Build Thread: "JazzMan" Bass

Doner Designs

Steve Doner
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Jun 2, 2012
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Doner Designs is an alias for Steve Doner
Ordered the neck and applied the first coats of tung oil to this one today. The name JazzMan is a play on the Nordstrand BigMan pickup. Instead of a pair of Big Singles under a MM cover, this will have a pair of J pickups under a MM cover.
  • Chambered swamp ash body, dark tung oil finish
  • Highly figured quilt maple top, light tung oil finish
  • 24 fret roasted maple neck with ebony fingerboard on order, no finish
  • Custom quad coil Nordstrand JJ pickup in MM shell. Will have NJ4se specs in the neck coil and NJ4sv specs in the bridge coils.
  • 4 band Audere Classic preamp with balancer control between the two coil pairs.
  • Babicz bridge, black
  • Hipshot tuners, black
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I have a frankenstein'd parts bass Jazz that has Nordstrand NJ5S pickups and a 4-band Audere preamp, also. Your build is going to sound AWESOME!

And, if it's anything like your other builds I've seen, I'll bet it's going to look awesome, too. Looking forward to you posting the finished product.
 
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I think if Iceman body with Peavey T-20 style headstock would be great looking .

Not wanting to derail this thread, but the T-20 would look good. I ordered a Warmoth neck yesterday with the Warmoth headstock style. We might do pinstripes that wrap the neck at the frets to look (a little) like a wormhole.

Time machine thread is here: Time Machine Bass Project - Build Thread

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Because of the epidemic of emerald ash borers in our country, the first time I saw an ash body with medullary rays I thought the odd markings were worm holes that had been filled in with wood putty. Same with our oak kitchen table. Took me a lot of research to figure out that "medullary rays" are part of natural wood growth. How they appear in a given slice of wood depends on how it was cut as well as being unique to each tree. Here are some examples. The most interesting and instructive one is the log cross section.

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The neck should look a little bit like this Strat neck. Roasted maple with 24 fret ebony fingerboard and no inlays. No finish is required on roasted maple, but I might give it a light coating of satin nitro to reduce the need for humidity related truss rod adjustments.

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Nice work as always Steve. Next one I do maybe I'll give the dark tung oil a shot. Thanks also for the explanation of medullary rays, I've got a couple of them in my current swamp ash Jazz 5 build and I thought somehow I marked it up early in the process. I'm on my third Warmth build right now, after two Carvins. Still so much to learn and threads like this help me out.
 
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Nice work as always Steve. Next one I do maybe I'll give the dark tung oil a shot. Thanks also for the explanation of medullary rays, I've got a couple of them in my current swamp ash Jazz 5 build and I thought somehow I marked it up early in the process. I'm on my third Warmth build right now, after two Carvins. Still so much to learn and threads like this help me out.

Thanks! On the medullary rays, the question bugged me for the longest time. Eventually when I got a Warmoth with those markings I contacted Warmoth to ask about it. They knew right away what it was.

Third one - it's addictive, isn't it?!
 
Ordered the neck and applied the first coats of tung oil to this one today. The name JazzMan is a play on the Nordstrand BigMan pickup. Instead of a pair of Big Singles under a MM cover, this will have a pair of J pickups under a MM cover.
  • Chambered swamp ash body, dark tung oil finish
  • Highly figured quilt maple top, light tung oil finish
  • 24 fret roasted maple neck with ebony fingerboard on order, no finish
  • Custom quad coil Nordstrand JJ pickup in MM shell. Will have NJ4se specs in the neck coil and NJ4sv specs in the bridge coils.
  • 4 band Audere Classic preamp with balancer control between the two coil pairs.
  • Babicz bridge, black
  • Hipshot tuners, black
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Steve, this one looks like being a beauty. Just be sure to play Carole King's song on it at least once. :D

 
Ha!...didn't think of that one!

;) When I saw your thread title, the song is the first thing I thought of.

On the medullary rays, the question bugged me for the longest time. Eventually when I got a Warmoth with those markings I contacted Warmoth to ask about it. They knew right away what it was.

Thanks for this info. Though in recent years I came expect those markings in ash wood, I never knew what they were until now.
 
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I'm old enough to remember when that was on the radio all the time. Now you have caused it to be stuck in my head forever. :crying:

Hohohoho! "forever"... too funny. :laugh:

Yeah, I remember "Jazzman" on the radio. Carole King and company brilliantly pulled a fast one with that song. There is nothing jazz about it; not one thing, except a couple of the players on the track. But no-one questioned the premise enough to prevent the track becoming a hit.

Anyway, good luck with your build!
 
Went with the 3/8 Hipshot USA Ultralights instead of the 1/2 inch we have used in the past. SLIGHT weight reduction and allows a little more room for the three string retainer and our logo plate. Lovin the roasted maple. Feels great and should be a smidge lighter than regular maple since there's less internal moisture. Expecting this one to be our lightest ever build - hoping to come in under 9 pounds. The ebony board adds a little weight vs all maple, but we thought it was important to use ebony for stability of the last four frets.

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Steve:

I jumped over to here from my thread in the "Bass" forum. A couple of more questions:

1. How did you find the tung oil on the swamp ash as the swamp ash is usually fairly porous?

2. What size frets did you go with? And what radius?

Thanks

Rev.C

For Warmoth necks I have always gone with 6150 frets, standard contour, steel rods and 20 frets. This is the first one I have done with a fretboard extension but it seemed like a cool thing to try since there's only one pickup and lots of room (not that you asked on the last point).

I decided on the tung oil for this one after getting the body in my hands. As you can see, it seems to be quartersawn (or an unusual cut) because it doesn't have the big sweeping patterns (and huge pores) characteristic of ash. So far so good on the oil. Doesn't seem to be that much more porous than mahogany...maybe even less. You have to decide if you are ok with being able to feel the grain of course. In this case I was ok with it in view of the cut. I am a little concerned about my final finish with dark paste wax though. I'll need to test a spot under the neck plate to make sure it's not going to rub off on my shirt (you can't fully buff it out of the pores which is the reason for using dark wax). I think it will be ok if I buff vigorously and give it plenty of drying time before use with a sweaty white shirt. :-)