MAYA - A baby Jaguar-shaped Duosonic

[Amon 7.L]

Hi folks.
as per request on "What's on your workbench right now?", here's a dedicated thread on this project that, as mentioned, has taken place last year (2018, early on) alongside my Jagstang Prototype build.
When I was digitally redrawing the latter, I've noticed that there's a little Jaguar inside its outline. A baby scaled down version that silently hides in front of us within the quirky shape of the bizarre body crossover.
Look it up:

Being that the main focus at the time was sorting the Jagstang prototype out, my brain was still unceasingly thinking about a real perfect blend between the Jaguar and the Mustang... Of course, having their two templates constantly in the drafting board wasn't helping me stop criss-crossing lines & shapes one to one another.
Anyway, long story short... I've flooded my draft board with an obscene amount of variations: I'm gonna show you a few, not more than 10%, otherwise by the time I'm finished, you'll be old and grey. And I'll be still thinking about further tweaks.

There you go:
00 - A classic combo, Jaguar mini body, mustang horn... I'm not convinced.


01 - Double combo. I decided that a mustang lower horn is too long, a jaguar lower horn is too short... I did something in between, kinda Marauder-ish.
I also decided that the Dynamic Vibrato looks too crowdy, hence reaching out for a Toronado fixed bridge.


02 - And just because WHY NOT? Bound neck, competition stripes.


03 - Full scaled down (and tweaked, of course) Jaguar body with the much appreciated bridge & Tailpiece combo. Scaled & tweaked the control plate. Mustang pg. For some reason: I still find the lower "horn" obese. Scratch that: Marauder stays on.


04 - Well.. it's ugly but, I have TOM & Stoptail available in my parts bin... so, woteva.


05 - Because ME LOVES Jaguar's neck pu (and I'll have no shame in using the spare bridge position counterpart I have in already mentioned parts bin) and I still have an F-spaced DM SuperDistortion available:


06 - Do I have to give you reasons for this?


07 - I have all the reasons for this. None of which justifies the headstock.


08 - This is a brain fart, really. I mean... It's all left-handed up 'til now, then I wanted a reverse for lefties and I managed to have it reversed for right-handed .
(CAD Users know what has actually happened during the flipping action.)


It's all for now...

[TinyEv]

05 makes me weak at the knees. I would love that.

[JSutter]

Thank you for posting this. This is exactly the type of thinking I do. I'll stare at a few guitars a want to tweak them or add stuff from others. You have made some designs that I would love to have. So friggin cool. Too bad I'm not savy with computer programs and I sure as heck can't draw.

[Rgand]

Lookin' good. Thanks for the dedicated thread on this. I'll follow along as you carry it forward.

[epizootics]

Cool beans!
It is reassuring to see other people's drawing boards are are just as crowded as mine. Your CAD skills go far beyond mine though

The rounder lower horn on no. 3 works really well, it's probably the most 'classic-looking' design in there, but I must say I really dig no. 7 & 8, many shades of crazy! Number 8 could totally work in a Gibson-ish 'what-the-hell-I'll-just-reverse-this-Firebird' way.

What's the scale length on those babies?

[Amon 7.L]

05 makes me weak at the knees. I would love that.

That is one of my preferred options too. I have the same configuration in my silverburst jaguar and I love it. Splendid clean sound and the right girth when distorted.

Thank you for posting this. This is exactly the type of thinking I do. I'll stare at a few guitars a want to tweak them or add stuff from others. You have made some designs that I would love to have. So friggin cool. Too bad I'm not savy with computer programs and I sure as heck can't draw.

You're most welcome, thanks to you for chiming in and for your kind words.
And, yup... it's just the way I tend to go when I can play with all sort of designs.
You don't necessarily need to be super PC savvy or to have great drafting skills... I mean, as long as you know what is your ideal baseline for a shape and which components you like the most, you have a starting point, the rest will just unfold as you go. In short, if you can imagine it: there's a way to deliver it to the paper. (if you have a particular design in mind, I might try and sketch it out for you )

Lookin' good. Thanks for the dedicated thread on this. I'll follow along as you carry it forward.

