Return of the Jag-Stang II

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Re: Return of the Jag-Stang II

Post by HNB » Tue Oct 26, 2021 6:14 am

LOL Every time I see one of these it looks like a Jag-Stang gradually turning back into a Mustang. :D
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Re: Return of the Jag-Stang II

Post by Shadoweclipse13 » Tue Oct 26, 2021 8:04 am

HNB wrote:
Tue Oct 26, 2021 6:14 am
LOL Every time I see one of these it looks like a Jag-Stang gradually turning back into a Mustang. :D
I think that's the only way to make a Jag-Stang look right ;D
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Re: Return of the Jag-Stang II

Post by JSett » Tue Oct 26, 2021 11:08 am

Well, just as an observation that's been annoying me for a long time and especially now with my recent anger at the f*cking awful Mustang design...

How come no-one actually puts on the Jaguar vibrato & bridge? We ALL know that is the superior one, and definitely 'works best'. Kurts original concept clearly says "whatever bridge and tailpiece works best"... so why insist on using the inferior one?
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Re: Return of the Jag-Stang II

Post by HedonismBot » Tue Oct 26, 2021 12:30 pm

johnnysomersett wrote:
Tue Oct 26, 2021 11:08 am
Well, just as an observation that's been annoying me for a long time and especially now with my recent anger at the f*cking awful Mustang design...

How come no-one actually puts on the Jaguar vibrato & bridge? We ALL know that is the superior one, and definitely 'works best'. Kurts original concept clearly says "whatever bridge and tailpiece works best"... so why insist on using the inferior one?
You’re probably right. I assume that, since Kurt didn’t use whammies much, the key word in this quote is “whatever...”

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Re: Return of the Jag-Stang II

Post by JSett » Tue Oct 26, 2021 12:44 pm

HedonismBot wrote:
Tue Oct 26, 2021 12:30 pm
johnnysomersett wrote:
Tue Oct 26, 2021 11:08 am
Well, just as an observation that's been annoying me for a long time and especially now with my recent anger at the f*cking awful Mustang design...

How come no-one actually puts on the Jaguar vibrato & bridge? We ALL know that is the superior one, and definitely 'works best'. Kurts original concept clearly says "whatever bridge and tailpiece works best"... so why insist on using the inferior one?
You’re probably right. I assume that, since Kurt didn’t use whammies much, the key word in this quote is “whatever...”
For sure, I'm more amazed that I've not seen someone, out of all the small builders, do it considering the option was there in KCs design.
Silly Rabbit, don't you know scooped mids are for kids?

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Re: Return of the Jag-Stang II

Post by Shadoweclipse13 » Tue Oct 26, 2021 3:33 pm

johnnysomersett wrote:
Tue Oct 26, 2021 12:44 pm
HedonismBot wrote:
Tue Oct 26, 2021 12:30 pm
johnnysomersett wrote:
Tue Oct 26, 2021 11:08 am
Well, just as an observation that's been annoying me for a long time and especially now with my recent anger at the f*cking awful Mustang design...

How come no-one actually puts on the Jaguar vibrato & bridge? We ALL know that is the superior one, and definitely 'works best'. Kurts original concept clearly says "whatever bridge and tailpiece works best"... so why insist on using the inferior one?
You’re probably right. I assume that, since Kurt didn’t use whammies much, the key word in this quote is “whatever...”
For sure, I'm more amazed that I've not seen someone, out of all the small builders, do it considering the option was there in KCs design.
I believe the Faction Templates (most of which came from Paul Rhoney here) have an option for a JM/Jag trem cavity.
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Re: Return of the Jag-Stang II

Post by AcrylicSuperman » Tue Oct 26, 2021 10:30 pm

johnnysomersett wrote:
Tue Oct 26, 2021 11:08 am
Well, just as an observation that's been annoying me for a long time and especially now with my recent anger at the f*cking awful Mustang design...

How come no-one actually puts on the Jaguar vibrato & bridge? We ALL know that is the superior one, and definitely 'works best'. Kurts original concept clearly says "whatever bridge and tailpiece works best"... so why insist on using the inferior one?
Having spoke to Larry Brooks, he stated that Kurt wanted his design to reflect the Mustang more than the Jaguar. Apparently, Kurt wanted 3 Jagstangs, each in the color of the original 64 Mustangs. Despite Earnie Bailey's claims about the contours, Larry stated that the lack of contours was to mirror the slab bodies of the early Mustangs and was discussed with Kurt. The Jagstang took after the Mustang for one simple reason and that's because he approved it. But in all honesty, Kurt decked the trem and put a tuneomatic in the bridge any way and it's not like he used it. "Whatever bridge and tailpiece works best" was not written for function, but rather for the over all look.

