Custom Warmoth Fretless Five String Bass

Warmoth was behind the basic build of this absolutely delicious fretless five string bass; ie the maple neck, ebony fretboard, and body. Yes, those were the only stock components. Among the custom features added on was a body-mounted fretboard extension, stained hardwood veneer center stripe and one-of-a-kind active circuitry. I say "one-of-a-kind" because it was designed and put together by a sound engineer/electronics guru to the owner's exact specs. He fondly referred to it as "Jaco," no doubt in honor of one of his all-time favourite bass players.

'Nuff said, then. This bass came into my shop because the pickup was "splitting apart" and the output of G-string was way louder than the other strings. Closer inspection revealed that the "pickup" was actually two separate pickups that had their "ears" cut off on one side, and were epoxied together. The pickups were from the EMG LJ / SJ Jazz Bass set, namely the EMG-SJFS5JB (neck); and LJFS5JB (bridge).

After unscrewing the "pickup" halves, the LJ and SJ came apart immediately. Interestingly, upon bringing them together, I noticed that they were repelling each other, ie their magnets were of the same polarity. No wonder even epoxy could not hold them together for long! Realizing that two pickups of similar polarity should not be placed so close together, I suggested to the owner that they be relocated further apart. He reacted positively (thank goodness), and so it was time to get down to work.

First of all, for the pickups to be mounted separately, I needed to replace the missing "ears." As luck would have it, I had a set of unused Jazz Bass pickup covers lying around, and they graciously consented to donate their "ears" to the EMGs. That problem being solved, the next issue was widening the existing pickup cavity to accomodate a wooden spacer between the pickups.

After careful measuring, out came the drill press, router bits, chisels and sandpaper. I don't mind sharing with you that it was a lot of hard, meticulous work, with little room for error. Always remember this: measure twice, cut once! I also had to shorten the fretboard extension, for obvious reasons. In any case, after lots of prototyping, I ended up with a block of pine that fit nicely.

Next came the staining of the pine block and fretboard extension. I used a mix of StewMac Vintage Amber, Cherry Red and Medium Brown Liquid Stain, plus a hint of Indian Ink dissolved in ethanol to obtain the color I was after. Now, although all three stains are water-soluble, I prefer ethanol as it dries faster and does not raise the grain nor cause wood to swell as much as water.

Once the stains were dry, I lightly sanded the surfaces, glued on the fretboard extension, and sealed it with a few coats of clear. The ebony fretboard, being rather dry, was also reconditioned with lemon oil. What was left, then, was to put Jaco back together again, string him up, do a basic setup; and invite his owner to take him for a test drive.

I'm pleased, thankful, and relieved that the owner, after an hour of judicious tweaking; declared Jaco fit for duty. Best of all, the G-string had stopped misbehaving altogether. What a joy!