Markku Nyytäjä's left-handed JB Special Bass Guitar (pictures)

[Markku Nyytäjä]

My son Max is a left handed bass player. On his 18th birthday last September I promised to build him a bass guitar according to his specs. He had his mind strongly set on a left-handed Jazz Bass, partially because the narrow comfortable neck and partially for the cool looks. He wished a green one with a shamrock inlay in the upper horn, hand wound pickups and an all maple neck. I finished the instrument on my own 50th birthday last Thursday. He was waiting for me at home with his present for me and i came home with a present for him. We exchanged gifts and were both quite pleased.

It did cross my mind to enter this bass in the MIMF 100$ Holiday Instrument Challenge as a St Patrick's Day bass- but I didn't, because it didn't qualify. I had started it too early, finished it too late and it cost more than 100$ to build. Well, at least it ended up what my son had wished for and I like it a lot too. This is what he got;

Body alder, colour candy green, glow-in-the-dark shamrock inlay, 2-component acrylic clearcoat finish
Neck maple, scale 34"/86,36 mm, 20 jumbo frets, one-way truss rod, heat-treated ash skunk stripe, bone nut, green paua MOP dot fret markers, 2-component acrylic clearcoat finish
NYDE hand wound JB pickups, neck 7 kΩ, bridge 7.2 kΩ, neck pickup RWRP
2 volume pots, 1 master tone pot, Life Saver filter at the grounds
Fender-type bridge, elephant ear open tuners, chrome hardware,
strings A’Addario XL Bright 45-100

I shot some studio photos of the instrument yesterday and I have a small selection of pics here now:

[Markku Nyytäjä]

[Markku Nyytäjä]

I'll post the work process pictures some time later this week. There are dozens of them, but I'll try to keep the amount of material comprehensible, There's also a different thread on the pickups on the old forum. I'll put a couple of pickup construction shots here too.

And yes, the bass is nice to play, with low action and all, and it sounds good. If I get Max to play some sound clips for me I'll post links to them.

[Jason Rodgers]

That is frickin' SA-WEET, Markku! I hope I can build something that clean and groovin' when my daughter starts asking for customs.

[Dan Hehnke]

Looks great! I love the color, and it looks like a nice clean build. Right on.

[Markku Nyytäjä]

Thank you for you kind words. gentlemen. I'm content with the instrument myself, but the best thing is that my son approved of it. After all it's his bass.

Her comes the work process. I documented the process pretty thoroughly and I'm posting quite a few photos. I hope you'll find them interesting and informative.

It all started with the pickups. I wound a pair of JB pickups on plastic bobbins I had purchased. They are OK, but I decided to wind another pair on bobbins that I made out of forbon flatwork for top & bottom and 5 mm steel rod for polepieces. As magnets I used 5 x 5 x 75 mm ceramic bar magnets. I tested the pickups with a meter and a test amp and a tuning fork. They had a strong clear signal, but I was anxious to hear how they sounded installed in the bass, through a decent amp. They sounded really good to me.

In the first picture I'm drilling polepiece holes in flatwork, the next is of the bobbins and the third of wax potting the pickups.

[Markku Nyytäjä]

The neck was the next thing on my agenda. I made a one-piece 16" radius 34" scale maple neck with a heat-treated ash skunk stripe and jumbo frets. First I measured the fret distances from the nut with a digital measuring tape ans a steel ruler.

I cut the fret slots with a dozuki saw and a mitre box.

Before starting to shape the neck I routed the truss rod channel in the back of the neck.

[Markku Nyytäjä]

I glued the skunk stripe in its slot, planed off most of the excess and sanded the rest to level.

[Markku Nyytäjä]

After cutting the frets to measure I masked the edges of the fret slots with masking tape, applied cyanoacrylate glue and then hammered in the frets with a plastic tip hammer.

The fret markers are 7 mm green paua MOP dots.

[Markku Nyytäjä]

The two-piece body is alder. I cut the body out of the blank with a bandsaw. With a 10 mm wide blade that was no hard job.

I evened out the sides of the body using a flush trim bit on a table router, the template screwed to the body. I then sanded the sides with a sanding drum attached to my drill press.

I sanded the body to the right thickness with a belt sander, then rounded out the edges with a table router and gave the body its final form using belt, plane and detail sanders.

[Markku Nyytäjä]

I used my old routing templates for both the neck pocket and the pickup cavities. They worked just fine.

[Markku Nyytäjä]

My son had requested a green body with a shamrock inlay in the upper horn. I made the inlay of glow-in-the-dark plastic nursery decorations. They were apparently polystyrene and broke easily when I tried to cut them with power scissors. I cut the four pieces of the inlay with a scroll saw and smoothed out the edges with files and sandpaper. Stewmac's router base for Dremel type tools was a great help while routing the inlay channel.

[Markku Nyytäjä]

I assembled the bass without the electronics to rule out any glitches. I attached the neck, now equipped with a bone nut I've made. I triple checked that all the angles and distances were correct and then attached the bridge. The next thing was to string the bass with standard 45-100 gauge strings and adjust the neck.

I attached the neck, now equipped with a bone nut I've made. I triple checked that all the angles and distances were correct and then attached the bridge. The next thing was to string the bass with standard 45-100 gauge strings and adjust the neck.

