had to chase him down for days and even visited the pawn shops hoping to find it.

The bass and the amp were pawned off and there is now a hand written serial number on the back of the head stock in ballpoint pen. I hope to get that out one day - they never had serial numbers when the company first started out in 2000.

The damage to the rest of the electronics from his meth addiction was pretty bad - the tone knob was cross wired to one of the volume knobs and I didn't have to use a desoldering method to get it out of the compartment - all I had to do was touch the wiring and it fell apart. The pickups were missing screws and were also damaged. He also used a pipe wrench to put in a new jack. I am grateful that he didn't crack the wood.

I took all of the damaged stuff out and had hoped to rebuild it myself.

I found DiMarzio Areas for PJ basses and got the set and some new pots and had the tech at Guitar Center put it together for me. Thank heaven for this forum as I had researched so many options and settled on those from a number of writeups.

This is now a great sounding bass and a joy to play. It's light and easy on my body (waiting for knee surgery in less than two weeks) and has been resurrected.

Here are the pics from the whole fiasco...

Original Pic from their site in 2000:

The Pipe Wrenched Jack:


Damage to the original pickups:


Bad Soldering:



Final Rebuild with the new DiMarzios:


So the bottom line:

This bass now has about $300 worth of work ($80 to the meth head, $120 for the pickups and $100 for the install) and I paid about $130 for it.

Was it worth having this done?

That's always subjective.

I am just grateful to have a good sounding PJ style bass that is lightweight. The sound is good enough for live music now and in the studio.

Well back to some coffee.