My pleasure, Rgand... stick around, I'll be soon updating.

Cool beans!
It is reassuring to see other people's drawing boards are are just as crowded as mine. Your CAD skills go far beyond mine though

The rounder lower horn on no. 3 works really well, it's probably the most 'classic-looking' design in there, but I must say I really dig no. 7 & 8, many shades of crazy! Number 8 could totally work in a Gibson-ish 'what-the-hell-I'll-just-reverse-this-Firebird' way.

What's the scale length on those babies?

Thanks heaps to you to as well, epizootics!
Ahahahahh, don't mention it!! I'm gonna post a pic of the situation on the drawing board to give you anidea of the level of my regular insanity

Yeah, no. 3 is just very classic and really drafted itself up.. I can't imagine why Fender didn't suggest something like this when dealing with Cobain's jagstang.. i mean.. seriously.. you scale a jaguar down to a mustang size, you tweak things a minimum bit and there it is: as simple as bread and butter.
Speaking of "shades of crazy"... keep watching... I'm gonna post something more that fits the description
RE: no. 8: you got it, mate... it's exactly what I went for! For some reason, jaguar & jazzmaster on reverse are bloody appealling to me, no firebird come close to my eyes.

Stay close, guys.. I'll be updating within the day

[Amon 7.L]

What's the scale length on those babies?

Pardon me, I forgot to answer that bit: they're all shortscale. 24"

Now, as promised, I'll give you an update. I'll share some other variations out of this crowded draftboard:

Some of them are similar but with different changes such pu configuration (SS, HS, HSH, straight, slanted, tripled.. all kind of mixes).
These are not my cup of tea but they are the ones that have something different from the predictable jaguar/mustang blends.

09 - Maya in a Gibson-ish layout. If you wonder what these pickups are, they are not slimmed down jazzmaster pu, they are some strange chinese HB that I really want to try.


10 - Similar to the above layout, I've just wanted to try a different control plate


11 - Pretty much a baby-sized jaguar with a bit of a personal twist. It looks naked.. at this point I was already thinking about ANOTHER THING (I'll get there)


12 - Because I can go crazy. I was following one of -luthier exaordinaire- Ben Crowe's crazy projects. I give you "CYBER MAYA", feat. exagonal fret markers. If I only had a CNC machine or 1/10th of his mad skills and tools..


at this point... my brain was on a different highway... N. 11 was so naked... What's wrong with it? What am I missing? Tell me, baby... What do you need?
Mostly.. what do I need?

Another brain fart answered me clear and loud. I need a fucking lefty.....:



(suspance)




(more suspance)




(commercial break)





(me being annoying)





(K, I'll stop, scroll down. What do I need? Oh, yup...)






13 - Maya VI Type 1.
Yes, it's a bass VI. A scaled-up Maya body to fill this lack of consideration for us, sons of the devils, by Fender and Squier.

I mean... she's cute, right?

14 - Maya VI Type 2.
Because I was curious to see how things are with a Mustang-ish pickguard. (I much prefer type 1.)


15 - Maya VI Type 3.
The minimalistic.

I was and still am too fond of Type 1 that I couldn't bother with other tweaks. It's the rare case, actually unique, that I did less than 5 variations. Weird.

That's all folks. Next update will have some sawdust.

[BTL]

Nice work!

[PorkyPrimeCut]

For me the Jaguar & the Mustang are perfect as they are & not all that different, in broader terms.

With that in mind I actually much prefer the last Gibsony mock-ups. This one's great!...



I took the liberty of flipping it back to a righty (lefty views always mess with my head!) and suddenly the top end of the body looked weird...



I dunno, I'm not wanting to rain on your parade but, if it was me I'd try'n reduce the size of the upper horn & increase the size of the area where the arm contour would sit. It might be the Fender tailpiece that's making stuff seem weird. I dunno.