I fixed the slight neck relief with the truss rod and tuned the bass. I set the action as low as it was possible without major fret buzz. Considering I had hammered the frets in by hand I had done a good job fretting the neck and levelling the frets. There was buzz at two frets only. I used a fret crowning file to file down the excess and kept checking with a fret rocker until the fret height was right. Finally I sanded the file marks away with 2000 grit paper.

I tuned the bass again and checked every string at every fret for buzz. No buzz. The neck is thin and comfortable and the bass would feel really easy and nice to play if only it weren't left handed.

Then it was time for paint. First I sprayed it with primer and then glued in the shamrock inlay. I sprayed the body with Motip Metallic Silver spray lacquer a couple of times. I mixed lemon yellow and blue Stewmac ColorTone liquid stain with thinner to get an emerald green transparent stain. I sprayed the mixture a couple of times on a piece of scrap wood primed with silver paint. The colour came on nice and even, letting the silver base shine through. With 100micron silver flake on top of the silver paint, the transparent green and several coats of clear lacquer this thing would look awesome.

[Markku Nyytäjä]

I was working simultaneously with the neck, fine sanding it and the lacquering with 2-component acrylic clearcoat. I masked the frets with strips of masking tape, gave it a go and wet-sanded it with 800 & 1200 grit paper after the lacquer had cured. I also applied the transfer decal logo on the headstock after the first coat of clear lacquer. The decal material for laser printers is inexpensive and easy to use. I have also tried using the sheets for inkjet printers, but had nothing but trouble with them. I can use a colour laser printer at work if I want multicolour decals. I usually copy the logo or text I need on the sheet several times, so I'll have a few spares and I'm not screwed if I screw up. No problems this time. After a couple of layers of clearcoat the logo will look just right.

[Markku Nyytäjä]

After a couple of coats of Motip Metallic silver paint the surface of the body looked smooth enough for flake. I mixed half a tablespoonful (7.5 millilitres) of flake with 150 ml of clear lacquer already diluted with thinner in a 1:1 ratio. I then sprayed the mixture on top of the silver paint using 6 bar air pressure. I had the flake lacquer in a small glass jar that I kept swinging around to prevent the flake from landing on the bottom of the jar. The flake came on really nicely and I sprayed two layers of it to make sure every part was covered. Now I could move on to transparent green tint and after that finally to clearcoat.

After the first layer of clear lacquer I wet-sanded the body lightly by hand and sprayed another coat. After the lacquer hade cured I wet-sanded it with a plane sander and 800 & 1200 grit papers.

[Markku Nyytäjä]

Then it was time for more lacquer. The new spray gun is nice and accurate.

The finish was starting to get the deep 3D glow I was after. I love candy finish! I decided to spray a couple of times more before final sanding and buffing.

The bass got five coats of clear lacquer with intermediate sandings. The final sanding was carried out with soap water and 800, 1500 and 2000 grit papers.
My powerful Tecnum plane sander had got a defect in the power cord, so I had to get a new sander. After the first few seconds of sanding I got really good friends with my new Ryobi. I'll fix the Tecnum when I have time.

[Markku Nyytäjä]

I also sanded the neck the same way before buffing. The fretboard side of the neck had to be sanded by hand. I also cleaned the frets from all lacquer residue.

Time for polish. I buffed the sanded lacquer back to high gloss shine with a somewhat elaborate but nonetheless effective procedure. I use a random orbital sander and a moist 125 mm sponge buffer with Farécla compounds. First I buffed the surface three times with G3 paste compound and then did the final buffing twice with G10 polishing compound. The polishing paste residue appeared on the surface as grey dust and I wiped it off with a soft cotton rag as I went along. The result was a mirror-like shine. As a final touch I gave it a little rub with carnauba wax and a cotton cloth.

[Markku Nyytäjä]

Then it was time to assemble the bass. First I installed the tuners. They are the nice elephant ear type that can be reversed to left-handed when needed.

Then the traditional Fender-type bridge. You can see the aluminium shielding of the electronics cavity in the picture.

Soldering the pickup wires to the pots. The pots are 250kΩ and the cap 47nF.

[Markku Nyytäjä]

I attached the neck with four 4,2 x 45 mm screws and an attachment plate. The neck sits in its pocket as snugly as it's possible.

And...(sound of snare drums) Ta-dah! (crash cymbal) Here she is! My son Max was waiting for me at home to give me my birthday present and I had spent my entire 50th birthday at the workshop finishing what I had promised him on his 18th birthday in September. Max immediately tried it out at a neighbour friendly (it was past midnight in an apartment building) but still audible volume through his 150W bass amp.

What really pleased me, apart from seeing my dear son so happy, was noticing once again that I do wind nice pickups. These ones sounded just as they were supposed to. The bridge pickup, rating at 7kΩ, was bright and snappy and the 7.2 kΩ neck pickup was round and mellow, both being well articulated and balanced. I can't wait to build my new pickup winder.

Enjoy the report, folks - as I am enjoying yours!

[Markku Nyytäjä]

Oops. Actually the bridge pickup has a 7.2 kΩ DC resistance and the neck pickup has 7.0 kΩ. My bad.