Modern Player Razzcaster Project - Complete

[ThePearDream]

I was checking out Warmoth the other week, looking for a home for some spare necks I have laying around.
I was mostly interested in finding a nice mustang body for my spare 24" neck, but decided to check out their Jazzmasters, even though I'm already planning my dream Jazzmaster project. They had a few "Screaming Deals" on their Split Jazzmaster bodies, and this one caught my eye.




Extra light alder (4lbs, 4oz.), contoured heel and rear spring cavity for $140.
At work that day , the possibilities were dancing through my head. I already have a neck, extra strat bridges and the stock pickups leftover from my VMJM. I just need tuners, some electronic bits and pieces and the Warmoth pickguard. When I got home that night and checked the site again to see the price had dropped to $130, I pulled the trigger.

The body was delivered yesterday and it is a beauty. I put some rubbing alcohol on it this morning to check out the grain. The pale section around the joint isn't as strong in person as in Warmoth's pics.


So here's the plan:
I'm already planning a more traditional style Jazzmaster build, so I'm going to go in the opposite direction for this and make a very non-traditional Jazzy.


-22 fret, 2 piece maple WD neck that I forgot I had and found cleaning out my basement last year.
-White TusqXL nut from my parts box
-locking chrome tuners (new)
-Wilkinson trem that a friend gave me.
-VMJM pickups (I upgraded to AV65 and have these in my parts box)
-1 meg pots (new)
-single ply white pickguard from Warmoth - I'll be doing some custom fitting of controls in this - more on that another day.

With the locking tuners, Wilkinson trem and tusq nut, tuning should be really solid. Add in the slightly hotter VMJM pickups and I think this will be a really fun Jazzy.

For the finish, I'm going to attempt to do a translucent pink hand rubbed satin poly finish. The neck is a pale satin maple. All plastic bits will be a crisp white.
Again, very non-traditional

I'd like to do a custom decal for this, but, I need help with a name for this thing. I'm terrible at coming up with names.
The last project I put together, I just used some vinyl numbers.


I was actually pretty pleased with how that turned out, but I know that there's lot of clever folks here. The best thing I've come up with so far is Razzcaster (as in raspberry for the pink).
So, I'd love some name ideas. TIA

[ThePearDream]

The pink is on. I used Titanium White and Cadmium Red oil paints, mixing them on the body with liberal amounts of mineral spirits until I got the color and coverage i liked. It's hard to capture well in my crappy shop lighting, but it will look like a pink Mary Kaye blonde. After a day of curing, I wiped it down with some Japan Drier to speed up the curing process. Once the oils are cured, I'll be hand applying many thin coats of thinned down poly.



Now that I'm happy with how the pink is looking, I'll go ahead and get the pickguard.

As I mentioned previously, I'll be doing something different than the traditional Jazzmaster controls. So, I'm only having the jack hole placed by Warmoth.
Speaking of which, I placed an order at guitarpartsresource on Friday night. I picked their free shipping option, and I already received my package this afternoon! That's some Amazon level speed.

Here's a little preview of what's to come switch wise.

[ThePearDream]

The finish is coming along. It's been sanded up to 600 grit now, just a little bit to go. I was going for something like Shell Pink, but it looks a bit more like Coral to me.

I finally had a chance to work on the pickguard tonight. I had ordered the guard without any controls, so I could customize their locations.
The tone ended up in the normal spot and I pushed the volume back about 3/4". I also cut the holes for the slide switches, using a cheap Jaguar plate as a template.

Here's a preview mockup:


So, the controls will be Jaguar style with the series mod and the Jaguar stangle switch (red), MV & MT with standard Jazzmaster pot and cap values. I found some white strat knobs on Reverb, without any ink in the numbers. The pickguard is single ply white. I ordered white pickup covers from Guitarpartsresource, but they look a bit grey/parchment to me, so I will have to look for another option. This is the opposite of the problem most people on here have. So, this is a longshot, but does anybody know where to get the whitest Jazzmaster pickup covers?

I'm still waiting on my decal to arrive, that may be the bottleneck on getting this project wrapped up.

