New tone cap :: 2010 Equator Languedoc copy [5.5 lbs]

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You may remember this one from another blog post where I scratched the shit out of the neck pickup cover ("Being a Professional Means that you Don't Make Excuses").

The hollowbody dropped by the shop recently to swap out the 0.022 mfd mica tone cap for a smaller 0.015 mfd Emerson paper in oil cap.  The player was looking to dial in the tonal sweep a little closer to his likes.  The general rule is that the higher value of the cap, the darker you can cut the tone.  Smaller values do not roll off the tone as deeply.

Intonation out of whack :: 2011 Fender Pawn Shop '51 [7.6 lbs]

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Yikes! The intonation on this Fender Pawn Shop 51 is way out of whack. In the photo above I adjusted the high e to it's proper location. Note that the high e is set roughly at the scale length (25.5"). The rest of the saddles all need to fall behind this one. The player is into jazz so no wonder his chords sounded so out of tune, even for jazz!

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The main reason this ended up on my bench though was for a missing output jack nut.  Since this guitar was made in Japan, the threads on the jack are metric.  I could not find a metric nut in my parts cabinet so we decided to install a much more robust Switchcraft jack along with a serrated washer to help keep it tightly mounted.

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Short circuit & loose frets :: Ibanez BTB775PB [9.8 lbs]

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A beastly Ibanez 5 string bass in for an intermittent short circuit and fret buzz.  I traced the output issue to a bad 25k volume pot that needed to be replaced (see video below for the replacement).  As for the fret buzz, treble side fret ends 12-20 were playing it high and loose.  The inexpensive fix was to glue and clamp them back down.  Doing a fret level after they were locked back down would have further improved clean playing up the neck.

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bass setup :: 2016 Fender Geddy Lee Jazz Bass [9.6 lbs]

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A brand spanking new Geddy Lee signature Jazz Bass in for some tweaks.  This has Fender's "Channel Bound" fingerboard, which is where they inlay the fingerboard into the neck.  It's pretty slick!  My only issue would be replacing the nut on this one.  The nut is also inlaid into the neck with the fingerboard binding capturing the ends and sealed under the finish.  I'm not trying to be a pessimist, only analyzing the ease of a common repair requiring a complicated procedure.  That being said, this a great J bass!

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No pickup, new nut & tuner fix :: 1993 Gibson J-100 xtra [4.6 lbs]

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A made in Montana Gibson jumbo in for a few things.  Originally it came in for the pickup to be removed and for the bridge pins to be better fit.  The pickup was a Barcus Berry bridge plate pickup that was fairly easy to remove.  The adhesive had deteriorated so it peeled off cleanly.  The output jack in the tail block was replaced by a NoJak.  These are sized to fit an enlarged end pin hole with a collet and allen screw tightened from the inside.  It's a good solution to plugging and redrilling the tail block, but always seems to require quite a bit of fitting.

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While addressing the pickup removal, I noticed that the Gibson Deluxe tuners were damaged so I attempted to repair them.

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During the setup I discovered that the nut was too worn out with excessive open string buzzes.  We went with a new bone nut and shimmed up the saddle to round out the setup.  Check out the shaping of the new bone nut below in the video from the daily vlog.

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