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Fender Jazz Lefty from Japan


steve-soar
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Ordered on Tuesday, tried to deliver it yesterday but I was at work, collected it from the post office today. Three days from order to arrival, not bad, especially as it came from JAPAN! Three days unbelievable.
Anyway Fender Jazz, crafted in Japan, 1999-2000. Is it based on a 62 model? (Note the brass strip at the bridge). Can anyone tell me more about the bass, where it was made, what the body is made of? I think Basswood or Alder.
The action was scary high so after a bit of tweaking it plays amazingly well and it sounds as good as anything I've played before, it really is superb.
But the biggest shock was the weight, it is as light as a feather. It was so well packed that it took about 15 mins to unpack it.
I am well chuffed :) :huh: ;)










After a good setup and a clean, I think this maybe my number one bass, it's that good.
Cheers Steve.

Edited by steve-soar
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The brass strip is simply a grounding strip for the bridge. Fender opted for this option until they started drilling a "tunnel" from the control cavity to under the bridge plate, where a wire was run. I like the brass strips actually, but Im weird like that.


Lovely bass. Its probably almost as good as my SX. (Runs off to hide!!)

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Cheers mate, I know about the strip, I meant the bass in general. :)
I like the look of the strip and the nickel bridge, tuners and I like the sound of this bass, very punchy and it plays beautifully.
I'd forgotten how lovely the necks are as my old J.D.'s neck was based on a Jazz. I've never seen a neck pocket so tight and I've seen hundreds of Fender basses.

Edited by steve-soar
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POP! The bubble has burst. Now I know why the action was so high. The strings are buzzing on the first three to four frets as the neck is slightly bowed back, so I took the neck off and tried to slacken the truss rod to let the string tension pull the neck up but the truss rod won't budge. It's a cross headed nut that looks like someone has used the wrong sized screwdriver on. It won't turn either way. It's late now so I'm not going to mess around with it. Bollocks. :huh: I'll have to think about this one. :)

Edited by steve-soar
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Hi Kev I got the neck sorted, just used a big f**k off screwdriver. :) These buried truss rods are a pain in the arse to set, It took 4 goes and it's still not there but I had to leave it as I was taking it out to rehearsals. Back from said rehearsals and it sounded great for our heavy numbers but the design fault on pickups, flat pup, radiused fingerboard, meant lower output from the A and D strings.
Have you ever seen A.J. smile? He's a serious cat.

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A few more pics. The neck is fine now, just a few more tweaks to do. I put some D'addario Pro Steels on it yeasterday, they sound fine but they're tough on your fingers and hard to slide on. It came with a set of nickel D'addarios and they felt much easier to play but I do like the punchy zing of steel strings.













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Hi Jono, the bass behind is some kind of Jap thing from the 80's. It's a through neck......oh Ill just show you some pics.
The fingerboard is a bit messed up where someone has removed the frets and taken some of the rosewood with them. There's plenty of meat left on the board though. I was going to do it up and sell it as it's a righty but I think I'll just sell it as it is.
Cheers Steve.

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