This bass came in for a setup to sort some fret buzz but when I got it on the bench there were a few things that caught my attention. First of all the nut had worn too low, especially on the low E and needed replacing but the neck was also bowed quite a lot so I needed to tighten to truss rod. On closer inspection I noticed a very thin crack on the back of the neck and at first I was worried that the truss rod was breaking out of the neck, however this wasn’t the case as you could see the crack had been lacquered over so this crack must have happened in production unless the neck has been refinished? This is something that may need attention in the future but for now seems stable to me and didn’t alter at all through the setup.
I had to shim the neck as it was sitting in the pocket too low for the bridge, this is common with Jazz basses. Once I’d done this the saddles looked much more “normal”.
With the 7.25″ radius on the fretboard there’s quite a difference in volume between the strings, again common with Jazz basses like this. I do like the sound though, nothing quite sounds like it.
