wesfinn

Bit of an update, I have ordered all the hardware , pickups etc for this build and also for the P bass, 62 J and 64 J and also for a 62 Tele****er Also I have just managed to source another 9 Brazilian rosewood boards which look superb! all are 50 years old + and very dark! I'll post some pictures when they arrive! Back to more building and picutres in the next few weeks i promise!

[quote name='Sibob' post='776463' date='Mar 16 2010, 05:22 PM']All these vintage Fender styles are getting me hot under the collar! You'll be building be a faded sonic blue '64 Jazz before I know it! :-D Si[/quote] That can be arranged Si

[quote name='umcoo' post='775693' date='Mar 15 2010, 09:07 PM']Bumping this...any more progress?[/quote] Thanks for the bump. I havn't had a chance to do any more to this bass as I have been busy fitting out the new workshop! I have designed the workshop to replicate early Pre-CBS building methods and have loads of new machinery/tooling on the way which will help me reproduce them as accurately as I can! The shop will be up and running by early april, and when it does I shall continue on this build as well as another early 60's Jazz bass with 3 knob control plate in faded 3TS (so it will look 2 tone), a 59 Slab board Precision in sea foam green with a matching headstock and a 60's P bass with veneer rosewood board in candy apple red. I will also be making 3 basses of my custom range which will hopefully be submitted for review and then available for sale and demo at GAK Brighton. stay tuned people!

I personally don't mind people playing on my basses. I wouldnt ever be able to tell if they had marked them anyway haha! I do like people to ask (unless its members from my band or friends) but for some people it may be the only chance they will get to play on a high end instrument.

Thanks Edward!

[quote name='BassBod' post='749742' date='Feb 18 2010, 02:33 PM']Congratulations...hope it isn't too expensive! I took my boys to visit our local luthier yesterday. It might be a converted pig-stye, but they loved it. Nothing like all those bits of wood and gadgets and the smell of wood fire, fresh tea and a hint of rosewood dust. Yum.[/quote] Thanks Duncan! Nope it' within my budget. Its small but adequate for my needs at the moment (and room for a kettle ) and theres the option to move into a bigger one if i need to at a later date! I get the keys on the 1st March! Can't wait.

Not a build update but an update none the less.. i have just found and secured my first workshop! This is very exciting for me as it means i can really start to concentrate on getting Steed Basses to where I want it to be. Its based in Henfield, West Sussex. Details to go on my website which goes live in a week or so. website address will be www.steedbasses.co.uk wes

As it was said earlier Mark is off at the moment, although he is still taking emails. I will be in saturdays - Wednesdays and can be reached by PM or email on [email protected] Apologies to anybody that has had a bad experience when ordering from our sister company website. Please give either Mark (mark_random) or myself an email or pm if you wish to order anything and we can personally deal with your enquiery. cheers Wes

Haha, yeah. It is a bit trickier that pressing them in! with the right tool though it's pretty straight forward!

So I got some Brazilian Rosewood through. this is perfectly quartersawn and straight grained and has been curing for 50 years! I may not use it on this build though as it's pretty spectacular. I have some very dark indian Rosewood and some Honduras Rosewood coming which may go on this particular bass. Also as Brazillian rosewood is no longer available in the current market I would prefer to keep any pre CITES brazilian boards for customers basses and not stock instruments. Heres some pix for you any way! my website is also now under construction so should hopefully up and running in the next few weeks! wes

HAHA ridiculous! love the way they tried to make you sound stupid. some people ay!

[quote name='Sibob' post='737244' date='Feb 6 2010, 02:39 PM']Look great, will follow this eagerly!! What do you think your price-point will be eventually? Oh and do you know if the different shades of ash will be as obvious once they're lacquered up? Si[/quote] hi Si, price point i am not sure of yet. Once I've built a couple I can work out total costs etc, labour. Need to source some more of the original materials too to try and make them as authenticly reproduced as possible. I hope they will be lower cost that say Nash and Bravewood. The first couple I will let go for less money obviously as they are more trial builds to establish the costs. with regards to the finish shade on this, the blondes from the late 50's to 62 didnt have too much grain showing throug, the edges were also opaque and sprayed with a 45 degree angle much like when applying a sunburst finish. I think it will look fine , if not I will do a black over the blonde and relic through so some of the blonde shows!

[quote name='RIM Basses' post='736730' date='Feb 5 2010, 10:16 PM']Real nice so far Wes![/quote] Thanks Robbie! It's been a while since i built anything, making me really want to seriously get back into it again! I love the jazz style bass you just finished! really cool take on the design! wes

the body blank has been in the clamps for a good few hours now and is ok to come out and be drum sanded to correct thickness. I then trace the template (note there are no joins in the centre of the bass, Fender did this so as not to draw attention to the joins) and then rough cut the outline on the bandsaw to the outside of the line. theres a slight colour mismatch with the wood gran but I'm hoping the blonde doesn't show this up...If it does it'll get a custom colour overcoat! Pin router template is attached to the rear or the body with the correctly positioned pin router holes. and then the horns are sanded as close as posible to the template to avoid any tear-outs on the pin router. and then flush trimmed on the pin router now this is what I have finished up with, ready for the edge rollover which will have to wait for a couple of weeks till I have some spare time! hope you are enjoying it so far! cheers Wes

