'59-ish Firemist Gold Jazzmaster project

[Santiago!]

and a happy new years eve!

[alexcantsleep]

I saw mentioned earlier in this thread (and couldnt find otherwise on the forums) mention of nail holes in a 59 body? I was just curious what was nailed to what and how long did they do this?

Alex!

[RumorsOFsurF]

I'm still fiddling with the pickguard.  It's as if the pickguard and body have the same hole pattern, but it's been scaled differently.  When I line up one hole in the middle, the holes to the right all all too far to the right, the holes to the left are too far to the left, and the holes at the bottom are too far down. 
I wonder if the holes in the body were plugged and re-drilled before the refinish, maybe to accommodate a shrunken celluloid guard.

The shape around the neck pocket is a little wonky, but nothing a little filing/sanding can't fix.  You can see my pencil mark around the treble side corner where a bit needs to be removed.

I ran in to both those problems with my AVRI, too.  The 'guard didn't quite line up perfectly, especially around the lower control area.  It was close enough to just gently finesse the screws in, though.

Also, be sure to file the neck pocket area very carefully.  I didn't take the time to do it properly, and gouged the Christmas fuck out of the neck.   Oh well, she's no case queen.  You can't even see it with the neck on, anyway.

[Dane_Brammage]

I saw mentioned earlier in this thread (and couldnt find otherwise on the forums) mention of nail holes in a 59 body? I was just curious what was nailed to what and how long did they do this?

Until the early/mid sixties, Fender used to drive a few nails into the body to give it something to sit on while they sprayed the paint.  If you look about halfway down this page you'll see what I mean.

[alexcantsleep]

Thanks Dane Brammage! Lots of other good info on that page as well.

Learn something everyday!

Alex!

[Dane_Brammage]

You're welcome.

But I've got to know: Was that what was keeping you up?  NOW can you sleep?

[alexcantsleep]

Hehe, no that one wasnt keepin me up. Actually Alex Cant Sleep was my old bands name and I came up with it when i was having a lot of trouble sleeping. I used to be bad about letting stuff get to me and worrying about it all night. I gave that up though, no more stress and no more trouble sleeping! Of course, I still stay up pretty late on this site though!

Alex!

[Dane_Brammage]

Finally got it all together:


And just for contrast with all those lovely Jaguar-by-the-pool pictures...

You can just see the remains of my above-ground pool in the background.  It collapsed last winter and I haven't got the wreckage all hauled away yet.

The bridge holes were oversized and deformed, so I drilled them out and plugged them.  The thimbles are .355" diameter so I drilled the holes 11/32" = .344", a little bit undersized.  After drilling, I removed the drill bit and completely closed the jaws on my drill press chuck to form a sort of cone that fit nicely inside the thimble, allowing me to press the thimbles into their holes with the drill press rather than hammer them in.  At the last minute, I remembered to stick a piece of guitar string in the lower thimble hole so the strings would ground to the pick guard.

I wire-brushed the anodizing off the under side of the pick guard around the lower bridge hole, the output jack, pots, switches, etc. so they could all ground to the pick guard.  The rhythm switch and bracket didn't fit the pick guard properly because of the pick guard thickness (or rather, thin-ness, as mentioned in a previous post.  Some washers helped to make up the thickness and make everything fit tightly.

The wiring went not too badly.  I started off following the diagram on the Fender website, but realized that it had some un-necessary grounds.  A little Googling turned up this one, which seemed to make more sense.  Plus it looks all vintage-y. 

Couldn't finish the wiring because I'm still missing the 50k roller pot (thank you GPR), so for now I have a kill switch and some decorative rollers.  I now understand why everybody is so particular about bundling and taping the wire to the underside of the pick guard - it's tough to get all that stuff to go through the neck pickup cavity and into the rhythm cavity!

Anyway, now it's together and playable.  Lots of fun!

Still to do:
- Find a "patent pending" tailpiece for it.  It's going to have the cheapo Allparts knockoff tailpiece on it until then.
- Remove the broken-off tailpiece screw.  I went at it with screw extractors and little drill bits and the Dremel, and just made it worse.  Think I'll have to just drill it out.
- Finish wiring the rhythm circuit, if my 50k pot ever shows up.
- Put in the glazing point to hold down the shield in the rhythm cavity.  I used a capacitor leg to make the ground from the neck pickup cavity to the rhythm cavity, and it's so rigid that it holds the shield in place!  But I'd like to go back and do it right.
- Replace the neck.  Right now it has a 22-fret left-handed Strat neck.    (It's what I had lying around.)
- Keep fiddling with the setup until I find the right combination of neck tilt vs. bridge height vs. saddle height.  I'm paranoid about the strings skipping in the saddle grooves, so I jacked it *way* up to start.  I need to go back and read all the threads on floating bridge setup.

[Soiouz]

Beautiful!

[k o y l]

Yep that's beautiful ! 

[the older brother]

That's a really nice looking guitar you got there!

Good work!

[glimmertwin]

Nice work...now get that strap worn in....

[the older brother]

Nice work...now get that strap worn in....

[theworkoffire]

lovely - have fun with it. You should stop teasing us and let us see it with the headstock. Don't be ashamed 

[bubbles_horwitz]

can someone verify the thickness of an original?

not sure if it's the same as a jazzmaster, but the gold 'guard on my duo-sonic is .064" and that's with a thin coat of gold paint on top.

it's hard to read the micrometer in the photo 'cause my camera sucks