I'm a noob with an abused, neglected, poorly-refinned 1963 Jaguar — help me bring it back to glory, OSG!
Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2020 6:25 pm
Hey there. Will here. So as luck would have it, I am a drummer that plays guitar sometimes, and I am in possession of a '63 Jag. For years, I thought this guitar was a cobbled-together partscaster that wasn't worth putting strings on, until one day I did just that. The pickups sounded great. It was still ridiculously difficult to play (it had the original bridge, after all), so it went back in the case. Then one day our apartment building burned down.
As we were putting our lives back together, my GF and I found that this guitar was undamaged (by the fire, anyway), so I decided to hop on here and see if you fine people knew anything about old Jag copies. Turned out this is the real deal — the neck, body, pickups, pickguard, neck plate and tremolo are all original (neck heel says Aug 1963, which jives with the neck plate's serial number). As stunned as I was, the guitar still had a ton of problems, so I put the project on the back burner until I knew more about guitars in general and had the time and money to give it the attention it deserved.
Well, that time is now. If you're down to follow me on this journey, I will be updating this thread as time goes on, all the way until it's "finished" (which to me, will mean refinished paint, relacquered neck and headstock, a matching painted headstock, and parts that while they might not necessarily be vintage or "vintage-correct," will make the guitar function the way it was intended to or better).
But I need your help. There are a bunch of things that need fixing, replacing, updating and just plain re-doing — and while I know a little bit about how guitars work, I don't know ANYTHING about soldering, sanding or paint, and to be honest I'd like to outsource those things, but even then I'm not sure who to ask. So here I am, asking you!
But let's start with what I CAN do — and what the known issues are.
The Good:
As I said, the body, neck, neck plate, pickups, pickguard and tremolo are all original and working well. The frets might need a repair here or there, but I don't think they need replacing. The tremolo seems stuck closed, but that's probably an easy fix. The three switches work (they're a little noisy), the pots work (non-original), the jack works, and the pickups work (pretty microphonic but I like it). The controls on the upper bout are all disconnected so I have no idea if they work or not, but I wouldn't care too much if they stayed that way — I've heard finding the correct parts is difficult. I've replaced the bridge with a modern Mustang bridge (I like it, but I might go Mastery later on). The pickguard has shrunk quite a bit and that's created some problems (the pickups are now too big to fit through their holes), but as it is right now, the guitar is playable, and sounds great.
The Bad:
Some time in the last 57 years, someone did a refin. They did not do a good job. They painted the body a thick black with a large brush, leaving drips everywhere and setting the guitar down on something while it was still wet (they used so much paint that I have no idea what the original color was — I'm guessing sunburst tho). They replaced the tuners, and when they did that, they moved the original string tree and added another in a different spot, then they removed all that and lacquered over the holes that the old tuners and string tree left, leaving thick lacquer drips and an uneven coating along the edges of the fretboard, which is now chipping away. They replaced the main clay dots with MoP (the side dots are still clay). They replaced the volume and tone pots with tall ones. Most of the screws are incorrect — I wouldn't care about that, but the pickup screws are too large to fit and are mostly stripped. They also (poorly) replaced the frets with jumbo ones.
The Replacement Parts I've Bought So Far:
As I said I got a Mustang bridge to make it playable, but I'm not 100% certain the radius is correct — it seems like the two E strings are really low and the four middle strings are all the same height — but maybe it's just that all the fret ends stick up a little more than they should. I also bought two 250K split-shaft short pots, some Fender tuners, and an accurate-looking waterslide decal from croxguitars.com, all of which I've yet to install.
The Replacement Parts I Still Need, But Don't Know Where To Find:
The trem bar was lost long ago. Which one do I get?
Which pickup screws should I buy, and where?
Where do I buy paint? Lacquer?
OK. You might be saying, "Dude, you have a pre-CBS Fender that sounds great, why would you paint it? Just play it!" Well, the replacement tuners not only don't match each other, they seem like they're seizing up, and tuning the thing is a bummer. And if I'm gonna replace the tuners, I might as well put the string tree back where it was, and if I do that, well, now I have two extra holes in the headstock, and since the original Fender decal fell off long ago anyway, I might as well paint the headstock to cover the holes — and if I'm going that far, the paint on the body is really terrible too... you can see where I'm going with this.
The paint we've settled on is Shell Pink. I don't think I want it "relic'd", but the metal stuff on the guitar looks old, so maybe new paint would look silly next to it? I'm up for suggestions there. Maybe just a bit of cracking in the lacquer? That's a thing, right? I'd like to keep the pickguard (it is SO COOL) but I'm not sure how the pickups will ever fit through it again short of Dremel-ing it (oh god it hurts even typing that), but maybe that's a thing people do. I don't know, I'm new!
SO. If you know someone that does this type of work — body repaint, headstock repaint, waterslide decal placement and neck lacquer — in Minneapolis or even just in Minnesota, let me know and I'll get a conversation going. So far I've reached out to Willie's American Guitars twice (voicemail and email) and gotten no answer, and DaVinci Custom Guitars once (FB message) and also gotten no answer. I've found someone to do the tuners and pots and setup stuff, but I really don't trust myself to do the paint work, so if you know someone, please reach out.
