Building the uber-J. Part Ten.

The hardware. Hard indeed.

Today was Brass Day. I had to drive around for half a day though some shady neighborhoods to find a brass plate of the right size for the cavity cover and a rod to make the nut.

I finally found what I wanted and while I was there that little demon in me decided to also buy a rounded rod to make the headstock parts. Not sure it'll work but I'll give it a try.

Hope you like my porch ceiling too.....

Then I had to clean up the plate. I wish I had taken a picture first. That thing was oh-soooo dirty, scratched and stained with glue and tape...But it was the only piece they had in the right size. Those guys sell by the yard probably and I was more than happy to walk away with the only reasonably sized left over they had...scratches and all.
It took me about one hour to send it by hand with sandpaper up to 1200 and steel wool.
It's 60X45cm and .7mm thick. I should be able to cut about six to nine covers from this one

Here are the two rods....ops...a scratch.......
I'm probably going to cut a few nuts at once.

Here is a picture of all parts that I'm going to use on this project - except for the tuner-bridge which was in the previous pictures.

The two p-ups are J Bartolini 4x.

The Eq is an [sfx] Ultra-Tone. It was designed and assembled by my friend and electronics wizard Max of [sfx] fame (UK based company. Check out the web site here. Some cool stuff!).

I had a Preamp with DI designed and built by him some time ago and i am very happy with it. I told him that I was looking for an Eq for this project and I wanted one tone only but active and with a twist. He came up with this.
Basically by turning the knob cw or ccw the frequency shifts from very deep tones to piercing trebles. The Eq sports also 2 switches for a 50% mid freq cut or boost. Sounds interesting doesn't it? can't wait to hear it!!

I am going gold all the way... security locks, bridge, ferrules for the headstock, p-ups screws and the six neck screws. Brass plate and brass nut.

O(=<

Building the uber-J. Part Nine.

The Uber side of the Jay.

Here we are. This is were the whole project makes its biggest departure from its model. The Uber-Jay is going to be a headless cum headstock bass.
The tuners will be at the bridge while the headstock is going to act as strings retainer. The reasons for this are many. I have elaborated on them in my post The Headless Conundrum.

I'll just sum it up here by saying that the headless system is in my opinion much more reliable, clean and efficient than the traditional one. Having played for long time both type of basses side by side on stage I am convinced that the headless system works best for me.


The flip side is mainly an aesthetic one. The look of the Fender Jazz cannot survive without a headstock. Now that would be a serious blasphemy in my world. So I decided that the right thing to do was to preserve the headstock and design a device which would allow me to anchor the strings there.

It is very simple, and rear mounted. The strings will go through the headstock and a Allen screw will lock them in place. The part is buried inside the back of the headstock, flush with the wood, virtually invisible except for a 15mm disk. The aluminum makes it feather light.

Two little screws hold the piece but the stability is mainly given by it being inside the wood and by the string's tension itself. The small channel allows for comfortable tuning with a small Allen key. I already know I'll do this differently on the next Uber-Jay. Not that I don't like it but I can see an even less intrusive way of doing that. Well, this isn't a prototype for nothing after all.

To test the system's reliability and look for flaws I have mounted the parts on a hard wood blank with a tuner-bridge at the opposite end of a 34” scale. I have tuned both my broom-bass and one of my other basses – a Tobias – and kept them on the same stand in the same room. I have not played the Tobias nor have I touched the broom-bass for sixty days.

When I finally checked the two sets of strings the broom bass was still perfectly in tune while the Tobias needed some adjustment. To be fair, the broom's G was slightly down. But that was due to the fact that the thin .30 string had slightly dented into the wood – which shouldn't happen with Ebony or metal.
The bridge is an ABM. Very well machined and flawlessly finished. The shallow recess on the body was needed to align the bridge to a lower fingerboard level. You might remember me writing that the distance between the body and the top of the fingerboard will be much lower than usual for a total string/body distance of 5mm.


One more feature I always felt uncomfortable with on headless basses – aesthetically speaking – is the cut at the bottom of the body, where the tuners are. It surely makes them reachable. But it is also an important design feature. The fact that it look great on the Steinberger doesn't mean that it will always look just as good on traditional looking basses.

Anyway, I have carved a recess that allows to operate the tuners while preserving the shape of the body. It also gives top and core woods the opportunity to contrast. This bass is fairly basic in that only core wood and top wood will contrast. But it should work very well with top/veneer/core/veneer/back and with laminated neck through.


Thanks for reading.

O(=<