Joe's Lakland P Bass

Been taking a little time off of the repair blog while I finish up some new builds and huge projects.
Before this bass came thru the shop I had done a hand carved mac ebony nut for one of my earliest clients Arthur. He wanted to convert his 5 string Ibanez to E-C tuning. I also did a setup/neck shim on a short scale Ibanez for one of Arthur's buddies. Didn't get a chance to take any pics of those repairs but they went very well.
Then a great young bassist who I met at a Lakland get together, Joe, had inquired about some fret buzz on his Lakland P Bass. He recently said he changed from flats to rounds and was getting more buzz than he wanted. I told him to bring it by!
So I began by checking the setup. Joe likes his action very low. But unfortunately it was just to buzzy as it was currently setup. I couldn't quite dial in the amount of relief I wanted with the truss rod. Saddles looked good. One thing I did notice is that the nut slot height seemed to be way too low. So I decided on shimming the nut first to see if that would solve the problem.

And here is a shot from the side to see how much height was added

Then I went ahead and put the nut back on and re adjusted the slot height. After all that it was still buzzing way too much so I decided it needed a fret level.
Pretty standard from here on out. Got the bass on the leveling jig. Did most of the leveling work, crowned and polished the frets. A little more nut height adjustment.

And then strung it up to check it. A little more fine tuning and it was ready to go. Didn't get a final picture of this one but it came out real nice as well.
18. Arthur's Ibanez
- made hand carved Mac Ebony nut for E-C tuning
- Re string, setup, cleaned etc.
19. Arthur's friend's Ibanez short scale
- Shimmed neck, setup, re string, cleaned etc
20. Joe's Lakland P Bass
- Shimmed nut, fret level, setup, cleaned etc.