Thanks OSG!
Will
P.S. Some pics: https://imgur.com/a/UdKA4u0
As we were putting our lives back together, my GF and I found that this guitar was undamaged (by the fire, anyway), so I decided to hop on here and see if you fine people knew anything about old Jag copies. Turned out this is the real deal — the neck, body, pickups, pickguard, neck plate and tremolo are all original (neck heel says Aug 1963, which jives with the neck plate's serial number). As stunned as I was, the guitar still had a ton of problems, so I put the project on the back burner until I knew more about guitars in general and had the time and money to give it the attention it deserved.
Well, that time is now. If you're down to follow me on this journey, I will be updating this thread as time goes on, all the way until it's "finished" (which to me, will mean refinished paint, relacquered neck and headstock, a matching painted headstock, and parts that while they might not necessarily be vintage or "vintage-correct," will make the guitar function the way it was intended to or better).
But I need your help. There are a bunch of things that need fixing, replacing, updating and just plain re-doing — and while I know a little bit about how guitars work, I don't know ANYTHING about soldering, sanding or paint, and to be honest I'd like to outsource those things, but even then I'm not sure who to ask. So here I am, asking you!
But let's start with what I CAN do — and what the known issues are.
The Good:
As I said, the body, neck, neck plate, pickups, pickguard and tremolo are all original and working well. The frets might need a repair here or there, but I don't think they need replacing. The tremolo seems stuck closed, but that's probably an easy fix. The three switches work (they're a little noisy), the pots work (non-original), the jack works, and the pickups work (pretty microphonic but I like it). The controls on the upper bout are all disconnected so I have no idea if they work or not, but I wouldn't care too much if they stayed that way — I've heard finding the correct parts is difficult. I've replaced the bridge with a modern Mustang bridge (I like it, but I might go Mastery later on). The pickguard has shrunk quite a bit and that's created some problems (the pickups are now too big to fit through their holes), but as it is right now, the guitar is playable, and sounds great.
The Bad:
Some time in the last 57 years, someone did a refin. They did not do a good job. They painted the body a thick black with a large brush, leaving drips everywhere and setting the guitar down on something while it was still wet (they used so much paint that I have no idea what the original color was — I'm guessing sunburst tho). They replaced the tuners, and when they did that, they moved the original string tree and added another in a different spot, then they removed all that and lacquered over the holes that the old tuners and string tree left, leaving thick lacquer drips and an uneven coating along the edges of the fretboard, which is now chipping away. They replaced the main clay dots with MoP (the side dots are still clay). They replaced the volume and tone pots with tall ones. Most of the screws are incorrect — I wouldn't care about that, but the pickup screws are too large to fit and are mostly stripped. They also (poorly) replaced the frets with jumbo ones.
The Replacement Parts I've Bought So Far:
As I said I got a Mustang bridge to make it playable, but I'm not 100% certain the radius is correct — it seems like the two E strings are really low and the four middle strings are all the same height — but maybe it's just that all the fret ends stick up a little more than they should. I also bought two 250K split-shaft short pots, some Fender tuners, and an accurate-looking waterslide decal from croxguitars.com, all of which I've yet to install.
The Replacement Parts I Still Need, But Don't Know Where To Find:
The trem bar was lost long ago. Which one do I get?
Which pickup screws should I buy, and where?
Where do I buy paint? Lacquer?
OK. You might be saying, "Dude, you have a pre-CBS Fender that sounds great, why would you paint it? Just play it!" Well, the replacement tuners not only don't match each other, they seem like they're seizing up, and tuning the thing is a bummer. And if I'm gonna replace the tuners, I might as well put the string tree back where it was, and if I do that, well, now I have two extra holes in the headstock, and since the original Fender decal fell off long ago anyway, I might as well paint the headstock to cover the holes — and if I'm going that far, the paint on the body is really terrible too... you can see where I'm going with this.
The paint we've settled on is Shell Pink. I don't think I want it "relic'd", but the metal stuff on the guitar looks old, so maybe new paint would look silly next to it? I'm up for suggestions there. Maybe just a bit of cracking in the lacquer? That's a thing, right? I'd like to keep the pickguard (it is SO COOL) but I'm not sure how the pickups will ever fit through it again short of Dremel-ing it (oh god it hurts even typing that), but maybe that's a thing people do. I don't know, I'm new!
SO. If you know someone that does this type of work — body repaint, headstock repaint, waterslide decal placement and neck lacquer — in Minneapolis or even just in Minnesota, let me know and I'll get a conversation going. So far I've reached out to Willie's American Guitars twice (voicemail and email) and gotten no answer, and DaVinci Custom Guitars once (FB message) and also gotten no answer. I've found someone to do the tuners and pots and setup stuff, but I really don't trust myself to do the paint work, so if you know someone, please reach out.
Thanks OSG!
Will
P.S. Some pics: https://imgur.com/a/UdKA4u0