NancyJohnson

The D&G are a bit fuller tonally with the pickup orientation reversed. It's not tons, but it is better to my ears.

Seriously, just buy a neck from a Chinese seller on eBay. I've recently picked up Jazz/slim profile and Precision/chunky necks. Both around £80.00. Both great.

Having just put together a Hoppus Jazz/Precision thing, I'd have taken the opportunity to reverse the pickup. Nudging the D&G element towards the neck definitely helps things tonally.

I've got two - a JAXT4 - which I've seen similar on Reverb for £10K+ and an NRT5 (a Thunderbird NR) with an oversized body. God knows how much this would sell for. He only made two.

Reading all the comments here, I figure it's probably simpler to just do the odd build as and when I'm called upon. By and large anything that I'd have been doing would primarily be Fender-based, as the parts are fairly plentiful and I could easily buy in the stuff I'd need. I would have been able to offer custom routing/electronics along with a custom paint options, although these would have been solid/flake as opposed to sunbursts. A few years back I had a short conversation with a guy that was close to Mike Lull; he mentioned that a lot of the work behind creating their basses was outsourced to external businesses and the magic only happened when the parts went back to Lull for assembly/set up. I'll admit (despite owning a pair of Lull basses) this didn't sit so well with me, but hey-ho, they're great instruments and needs must, I suppose.

No money changed hands here! 😄

Perhaps business wasn't the right word, I guess! Umm, certainly hobby/pastime would have been a better term. I know that in the literal sense it's just screwing stuff together, but feedback from the work I have done (so far) has been positive. There's no way I could build stuff from scratch; I neither have the time, inclination, machinery or skillset for this. I certainly think it would be possible to turn round a couple a week to supplement my income.

Over the last year or so, I've built/customised a handful of parts basses for both myself and a couple of other people; as I've kind of fallen into an early retirement situation, I'm wondering whether it's feasible to actually set up/invest in a business of sorts creating basses. These would largely be Fender-esque, I can source parts easily enough; I have a local paint shop that have said they can pretty much do any type of finished paint job (clear/matte/gloss/metal fake etc.). I'd not be looking to make huge £££ - obviously there'd be a build/labour fee, but it's more just to keep my idle hands busy. I know I'm good at this and it's just a waste of my time doing nothing. Would anyone be interested?

Spent a bit of time fettling everything yesterday. I'm a bit annoyed with myself that I forgot to check the truss rod (the neck was straight when I got it, just assumed it was tensioned). Neck needed a tiny shim - literally a 1cm x 5cm sliver of sandpaper required at the back of the pocket was enough. Nut slots needed a bit of filing. Action at the octave is down to just under 2mm on the E and 1.5mm on the G, which is decent.

Ok...if it was me with your budget AND I was unable to find a Fender with the specifications you've set out, I'd find a US/MIJ P/J pickup'd Precision and source a Jazz bass neck. All the Fender stuff for 34" scale basses is pretty much interchangeable, even down to the screw-holes, so old neck off, new neck on. Find a local guy to do a decent fret level and set up and you're ready to go. In a blindfold test, I doubt many would be able to tell the difference between a Mexican, Japanese or US model, although this is speculative!

I find it amazing when people list a ton of stuff that shouts, 'I really want a Fender, but it's not got to be a Fender.' I have no real solution for you here but the open options a plentiful.

Gig ink. They did a Hamer guard fir me a few months back. Really high quality work.

Neck has been on and off a couple of times; it needed a piece of sandpaper to shim it. There was actually zero tension on the truss rod (sorted), so that was throwing things out.