Maybe I'm too much of a purist to get engaged in these kind of threads!

[s_mcsleazy]

i said it in the workbench thread but i love this design and would rock the hell out of one.

if it was down to me, i'd have similar pickup configs as to what is on my 3 mustangs atm. aka a hotrail in the neck and a really hot mustang pickup in the bridge.

as for bridge/trem, i love the idea of a jm trem/bridge or the toronado bridge.

[epizootics]

What's the scale length on those babies?

Pardon me, I forgot to answer that bit: they're all shortscale. 24"

Now, as promised, I'll give you an update. I'll share some other variations out of this crowded draftboard:

Some of them are similar but with different changes such pu configuration (SS, HS, HSH, straight, slanted, tripled.. all kind of mixes).
These are not my cup of tea but they are the ones that have something different from the predictable jaguar/mustang blends.

Oh man. Thank you so much for posting this. It makes me feel a bit less alone in my CAD OCD.
Reminds me of a guy I work with who is a fantastic sound engineer/arranger and his mixing folders looks just like that - No. 56; No. 67; No. 72.; etc.

I assumed they were 24" scale, but some of the designs made me think they would look great with a 23" scale length to balance out the size of the neck relative to the body. We're moving away from Jagstang territory here, but a 23" sounds great for Mustang-type sounds and feel less mandolin-ish under the hand than the very short 22".

The Bass VI version looks perfect, they should give you a job at Fender and have you supervise the operations for all things Jagstang...

[LossyShades]

This is a great thread! Love all the options but the original 03 is looking tops to me.

So are these all done in AutoCAD? Do you draw each part or are there libraries of parts?

[Amon 7.L]

I dunno, I'm not wanting to rain on your parade but, if it was me I'd try'n reduce the size of the upper horn & increase the size of the area where the arm contour would sit. It might be the Fender tailpiece that's making stuff seem weird. I dunno.

Maybe I'm too much of a purist to get engaged in these kind of threads!

No worries, taste is subjective... I won't take offence, sir.
You're right... even thou I get the same feeling when I look at your flipped right-handed version but, I do agree with you: it's the Fender tailpieces, it throws it off quite a bit, that's why I didn't choose the dynamic vibrato. Too crowdy.
My later revisions have a different top horn (the guitar renders I've posted in the "whats in your workbench" thread are the latest updated version... you can check'em out and see if they look better to you

i said it in the workbench thread but i love this design and would rock the hell out of one.

if it was down to me, i'd have similar pickup configs as to what is on my 3 mustangs atm. aka a hotrail in the neck and a really hot mustang pickup in the bridge.

as for bridge/trem, i love the idea of a jm trem/bridge or the toronado bridge.

Thanks again, mcsleazy
If times is helpful during the summer I might could also squeeze a right handed body too.. so, stick around
I would be cool to see a Maya body with a mcsleazy flavour!

Oh man. Thank you so much for posting this. It makes me feel a bit less alone in my CAD OCD.
Reminds me of a guy I work with who is a fantastic sound engineer/arranger and his mixing folders looks just like that - No. 56; No. 67; No. 72.; etc.

I assumed they were 24" scale, but some of the designs made me think they would look great with a 23" scale length to balance out the size of the neck relative to the body. We're moving away from Jagstang territory here, but a 23" sounds great for Mustang-type sounds and feel less mandolin-ish under the hand than the very short 22".

The Bass VI version looks perfect, they should give you a job at Fender and have you supervise the operations for all things Jagstang...

Your welcome, my friend.. Now it's your time to show your crowded draftboard!!

I think we think alike on the subject.. there are mock ups with a 22" neck.. They are interchangeable so, why not? It's a possibility.

Thanks, too kind. If I'll ever get on trying to build bass necks.. Maya would be the first one I'll try to put out.
If guys at Fender share your most welcome opinion, I would be accepting on the spot and flooding catalogues with new jagstangs of all sorts

This is a great thread! Love all the options but the original 03 is looking tops to me.