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Re: Return of the Jag-Stang II

Post by neutralomen » Fri Apr 22, 2022 10:25 am

Been a while gang. While I don't have any means of producing my design, I did get some professional mods on my Mexican Jag-Stang Reissue.

Full list of mods:
-refret to narrow tall 6105 frets.
-replane fingerboard to 9.5''
-bone nut
-American Pro Jazz/Jag bridge with 9.5'' radius, improved string spacing, installing upside down for easier intonation
-custom pickguard meticulously measured to duplicate the original but have a SS mustang layout
-Slight pickup cavity routing to fit the bridge pickup in the right place
-black slide switches
-Fralin Blues special neck pickup
-Dimarzio Super Distortion S bridge pickup
-wiring: neck switches in phase-off-out of phase. Bridge switches South split-off-series humbucker
-500k pots
-strings-custom 10.5-46 in Eb. Used tension calculator to get the tension equivalent to 9-42 in standard on a full scale neck.

Image
Image
Image
Image
Image

In my opinion, if the production Jag-Stang was more like this, it would be more popular. Thoughts?

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Re: Return of the Jag-Stang II

Post by JackFawkes » Fri Apr 22, 2022 12:41 pm

After looking through all of these, I think my favorite iteration is still the Mk.VII and the very first model in this thread, so much in fact that if someone was routing and sanding that body from alder, I'd buy one right now. (I also like that red Amon 7.L, it's not too far off...)
I've been tempted for a long time to just get Warmoth's and cut/sand it down to the proportions I like, but I'd have to get it with "no bridge rout" and place my own holes for a Toronado hardtail (which I'm not well equipped to do).

Jack

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Re: Return of the Jag-Stang II

Post by neutralomen » Fri Apr 22, 2022 2:56 pm

I do think I went too far from VII, but there are some things about the later ones I like. I'll probably reincorporate some stuff from previous verisions for the final. I do intend on making this someday. i'll let you know when I figure out how.

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Re: Return of the Jag-Stang II

Post by ccozzu » Mon May 09, 2022 7:38 am

hey man love your thread really dope to see other people shamelessly geek out about this stuff lmao. if i could offer any help, earnie bailey talked about what kurt liked and didn’t like about the jagstang after he got it.

the production body was actually not too far off from his vision, he just wanted contours and a more “traditional” fender shape so i actually think using the standard jagstang as a base would be about 80-90% there.
the main issues kurt had with the jagstang were less to do with the body shape and more the hardware. he had wanted a jaguar trem, tune o matic bridge, strat input jack, and instead of mustang switches he preferred a 3 way toggle switch as seen on his ferrington custom mustang and jagstang sketches.

there was a sketch he made that seemed to be much later than the polaroid mock-up that looked close to the production body and had 3 pickups with an angled middle pickup and straight neck and bridge pickups seemingly modeled after his ferrington custom. it also had a 3 way pickup switch instead of mustang switches again borrowing from the ferrington. in this case addam’s custom made body is the best shape i’ve seen being extremely close to the sketches and production, while having a traditional fender “smoothness.” i think if you used that as a base and maybe pinched the left side of the body a little more and slightly increased the size of the top horn it would be absolutely perfect.

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Re: Return of the Jag-Stang II

Post by AcrylicSuperman » Mon May 09, 2022 1:12 pm

ccozzu wrote:
Mon May 09, 2022 7:38 am
hey man love your thread really dope to see other people shamelessly geek out about this stuff lmao. if i could offer any help, earnie bailey talked about what kurt liked and didn’t like about the jagstang after he got it.

the production body was actually not too far off from his vision, he just wanted contours and a more “traditional” fender shape so i actually think using the standard jagstang as a base would be about 80-90% there.
the main issues kurt had with the jagstang were less to do with the body shape and more the hardware. he had wanted a jaguar trem, tune o matic bridge, strat input jack, and instead of mustang switches he preferred a 3 way toggle switch as seen on his ferrington custom mustang and jagstang sketches.

there was a sketch he made that seemed to be much later than the polaroid mock-up that looked close to the production body and had 3 pickups with an angled middle pickup and straight neck and bridge pickups seemingly modeled after his ferrington custom. it also had a 3 way pickup switch instead of mustang switches again borrowing from the ferrington. in this case addam’s custom made body is the best shape i’ve seen being extremely close to the sketches and production, while having a traditional fender “smoothness.” i think if you used that as a base and maybe pinched the left side of the body a little more and slightly increased the size of the top horn it would be absolutely perfect.
According to Larry Brooks, the builder of the Jagstang, when he spoke with Kurt in his Hollywood home, Kurt specifically asked for no contours because he wanted to make a signature model that would be cheap and affordable for new players and professional players alike. He wanted it to be based on the '64 mustangs which also had no contours, and to be finished the same way.

