Initial Inspections
After allowing the bass to warm to room temperature (70°) after taking it in from the outside (30°) for about 2 hours, I popped the box and began inspections.
Overall appearance and condition: the bass looks great with no scratches or defects other than a strap button felt being junk. Full Bass: Front -|- Rear
Tune-up & Electronics Test: Found the neck to be in a neutral position with no adjustment at all to the truss rod. The tension on the neck after tune-up created significant cupping in the neck. Also, the string height was too high, pickup height too low, and intonation was never attempted to be adjusted at the factory. Shame, shame, shame on Rondo or to whomever last touched these basses.
As for the electronics, the pickups worked fine but would need adjustments.
For disassembled inspections and comments, see the individual sections below . . .
SX SJMB-62 Jaguar-style Body
Body Finish: Powder Blue
Pickguard: Black-White-Black - Remove two plastic protection layers.
Apply copper foil shielding to the rear of PG over pickup cavity.
Update: 03-02-09 - Tortoise pickguard. None are available at Rondo at this time other than a short scale SJMB so I'll be getting the material, making a template and making this puppy.
I was originally thinking about buying an SX SJMB short scale bass that had the tortoise pickguard (it was the only one with one at the time) thereby eliminating my need to make a template and tort guard from material, but the body of the full scale SJMB is 14-1/2" wide and the short scale SJMB is only 12-1/2" wide. That's not to say the short scale pickguard would not fit, but by my estimation it wouldn't be worth buying the bass ($139.95) just to find out.
Laminated Tortoise Shell:
.090" x 9" x 15. 5" : $65.30 PAID
Labor: $25.00 PAID
The Pickguard material arrived on Friday, 3-6-09 . . . tutorial follows:
Template Photos: Template Tracing -|- Cutting -|- Shaping -|- Setup
Note: The template was attached to the work surface after applying Bondo to the edges and finish sanded. This is a must as we don't want jagged edges now do we? Even the slightest imperfection shows on the finished product.
Pickguard Material: Taped to Template using double-sided tape underneath.
Mark where NOT to Route so it doesn't put a 45° bevel where it's not wanted.
• As you can see, even when precautions are taken, it's very easy to mess up~!
• In preparation for routing the neck pocket, the pickguard holes were drilled out and the PG attached to the bass. This ensures a perfect fit.
Making a neck pocket template seperately only increases the possibility for misalignment.
• Removed only the screws near the pocket so the router doesn't hit them and applied tape to hold the pickguard at the pocket. Pocket routed.
• Preparation for Pickup Routing: Aligned Pup Template -|- Secure Template
• Drilled a hole through the center and flipped it over to finish securing guard.
• Screwed the template to the main pickguard template so there is a channel for the router bit to travel freely without bottoming out. Completed routing, final trimming, sanded edges, countersunk screw holes, and installed.
The control plate joint may not be perfect but, then again, what is? She's almost done~! Havalook.
I just needed to take it apart again and attach some shielding to it's back side.
Thumb Rest: None.
Bridge: Stock SX 7-hole. Suggest an upgrade to the OEM Deluxe Bridge.
Upgradability: While some may argue as to what benefits a heavier mass bridge provides as far as sustain, there is another benefit to the OEM Deluxe that has a definite improvement over the stock thin vintage style bridges, and that is the grooves in the plate of the OEM Deluxe that provide a "no-slip" area whereas the vintage style have no grooves for the saddle screws at all.
This lack of stability has a tendency where the saddles spread out on some models, and it's not pretty. The big plus to the OEM is its ability to be a direct replacement for these SX bridges with the holes lining up almost perfectly. For about the same cost as the thin vintage-style bent-lip bridge . . . why not? The Fender bridge cover fits too.
OEM Deluxe Chrome Bridge: $30.00 PAID
Bridge & Pickup Covers: None.
Strap Buttons: Suggest swapping out these buttons for Strap Locks.
Strap locks or not, I'll be replacing the felt washers for black rubber washers. There's less tendency to crack the paint as is the case when cranking down on a strap button screw using felt as its washer. The rubber allows for a tigher setting, plus it doesn't shred as the felts do.
One thing I do not like about this bass is the semi-serious neck-dive. I'm considering attaching another strap button to see if this helps. I've heard of this but haven't tried it. And Bill agrees it's worth the attempt so it's a go . . .
SX SJMB-62 34" Scale Neck
Disassembly: LOOK at the crap I found after I removed the neck from the body.
This is total disregard for quality control at the factory, and a perfect example of WHY I got involved with working on these SX basses . . . because they NEED it~!
Next: LOOK at the attention to detail bestowed upon the installation of the plastic nut. If I was running the factory I'd FIRE the whole lot of 'em~!
Disassembly: SX SJMB Neck prior to fretwork and headstock painting with removal of nut, tuning machines, bushings, and string retainer.
Fretboard: A partial fretjob involves everything that a full fretjob has done, short of installing the frets. A full fretjob involves total fret replacement. Also, for a fully detailed explanation of Setup and other work involved, check out this page.