So I've just got home to Brighton after a couple of busy and productive days in Essex working on the build! heres an account of the last 2 days... Day one was pretty much spent making the body template...but this is what it looks like. all the holes in the right places etc... I also had a look at the swamp ash I will be using for the body.. unfortunately at the moment Mike and myself are finding it hard to source some decent ash so I had the choice of a couple of bits that Mike had available. It's not the best swamp ash in the world (lots of knots/shakes etc) so I ended up making a 3 piece body with what I could find. Weight is OK, not light, but not heavy (about how I like my personel passes). For the purpous of this build it will be fine as It's probably going to be one I keep. heres the ash in rough cut form and heres the body blank in the clamps after thicknessing/drumsanding/squaring also managed to find a nice bit of hard rock maple, It had the lowest frequency in the tap test, should work nice with the swamp ash. Leo apparently used to test all his timbers with a tuning fork and match them up tonally, but as I havn't had much choice of timber with this build I'm not going to worry too much! heres the blank planed and drum sanded to just above the correct thinckness ready for the rough cutting on the bandsaw then having the template mounted for the flush triming on the pin router.

ok so I've just had confirmation that the 2 tone sunburst Jazzes in question were just faded 3 tones. So I guess you cant believe everything you see/read. It's been interesting chasing this up today though as I hadn't looked into it before. I managed to ask 2 people who have these '2 tone' basses in theyre posession and both have confirmed that there is evidence of red in the neck/control cavities! still could of possibly been some custom orders I guess...but we will probably never know! any way back to this being a build thread......soon

they did do the same thing then, but there would be traces of the red on bass side under the guard by the neck pocket. it was only the lower horn part they missed out. It is very true what WOT says about the fred fading, and this was particularly true of the 1959 first run of the 3 tones. However by 1960 Fender had realised that the colours were fading and by mid 1960 they had come up with a replacement red. So having realised that the red would of fade pretty quickly they may of just used 2 tone bursts on a few basses until they had the replacement. just a thought....

Indeed! Maybe this could be worthy of some extreme investigation. Might be able to write a book about it

I've emailed them asking if the will remove the pickguard and send pictures to see if theres any traces of red there. I'm not 100% convinced myself still so will be interesting to see if they come back. I'd like to think it was possible to have the colour combination! I shall keep you posted WOT

heres a specialist vintage store in America who have one for sale [url="http://www.premierguitar.com/Gear/Guitars/Bass/2068/Jazz_Bass.aspx"]http://www.premierguitar.com/Gear/Guitars/.../Jazz_Bass.aspx[/url]

It wasw only on the Swamp Ash bodies that the finish existed. theres a very very knowledgeable and extremely amazing builder from Israel called Gil Yaron. He makes some of the most accurate Pre CBS style guitars. He spent a long time in California as a vintage repair man. he also believes that they did exist in very small numbers out of the factory and has actually made one if you want to see what one looks like heres the link. [url="http://gilyaronguitars.com/page10.php?view=thumbnailList&category=10"]http://gilyaronguitars.com/page10.php?view...amp;category=10[/url]

I have only seen one picture of a 2TS and read a couple of accounts that a very small number left the factory in very early 1960. Still not concrete I guess but I think it wouyld of been more than feasable, especially if ordered as a custom finish.

[quote name='umcoo' post='732261' date='Feb 1 2010, 09:32 PM']Sounds good, best of luck to you. May I ask though?...weren't the 60's Fenders made with Alder instead of Ash? I may very well be wrong, but never seen an Ash 60's body.[/quote] there were a limited amount of swampash bodied jazz basses made in 1960/61. these basses had either a blonde finish or the very very rare 2 tone sunburst. but yes the majority of pre cbs jazz basses were alder. heres an example of a blonde one [url="http://bestguitars.com/Best_Guitars/Basses_for_sale.html"]http://bestguitars.com/Best_Guitars/Basses_for_sale.html[/url]

So some of you may of read my post in the general discussions page. I am about to start building 2 projects. the first of which I will be starting this thursday (4/02/10) will be a replica of a 1960 stack knob J style bass. The second will be an early 60's P style bass. I have spend a very large amount of time researching the pre-cbs build and tooling methods, materials and processes that went into creating what are now regarded as some of the finest and most innovative instruments in the world and now feel confident that i can recreate them with pride and above all respect for the man that set the standard! I plan to recreate these processes where possible and also use period correct materials (again, where possible). so here is the spec for the Jazz bass: 2 piece light Swamp Ash body finished in blonde nitrocellulose laquer, correct router hump, pin dowels, pickup placement, lazy susan nail holes etc Rock Maple neck (hard) medium profile Slab Brazillian Rosewood fingerboard 7.25" radius, clay dots sideway installed vintage fretwire vintage reproduction Capacitors CTS pots - Swithcraft jack - cloth wiring - shielding plates etc Full celluloid Tortoise shell 4 ply pickguard Bareknuckle handwound J pickups Gotoh vintage hardware - lightly aged I will make the truss rods myself as the vintage correct size are not available off the shelf this build may take a while to complete as a) I want to do the first one with minimal mistakes and I have to make all the templates/jigs etc as I go along and I have a full time job as well as being a session bassist so don't get much spare time! so until thursday when i shall embark on this build, thanks for reading! also thanks also to Graeme (headofire), Howard (the bass doc) and Jim (99ster) for providing me with dimensions from their beautiful original basses! STAY TUNED! Wes

[quote name='Sibob' post='731554' date='Feb 1 2010, 12:21 PM']Haha! The Nash's I saw at V&R didn't have any decals on the headstock, but that was a year ago maybe. The Gallery have a Fender logo'd Nash, and Clarky's Nash has a logo. Magical indeed! Are you going to include such small details as the router hump in your relic builds? Si[/quote] yes will have router hump, correct pin dowels, reproduction caps etc. I will be making the truss rods myself (you cant buy vintage correct size rods any more). finger boards are going to be brazillian rosewood, sideway installed vintage frewire, clay dots (will not be the same as original clay dots as the material fender used is no longer available) full nitrocellulose paint jobs, cellulose gurads pickups on the first batch will be bareknuckles however im going to make/wind my own eventually I'm excited about it all