on the bench today ...

[Rodent]

fresh from the paint shop ...





VRB PB&J™ 5
- select Swamp Ash non-offset style body
- Eastern Maple 35"-scale 21-fret neck, 16″R Rosewood fretboard, satin finish
- 1-7/8″ nut
- Mint/B/W pickguard
- Nordstrand P5/NJ5S pickup set
- Hipshot Ultralight tuners
- Hipshot Vintage bent plate 18mm bridge
- Chrome hardware


this model is also available as a lefty

all the best,

R

[AzWhoFan]

Rod,
can you remind us what a 'non offset body style' means?

[Rodent]

a P-bass has a symmetrical body style, with both sides of the butt end essentially being identical. a J-bass has a patented/trademarked offset body style where the upper and lower halves of the butt end are significantly different. Fender refers to this as an 'offset body' shape

Fender 'owns' the trademark on 'P-bass', so I'm left to describe it without the commonly used name

all the best,

R

[belinmad]

Rod,
Out of curiosity, does Fender ever slap builders with cease-and-desist type attacks to protect their IP?
There seem to be so many builders out there putting basses on the market that are essentially j and p basses, that I imagine it must be impossible for Fender to do much about it, no?

[Rodent]

they most definitely do, but their legal muscle is focused mostly on companies who do Fender clones that include their trademarked headstock shape. The most common remedy is for a company to license their use of the headstock shape, and this is exactly what has been done by several Fender clone builders as well as companies like Warmoth, AllParts, MightyMite, etc ...

Fender's big mistake was allowing most of their body shapes to be used by anybody for years, and the result is that they have legally fallen into public domain. Fender still has copyright and trademark rights to their marketing of these shapes, so while it's OK to use a P-bass shape, it's not OK to refer to it as a P-bass, P, Precision, etc ...

all of this applies within North America. I am not familiar with how Fender polices it's IP in other geographic and international areas

all the best,

R

[belinmad]

that's very interesting, thanks man!

[Rodent]

a freshly cut Tort pickguard for this 35" scale VRB-PJ5. this will have passive V/B/T controls with a side jack. Should be shipping off to it's home inTexas before the end of the week



back to work on all those NAMM basses ....

all the best,

R

[andrew]

Looks great! What P pickup is that?

[velalv]

Looks great! What P pickup is that?

I was thinking the same thing. Does the offset magnet poles change the tone of the bass in any way?

[fivebass52]

Beautifully done Rod!

[leftieray]

Love your work Rod. Have you a sixer in your plans for the future? Just a thought, have every thought about building basses based on known brand who don't make lefties anymore, e.g. Gibson, Ric's etc?

[Rodent]

yes, a 6-string is in the works. I've had the prototype completed for a couple years now, but building it at a cost people could afford has kept it benched. the new CNC is going to allow me to finally bring this to market in 2012

all the best,

R

[frankenjazz]

Do you plan on the 6 string still being in a single cut configuration or are you planning on doing multiple body styles?

[Rodent]

the single-cut will be first since I have all of the prototyping completed. the double-cut will follow once I have had time to got thru the proofing on the neck design

all the best,

R

[andrew]

the single-cut will be first since I have all of the prototyping completed. the double-cut will follow once I have had time to got thru the proofing on the neck design

You going to do a 4+5 string singlecut too Rod?

[Rodent]

99.9% sure I'll be doing these in a 5-string ... I'll need to see how much room the neck mounting interface area has before I'll know whether a 4-string is doable

if there's enough interest, I'll probably also consider the possibility of adding a 7-string single-cut as well. it'll all come down to how much time I have available for the design and prototyping

all the best,

R