If at any time Kurt had desired contours, he could have contacted Larry and had them done. At no time between February of 1993 to April of 1994 did Kurt ever request them. As a matter of fact, Earnie offered to put contours in the blue prototype and Kurt turned him down. I think it is safer to assume that Earnie liked the guitar better with contours and he even went to Mark Wittenberg at Fender about making changes to the guitar, all while he was not currently a guitar tech for Nirvana. Earnie is a great source of information, but he has also been known to be wrong, such as his claim that it had a DiMarzio H8 humbucker in it that was swapped for a JB. The jagstang had a seymour duncan '59 that never got swapped and it left Fender like that, because Larry actually sent a picture of the guitar in the custom shop with the duncan in it. Instead the H8 came out of one of Kurt's strats that was given to Pat Smear.

The production body was vastly off from his vision. The only approved body from Kurt was the Blue prototype. Larry Brooks stated that he used the same CNC machine and template to cut out the body. The two prototype shapes are not at all similar. They are two different bodies. Reason for this, in my research, was that there are a few hushed claims that the red prototype was stolen. Fender quickly created what we call the red prototype based on the cardboard cutouts. Larry had never seen those cutouts before. He did take an apprentice under his wing and had them create potential templates for Kurt's approval using Larry's Mustang and a Jazzmaster template because fender didn't have a template for a Jaguar or a Mustang at the time (Hence why Kurt had to buy 10 mustangs from Japan). Those templates were from that process but were not what became the final shape. However, fender did use the cutout of just the body to create the "red prototype". And if you directly compare the craftsman ship of the two side by side, it's pretty obvious that Larry didn't build the "red prototype" we have today. Considering he used his own guitar to make a mustang template, even the pickup angles are different.

Also, the sketches you mention, especially the ones from his journals, almost all date back to 1992 for the Ferrington and after Kurt got the Ferrington with all the bells and whistles, he went back to something much more simple because it was more practical.

Fender recieved three designs from Kurt. One was cut up polaroids given to Larry, one was faxed over (the blue painted one everyone knows about) and an additional revision of featuring a large CBS headstock. According to Larry, he asked for Mustang configuration and switching, but he left the tremolo open to whatever worked best in the design. It ended up with the mustang trem for obvious reasons. Before the body was finalized, a version was sent to Kurt for approval. He slightly reshaped the butt end and requested a little more length on the jaguar horn. Aside from those two changes, the only other change he requested to Larry was giving it the CBS headstock, which happened after they sent the prototype body to Kurt and he bolted his Compstang neck to it.

The shape of the guitar is hit or miss with people. But it was exactly as Kurt requested it. These myths about Kurt hating it are greatly exaggerated and stem exclusively from Earnie who spent less than a month with Kurt and the guitar. As a matter of fact, Kurt didn't even play it live until Earnie left the tour. Having said that, there is a massive thread on this forum that digs into the history and reverse engineering of the prototype(s). It might be worth a read.

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Re: Return of the Jag-Stang II

Post by ccozzu » Mon May 09, 2022 4:09 pm

oh wow everything i thought i knew about the jagstang was completely wrong lmaoooo. that’s interesting the difference between the blue prototype and the red one. has anyone recreated the body shape of the blue one? i find it interesting that earnie was wrong about what pickups were used but i guess it’s cause he stopped working for them before the european tour so he wouldn’t know exactly what kurt was using. thanks for the write up man must’ve been a lot of work. appreciate it tho!

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Re: Return of the Jag-Stang II

Post by andy_tchp » Mon May 09, 2022 4:37 pm

ccozzu wrote:
Mon May 09, 2022 4:09 pm
oh wow everything i thought i knew about the jagstang was completely wrong lmaoooo. that’s interesting the difference between the blue prototype and the red one. has anyone recreated the body shape of the blue one? i find it interesting that earnie was wrong about what pickups were used but i guess it’s cause he stopped working for them before the european tour so he wouldn’t know exactly what kurt was using. thanks for the write up man must’ve been a lot of work. appreciate it tho!
If you think that's good, you'll probably want to sit down and spend the time to review this thread.
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Re: Return of the Jag-Stang II

Post by neutralomen » Wed May 11, 2022 6:16 pm

Just wanted to say I'm glad it doesn't have contours. To me the radiused slab body is really part of the mustang vibe and the 70s mustangs with contours look wrong to me.

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