[ThePearDream]

Quick update. Got the decal applied, buried, sanded and polished. Leveled, crowned and polished the frets. Slotted, shaped and polished the nut, the slots are a few file strokes from final depth.
I had to take 1/4" off the fretboard overhang so it wouldn't block the neck pickup mounting ears. I eyeballed it on my ROSS and finished it by hand, then put a few coats of wipe on poly over the bare wood. Now the neck is ready to go.

I had a few sand throughs on the body though and have found the oil paint finish difficult to patch, so that experiment was a bit of a failure.
I'm still set on doing a pink finish, but don't want something as pink as shell pink, so I decided to go the auto paint route.
I used the following website to look at all of the pinks that have been used on cars. http://www.paintref.com/paintref/index.shtml
I finally settled on a 90's Mary Kay Pink, which I've sourced from http://www.automotivetouchup.com/index.htm
This guitar was the inspriation:

New one.

Japanese cherry blossom "Sakura" color.

The paint arrived today, buuut the forecast calls for rain every day for the next week...

[ThePearDream]

The weather was beautiful this weekend. I picked up a wardrobe box from Uhaul (the kind with the metal bar for clothes hangers), and turned it into a mini spray booth using some plastic sheet and velcro. I was able to get primer, color and a few coats of clear on. I'll still need to get more clear coats on, but the weather doesn't look as promising for next weekend...

[blimpage]

That body ought to look amazing with that new pink colour you're going for. Can't wait to see it!

[ThePearDream]

Thanks!

I ended up taking the afternoon off from work, and put on a bunch more clear coats since the weather was still nice. It's looking real good - no runs, minimal orange peel and only one small dog hair . This stuff seems to cure super fast, so I may attempt wet sanding this weekend.

[ThePearDream]

Well, I was able to get the body sanded and polished up on Saturday. I did end up with a few minor sand-throughs, but not in any prominent spots, so I'm just going to roll with it. I am pleased with the color and would likely buy more from that company, but I think I'll skip their clear coat next time. It didn't lay down smooth or flow out the way that nitro does. There are a few spots on the rear where if you look closely, it looks like orange peel, even though it's perfectly smooth. Also got the cavities shielded.





Definitely not perfect, but it's been a decade since I've sprayed a guitar. For an amateur backyard rattlecan finish it's decent. I've definitely seen worse.

Got everything assembled today.


I'm still looking for some whiter pickup covers and am thinking about trying some white witch hat knobs.
I did a quick setup (just enough to get it playable), so I could plug it in for a few minutes. It sounds great. VMJM pickups in series sound really cool. I would like the strangle switch to be more aggressive though, it's only noticeable when the tone is rolled way down. I used the standard cap value for jaguars. I'll have to get some other values and experiment.
I did have to raise the bridge quite high. After the neck has a chance to adjust to the string tension, I'll see about adding a shim to the nut side of the pocket so I can drop the bridge more.
I really enjoy the contoured neck heel, it makes it super easy to reach the upper frets.



I use the name Height Design Studio for all of my non-professional design and fabrication work, so I used that here. I like how the start of the "H" looks a lot like the Fender "F". The small print says "I had the pear dream again". I couldn't think of any worthwhile marketing gibberish like fender used, so I used a line from the Kids in the Hall skit that I used for my user name.



Except for a few small tweaks, this project is finished. I didn't keep a detailed budget tally, but the cost was a hair under $300, since I had so many parts already.
This is a fun, cheap beater guitar, but I am still planning a real jazzmaster build, with some features that I know OSGers will love.

I'll post some glamour shots of this one soon.

[ThePearDream]

Small update. The import Wilkinson bridge was straight trash. Within a few weeks, I broke the head off a locking screw and stripped two more. I switched to an Am. Std. type bridge from GFS, which seems to be much better.
Also, I switched the bass cut cap from .0033 to .0022, which made a big difference, especially in series mode.
The goals for this guitar were: a cheap home for the maple neck, with solid tuning and a range of tone options. I'm calling this one a success.

Took a few more pics. Sadly, I don't have any great spots outside for taking pics.





Here's a family shot of my full scale jazz style offsets:


Thanks for reading!