Partial Fretjob and Setup: $150.00 PAID
3-4-09: With the neck set into my proprietary jig (hence no photos), the steps are as follows: Adjust truss rod so fretboard is dead level using a two-foot framing square and double-checking with dial calipers set along the length. Perform tap test to see if any frets are loose (aka dead). Reset or replace as necessary. None needed rework on this neck. Determine heights of every fret and compare with all frets to be within .003" maximum of each other. Any lower are replaced. This neck was within this tolerance except one fret which was high.
Found 6 frets that were out of spec causing the need to bring all the frets to these lowest six. After leveling with a 12" bar the frets are brought through the process of sanding with ever finer grits until they are bright and polished. The fret ends are gone over for uniformity and end radiused for smoothness to the touch. The entire fretboard then get polished with 2000 grit, including the fingerboard, and then sealed with Dr. Duck's Axwax, excluding the headstock on this neck as it is being painted.
Actual Time Spent: 8 hours, 45 minutes
Headstock: Match face with Powder BlueHeadstock Paint Job: $50.00 PAID
Thursday 3-5-09: Took the body to a buddy's bodyshop where he color-matched the powder blue for the headstock. I had him mix two quarts with each being a slightly different variance of the blue, one a smidge lighter than the other just in case one dries lighter or darker than the other.
Saturday 3-7-09: Painted headstock. Also view neck.
Sunday 3-8-09: Installed Tuners after complete disassembly, waxing, buffing.
• View completed neck.
Treated entire neck with Dr.Duck's Axwax.
Strings: Rondo usually uses D'Addario Super Light EPS220 Bass Strings, but one doesn't know for certain. The string guages are .040 .055 .070 .095
Bill is known for playing guitar, so the light strings that come with this bass will be a natural progression from those of a guitar. Bill has also chosen to have a bone nut made for this bass using the strings provided as a basis for the slots.
String Nut: If changing strings the nut gets changed too. This is an additional charge of $35.00 and includes whatever material of your choice. Although bone is generally used for an upgrade, bone is known for a more mellower tone than that of plastic. A good upgrade that is brighter than bone would be Graph Tech Trem or Tusq.Bone Nut Job: $35.00 PAID
3-3-09: Fit a section of bone to be a precise press fit into the nut slot thereby allowing it to be at home without adhesive. Slotted to .002" above fret height.
For future reference: Neck width at Nut: 1.528" Nut Thickness: .1275"
Tuners: Stock SX tuners get checked for looseness and get adjusted per instructions that I've listed here. There's no extra charge for doing this as it is expected to have the tuners working at 100% for a new bass.
Electronics
Pickups: Two SX Jazz
The pickups are the same size as a regular Jazz bass, with the neck pickup being 3-5/8" and the bridge pickup being 3-11/16" Also the same is the control plate.
• Attached foam pads to the bottom of both pickups.
Controls: Volume-Volume-Tone. Prewired Jazz Bass Control Harness
The SX control pots that are the weakest point. They're the dime-sized China-made pots and are cheap as hell, which on average need to be replaced after about 6 months to a year depending upon usage of course. I always advise changing the stock SX electronics out for CTS or other heavy duty American made pots, Orange Drop capacitor, Switchcraft output jack and a higher grade of wire.
The Control Pot Assembly can be bought for $50 and labor is included.
These are prewired (when I have time) and are to Standard Fender specifications. The SX plate also gets drilled/reamed to accept the larger pots.
Prewired Jazz Bass Control Harness: $50.00 PAID
Wiring: 3-4-09 : On this job I wanted to show some steps in actual soldering but I'm not going to get into any elaborate step-by-steps to teach you how it's done. I'm just showing the sequence that it was completed. You do the figuring.
I've also decided to make a game out of this to see if anyone actually reads these pages and the winner will receive a free prewired jazz harness.
I have possibly made an error in one of the steps for you to discover. To me it's obvious and should be fairly easy. Let me know when you've found it, or tell me I'm full of shit if you think there's nothing wrong. There's always that possibility right? Good luck~!
Photos: One -|- Two -|- Three -|- Four -|- Five -|- Six Those are it.
The next series of photos will show the rest of the assembly as it goes together. Right now it's on hold because I'm taking the body on Thursday to match up the powder blue paint for the headstock . . . but here are a few teasers:
• Attached SX Control Plate to a box with scews pushed through.
• Reamed the 3 control holes to a touch larger than the CTS pot bushing,
which is 3/8". I used a step drill instead of a bit because of the small holes in
the SX plate. There's a tendency for the drill bit to open into those small holes
and rip the plate apart.
• Installed the ground wire so there's enough length so the plate lays flat, and
far enough away from the body for any future maintenance purposes. You
don't wanna hang the control plate on that perty blue paint right?
• Assembled the harness onto the Control Plate and then soldered bridge
ground, then positive and negative extensions to go from the pots to the
pickups. Wiring complete.
Control Knobs: Jazz Bass Control Knobs - V-V-T.
These need to be changed from stock SX when going for the solid shaft pots.
Jazz Bass Control Knobs with Set Screws: $10.35 shipped PAID
Cavities: The cavities are to be shielded to reduce the humming from outside interfering frequencies. This is a two-hour job and will run $50 labor and the copper foil is included.Shielding Job: $50.00 PAID
Tuesday, 3-3-09 : Completed Shielding: Take a peek.
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• Finish: Powder Blue
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