Parts Master Vs American Jazzmaster?

Talk about modding or building your own guitar from scratch.
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ChrisDesign
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Parts Master Vs American Jazzmaster?

Post by ChrisDesign » Wed Oct 14, 2020 2:58 am

What's better, a parts jazz master home build (using fender, warmth, etc.) or buying an American made Fender Jazzmaster?
"I own a '66 Jaguar. That's the guitar I polish, and baby - I refuse to let anyone touch it when I jump into the crowd." - Kurt Cobain

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jvin248
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Re: Parts Master Vs American Jazzmaster?

Post by jvin248 » Wed Oct 14, 2020 4:41 am

.

How well to you do setups?
How good is 'your guy' who you take it to to do the setup?
How handy are you?

That's where it is at.

I often prefer buying a "$50 beater" and fixing it up, leveling frets included so it plays as well as Custom Shop models. I swap out control parts, often leave or mix and match pickups. Sometimes swap tuners, sometimes deck/block the bridge. I have one Epiphone LP Junior that I have under $50 in replacement parts AND the guitar both, that gets played more often than the Gibson models in the fleet -- it's fun, it's easy to play, and it sounds great.

Depends what you want to do.

.

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HarlowTheFish
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Re: Parts Master Vs American Jazzmaster?

Post by HarlowTheFish » Wed Oct 14, 2020 5:01 am

If you're not fussed about specs and don't like/want to mess with swapping parts, doing setups, and fine-tuning, a MIA or even a higher-end MIM will be a really solid player that just works and won't need a lot of effort to get playing nice.

If you want to really dial in something that's tuned specifically for your preferences as far as spec, sound, and playability, a parts build is better. You'll need to put in a lot more work to get everything set up just right, it might turn out a bit cheaper or a bit more expensive (depending on what parts specifically you're going for - there's a lot of variation in pricing) than a production guitar, and you might have to do finishing and assembly yourself (again, depending on what you go for).

Really depends on what you're looking to get out of it, how much you're willing to spend, and how much elbow grease you wanna put into it (or have your tech/luthier put into it). For this kind of guitar I'd personally go for either the high-end US ones (AUltra or APro), but those are super pricey, or for a parts built - these guitars have so many parts that need to get dialed in already that you either pay a bunch to have to do less work, or just do all the work yourself (which IMO lets you get everything customized perfectly to how you want it to play).

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mcatano
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Re: Parts Master Vs American Jazzmaster?

Post by mcatano » Wed Oct 14, 2020 7:51 am

If you care about resale value, USA Fender; if you don't, parts builds are expensive fun.

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Re: Parts Master Vs American Jazzmaster?

Post by adamrobertt » Wed Oct 14, 2020 12:51 pm

There's no real reason to build a partsmaster other than for fun or because you want non-standard specs that you won't be able to find outside of a custom build.

I've built two partsmasters - they were great fun, and resulted in decent sounding, playable guitars. But I don't have either of them anymore, and my USA made Jazzmaster blows them out of the water.

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