NBD Harley Benton JB-75

[shoulderpet]

A bit of a belated NBD as I received this bass on Wednesday,

I received the bass in a right grotty state, the seller described it in as new condition, the bass still had the pickguard film etc on but the bass itself was filthy, as new condition meaning if as new meant it had been buried underground.

 

First stop before anything else could be done was to remove the strings, as you can see from the below pic the strings were absolutely minging, I would have been ashamed to sell someone a bass with these strings on it but people are odd, I tried to avoid touching the strings as much as possible.  Next job was to remove the thick layer of crud from the fretboard, the camera on my phone doesnt show this very well but the fretboard was pretty gross and i gave it a good scrub and then gave the rest of the bass a good clean and then wiped it over with some alchohol to kill any nasties.

 

After about half hour cleaning it, I restrung the bass with some super light Nyxl I had spare, fair bit of fret buzz so I adjusted the truss rod and then had a nasty shock when the truss rod seemingly had no tension, I thought the truss rod was done for and much later that night then it occured to me that it was acting a bit differently to how a broken truss rod would usually act, after a bit of forum consulting and googling I found it was actually a 2 way truss rod and I turned the truss rod key a bit more and it started gripping and all was well thank god.

 

Anyway I loosend the truss rod to take out some buzz on the first few frets and it mostly did the trick but I seem to have a high fret on the 1st or 2nd fret that was causing some fret buzz on the 1st fret, have raised the action and it is a little higher than I would like but it is manageable until I get the cash to have the frets looked at.

 

And finally I pushed the pickups poles up on the A and D string sides to get the pickup pole heights consistent 

 

Overall I am pretty happy with the bass and after a fret levelling this will be a fantastic bass, it looks great and it sounds fantastic, I havent owned a jazz bass in about 20 years and now im wondering why I delayed it for so long, both pickups on full is a fantastic tone and those low notes on the E string sound awesome, I get the feeling a jazz bass in D standard would sound amazing.

 

If I had to complain about something it would be the dreadful cheap pickguard, I will replacing it in the near future, I am thinking maybe brown tort (if anyone knows what aftermarket pickguards will fit this bass I would be very grateful)

 

 

 

 

 

Before cleanup

 

 

 

 

After cleanup

Edited May 7, 2022 by shoulderpet

[yorks5stringer]

HB pickguards are not necessarily the same fit as Fender or Squier (which can differ too). There's a guy on ebay in Scotland Brian Pillans? who will do you a replica if you send him yours, was around £25 when I had mine done a couple of years ago. I'm sure the HB posse will be along soon with the proper name for him...

[PaulThePlug]

https://www.ebay.co.uk/str/earlpilanz

 

[kodiakblair]

Aye , Brian over in Glasgow is the man for these.

 

Likely a Cat 2 size,  4 ply  brown tort £33 inc delivery.

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/114675042782?hash=item1ab32a49de:g:mPEAAOSwVChgKmQT

[Pea Turgh]

I bought one of the “Deko” ones off Thomann a few years ago - weighed sooo much, but sounded really nice.  Sold it to a mate who uses it exclusively for recording.

 

Is yours heavy?

[shoulderpet]

3 minutes ago, Pea Turgh said:

I bought one of the “Deko” ones off Thomann a few years ago - weighed sooo much, but sounded really nice.  Sold it to a mate who uses it exclusively for recording.

 

Is yours heavy?

Yep 12.5ibs

[Bassfinger]

The JB75 is a weighty model. 

 

They sound blummen fantastic though.  Thats a good looker too.