I have to thank Revenue Canada for the inspiration to build the first JAF Minuteman. Late one night, while I was tearing my hair out, trying to make sense of their tax requirements, I broke down and decided to let them wait.

I had an old Washburn Mercury 4 string leaning against the wall beside my desk. It was a nice bass to play and sounded good, but was ugly as sin. As usual, when work got me overly stressed, I picked it up and started some therapeutic kanoodling. A block of mahogany was lying on the floor and I thought, "That could make a decent body!" I sketched out some lines on the block, went out to the shop and started cutting. Six hours later I was playing my new bass. It wasn't beautiful, but had what I believed to be nice lines. It still played nicely, but sounded even better than before. Surprisingly, even though it was different from any I'd seen before, it was very comfortable as well.

The relief from stress was significant. As if taking time to make it was saying, "Just a fucking minute, man!" The rest is history.

The MinuteMan bass is defined by its distinctive upper horn. The MinuteMan is available in two different body styles. The MinuteMan I features a sloped bottom, while the MinuteMan II features a rounder bottom.

• MinuteMan Gallery: These are the basses that have resulted from that evening.