Fender Japan Jaguar Special HH neck pocket issues

[dangayle]

I have a Jaguar Special that I was going to put an EGC neck on, when we discovered that the screw holes were way out of place, a good cm off of what I was expecting. Is that common for Japanese-made Fenders?

If I wanted to mod the body, would there be any issues having my luthier drill new holes? Will the scale length be off, if is the scale length based off of the heel itself?

[OffYourFace]

The japanese neck pockets shouldn't be off too much from standard USA/MIM pockets if at all. Is your EGC neck 24" scale?

[dangayle]

The japanese neck pockets shouldn't be off too much from standard USA/MIM pockets if at all. Is your EGC neck 24" scale?

Yes. It fit just fine in the pocket, but the screw holes were way way off.

[OffYourFace]

The japanese neck pockets shouldn't be off too much from standard USA/MIM pockets if at all. Is your EGC neck 24" scale?

Yes. It fit just fine in the pocket, but the screw holes were way way off.

I'd ask EGC cuz that sounds more like a problem with their neck. I would understand them being off by a mm or two but not a full cm.

[timtam]

Fender model guitars with neck hole locations that are inconsistent with the standard locations are rare. The only examples I can think of are non-jaguar, 25.5" scale guitars with 22-fret necks where the 22nd fret is not on an overhang. Like the Modern Player series and Starcasters (one generation of which was a Modern Player). Most non-jaguar guitars with a 22nd fret have it on an overhang - so that the neck has the same hole locations as a 21-fret neck (which makes 21- and 22-fret necks interchangeable).

The jaguar of course is a 24" scale, 22-fret neck with the 22nd fret not on an overhang. So it's hard to envisage how or why the neck hole positions would be different on a 24" scale jaguar. But there are some odd jaguar-like guitars on aliexpress, which can be odd scale lengths.

Fender standard neck pocket dimensions and hole locations are here. Smaller variations in pocket dimensions are not uncommon, but perhaps less than would be expected for guitars made in many different factories over the years (with varying levels of clear direction from Fender USA, eg 1980s MIJ).
https://warmoth.com/guitar-body-neck-pockets
https://www.stewmac.com/video-and-ideas ... -on-necks/

[andy_tchp]

I have a Jaguar Special that I was going to put an EGC neck on, when we discovered that the screw holes were way out of place, a good cm off of what I was expecting. Is that common for Japanese-made Fenders?

No, not at all. The only 'common' variance is the neck pocket being ever so slightly wider (and I don't even think that is common these days).

[crazyzeke]

The jaguar of course is a 24" scale, 22-fret neck with the 22nd fret not on an overhang.

You seem to know your stuff pretty well so I can ask something I've wondered. Was the Jaguar a 22 fret model because it's using the same neck type/template as any 21-fret Fender but they added the extra fret to cover the extra space a 24" scale on a neck usually used for 25.5" scale would give them? I know Fender loves to reuse parts for economy of scale, makes perfect sense for so many reasons. Extra fret hides the fact otherwise you're left with a big gap after the 21st.

[dangayle]

Fender model guitars with neck hole locations that are inconsistent with the standard locations are rare. The only examples I can think of are non-jaguar, 25.5" scale guitars with 22-fret necks where the 22nd fret is not on an overhang. Like the Modern Player series and Starcasters (one generation of which was a Modern Player). Most non-jaguar guitars with a 22nd fret have it on an overhang - so that the neck has the same hole locations as a 21-fret neck (which makes 21- and 22-fret necks interchangeable).

The jaguar of course is a 24" scale, 22-fret neck with the 22nd fret not on an overhang. So it's hard to envisage how or why the neck hole positions would be different on a 24" scale jaguar. But there are some odd jaguar-like guitars on aliexpress, which can be odd scale lengths.

Fender standard neck pocket dimensions and hole locations are here. Smaller variations in pocket dimensions are not uncommon, but perhaps less than would be expected for guitars made in many different factories over the years (with varying levels of clear direction from Fender USA, eg 1980s MIJ).
https://warmoth.com/guitar-body-neck-pockets
https://www.stewmac.com/video-and-ideas ... -on-necks/

I wish I had taken pictures. It really surprised my luthier.

[timtam]

The jaguar of course is a 24" scale, 22-fret neck with the 22nd fret not on an overhang.

You seem to know your stuff pretty well so I can ask something I've wondered. Was the Jaguar a 22 fret model because it's using the same neck type/template as any 21-fret Fender but they added the extra fret to cover the extra space a 24" scale on a neck usually used for 25.5" scale would give them? I know Fender loves to reuse parts for economy of scale, makes perfect sense for so many reasons. Extra fret hides the fact otherwise you're left with a big gap after the 21st.

There are other people here who know Fender's early history much better that me. And I don't recall hearing a single definitive answer about why 22 frets. Fender didn't add the 22 fret as a variation on (some) 25.5" guitars until later AFAIK (ie on an overhang). According to what Fender have said in recent years (link below), the shorter scale was advertised as "faster, more comfortable playing". They also mention needing something to counter Gibson's 24.75" scale. But nothing specifically about 22 frets AFAIK.
https://www.fender.com/articles/behind- ... the-jaguar

There is one somewhat unique physical similarity between 25.5" scale and 24" scale necks - the fret spacings are the same, just shifted by one fret. That is, the 1st-2nd fret spacing on a 25.5" neck is the same as the nut-1st fret spacing on a 24" neck; and so on up the neck. So you could take a 25.5" fretboard with 21 frets and cut it at the first fret - then you'd have a 24" scale fretboard, but with only with 20 frets. And so you could use a 25.5" fret slot cutter to make a 24" fretboard. But you'd need more cutters ... one for the lost 21st fret and another for the jag's 22nd fret. Given Leo Fender's fondness for efficient/cheap manufacturing solutions, it seems likely that exploiting that symmetry was deliberate (IIRC there are similar symmetries when moving longer to their bass guitars). The distance from the nut to the end of the heel is still a little longer on a 25.5", 21-fret neck than on the jag's 24" scale, 22-fret neck (I just measured it) - so the symmetry doesn't seem to allow use of the same neck when manufacturing (who knows if they just chopped a little bit off the end of a 25.5" neck ?). But maybe when you do the simplest version of the maths you do end up with space for an extra (22nd) fret on a 24" scale neck ? Or maybe the 22nd fret's addition was more deliberate ?

[crazyzeke]

There are other people here who know Fender's early history much better that me. And I don't recall hearing a single definitive answer about why 22 frets.

That's a great answer though (I haven't quoted the whole thing but I read it all) I enjoyed reading it, thanks. Maybe it wasn't a case of reusing a 21-fret neck as I suspected, but I didn't know that the spacing of a 24" mirrored a 25.5" just moved down by one fret, that's super interesting and makes a lot of sense. Short scale Fenders are the main reason I love Fenders so I'm always up for learning more about the how's and why's of it.