So are these all done in AutoCAD? Do you draw each part or are there libraries of parts?

Thank you heaps, brettjorg! I'm glad you're enjoying it
03 is a Classic look, I guess you can't go wrong with it.

Yes, it's all done in AutoCAD, Jaguar trem plate is taken from a pdf and tweaked to match a real one, but everything else have been digitally drawn by me from scratch using real life items measurements.
Being lefty is a bitch as I'm forced to design everything and make plates on my own, from scratch..

[Amon 7.L]

Next chapter.

I guess that after the above showcased CAD situation I'm better off start talking of the actual building process.
As to recap things out, this is a side project off the Jagstang prototype that I started back in July 2017.
Being the former the main focus, I didn't totally concentrate my efforts to get the best out of it, I just wanted to build a guinea-pig guitar to experiment with pickups, finishes and everything I'll want to delve into.
Afterall, I always remind myself that I'm a noob and that it won't hurt to try things on scraps before ruining precious wood.
I'm therefore telling you folks to be prepare to see the lowest level of luthiery.

By now we are in 2018, times flies, right?
We need templates, and templates need a diagram... but which one? You already know, there's no suspense involved.
It's gonna be Maya 01, hardtail version.


Let's print it out, glue it to some plywood and shape it.

DONE. It has been fast after all.

Then what do we need? Wood. I can't (I just don't want actually) use noble ones at the moment, as I'm too moody and I know I'm gonna do a shitful load of further tweaks before I've finished gluing boards.
Calling the boards, I had these laying around waiting for their fate to fall on them.


What a lot of potential... Let's pulverize it!


Now that we've gotten rid of all potential, we can work at my level, which is raw.


Measure-Measure/Cut. Measure-Measure/Cut. Measure-Measure-MARK THINGS OUT/Cut. That times 3.
You know when the body AT THIS POINT is made out of 17 (yes, I always end up with lucky and prime numbers) pieces with NO room for errors, you'd better do your math right. The body outline in a few spots was really on the very end of the available wood.
It took me ages to glue them together as I had to go with 3 boards per session (no, I don't have enough clamps.)


Ghetto planing jig for the win. (same goes for the back, I'll spare you the rear-view shot. Trust me on that, they look alike)


Body extraction.
Close. Very close to end up with no material in certain areas. All cool for now.

I don't have the slightest idea of which wood I'm dealing with but I promise you, my nostrils enjoyed the fragrance that came out during the router cooking. (if you recognise the wood, please tell me what it is. I will reward you with a smile)

Because my brain farts a lot and my main workbench (it's in front of the router table) had still the jagstang prototype body on top of it and I was actually thinking about its colour... I just went for the acrylic paint tube I had at reach and brushed the poor Maya body with what looked like a lovely seafoam green layer.

It looked like shit.
I mean... the colour itself is gorgeous but this test told me that I couldn't get away with just sanding this tetris-combined amount of guitar-bodied shaped wood and clear coating. It just wasn't going to happen.
But sure as relaxing as dental flossing (I like dental flossing), that evening went by just painting both front and back.

As a direct aftermath of that brain damage I thought about covering my shame with that stalking piece of MDF I had against the wall staring at me since I have memory. "WOH? Mmm, that looks smooth... what about the size?"

Am I being lucky? Is that curve at the bottom left side of the guitar always challenging the very edge of the available material?
Should I just stop describing things as they going on in my head and simply post pics & being done with it? (If you want this question to be answered via dedicated poll, I will add one)

Self-explanatory shot, because (I'm talking to you, fellow epizootics ) we like sandwich guitars


Time to give those 17 pieces a new thickness:


While we're at that... Screwed-on template for final definition:


Done. Maya is out of her shell.


She needs a top dress, right?

Don't worry, her dress covers her back too.

That's all for now, folks...

P.S.:
There will be more brain farts, I promise you.

[Rgand]

Guitar happens! Great progress, already.