Baritone Jazzmaster Partsmaster Experiences

[burnthisghost]

Dear all, I hope it is ok to start a new thread on this. Please bear with me, I’m rather new to the forum. Saw some posts here and there with folks that had a Baritone project but felt like starting a new one.

I ordered a new Thinline Jazzmaster body from the UK and plan on turning it into a Baritone JM. I play my Danelectro Baritone quite a lot and think this could be a great addition to my arsenal. Guess I’m looking for some tips & inspiration here?

What are your experiences with such a mod? Here in Germany seems like I could buy a Sub Sonic Fender Strat neck. Anyone has put that one on a JM body before?

What about bridge & trem on a Bari JM? The body I ordered is pre-drilled for a Tune-o-Matic bridge. I still have a JM Stoptail Plate thingy somewhere, are Baritone strings even long enough if I would stick to a JM trem?

Thanks and again, please be kind. I am a hobbyist modder, so I am willing to learn and grow along the way of these kinds of mods.

Here’s the body I purchased - think it could be a pretty dope JazzBari

Greetings from Germany, Alex

[burnthisghost]

And to whom it may concern: I am kinda in the Indie / Emo / Melancholic Pop realm. Since I already have the Dano with lipstick pickups I was considering getting some Gretsch’y type pickups. I liked that Gretsch Baritone with Filtertron style PUs, something in that ballpark.

What pickups do you have on your Baritone? Would you go for JM style Rhythm Circuit? I think that could sound cool to have both possibilities

[LarsL]

Please make shure the neck you go for is a conversion neck. So it will work with your body.
I dont know if the sub sonic neck is designed that way so it Works on bodys made for f scale.

[burnthisghost]

Please make shure the neck you go for is a conversion neck. So it will work with your body.
I dont know if the sub sonic neck is designed that way so it Works on bodys made for f scale.

Hey Lars, thanks for the message. I guess it is a conversion neck. It was the one used for this project:
Guitar.com Stratocaster Baritone conversion

Also a pretty cool idea I think, turning the Ed O’Brien into a baritone. Must give you pretty sick tones with the lower notes and the sustainer.

[LarsL]

That will be cool! And yes, that neck will work.

[MayTheFuzzBeWithYou]

Hey Alex!
Welcome to the forum!

I was planning to build something similar (Thinline JM Body) and made this Baritone Pickup Poll to get some ideas and first hand experiences.

I ended up with NOT getting the Baritone neck (for now) and will try a lower tuning on a regular neck first.
But I also already talked to Allpartswood in Italy (I‘m in Austria by the way, so concerning availability in the same „boat“ as you) - and they would offer to do a Custom Baritone Conversion with all you want (Maple Neck or use whatever fretboard and headstock, Binding, Blocks, etc.) for a small upcharge (50€ when I asked) from their regular custom menue.

If you like regular (small) Strat or Tele(!) headstocls there is plenty available - but if you like me prefer bigger headstocks (Jag/JM/CBS) then your options aren‘t many…

There are also some Baritone necks from China sold on ebay (but with those I‘m really not sure if they are really conversion necks).

With the Subsonic you should be fine!

I was playing with the thought of buying the same body as you did - looks great with all that sparkle - but I ended up with a Charcoal Frost JM body from Rosser that I won on eBay in a sleepless night (2am).

I use a Staytrem Bridge - they also sell Bass VI bridges (for bigger strings) but I don‘t know if these would fit your body without modification.

[burnthisghost]

Hey Alex!
Welcome to the forum!

I was planning to build something similar (Thinline JM Body) and made this Baritone Pickup Poll to get some ideas and first hand experiences.

I ended up with NOT getting the Baritone neck (for now) and will try a lower tuning on a regular neck first.
But I also already talked to Allpartswood in Italy (I‘m in Austria by the way, so concerning availability in the same „boat“ as you) - and they would offer to do a Custom Baritone Conversion with all you want (Maple Neck or use whatever fretboard and headstock, Binding, Blocks, etc.) for a small upcharge (50€ when I asked) from their regular custom menue.

If you like regular (small) Strat or Tele(!) headstocls there is plenty available - but if you like me prefer bigger headstocks (Jag/JM/CBS) then your options aren‘t many…

There are also some Baritone necks from China sold on ebay (but with those I‘m really not sure if they are really conversion necks).

With the Subsonic you should be fine!

I was playing with the thought of buying the same body as you did - looks great with all that sparkle - but I ended up with a Charcoal Frost JM body from Rosser that I won on eBay in a sleepless night (2am).

I use a Staytrem Bridge - they also sell Bass VI bridges (for bigger strings) but I don‘t know if these would fit your body without modification.

Thanks for the warm welcome! And that tip for that company in Italy I will make sure to check out, sounds like a good deal.
To my eye the bigger the headstock, the better. CBS or even Starcaster style headstock would be my preferred style.

I saw those Chinese ones on ebay, too. But I think it’s too much of a gamble. Have had bad experiences lately with Chinese orders. The WORST were some shims. They had NO angles, just cheap pieces of plywood with the angles printed on them. I complained and they wanted to give me credit for my next purchase

Charcoal frost sound cool, too! And I considered a stay trem as well. I guess I will try it out first with a TOM bridge since it’s what the body is pre-drilled for. We’ll see, will share the progress here…

[CorporateDisguise]

I have a parts baritone JM build. Warmoth conversion neck, Fender japan body, Seymour Duncan quarter pounder in the bridge, Novak JMV in the neck, 500k pots. Pretty happy overall. I’ll probably change out the bridge pickup, I just had it lying around in the parts drawer. I think it’s a little to girthy for a baritone and sounds a little to bass heavy. I’ll probably go with another JMV, or maybe some sort of P90. I may also go to 1 meg pots to brighten it up.

I have it tuned to Bb. The trem works great, and it surprisingly intonates on the stock bridge.

[Axolotl]

Welcome to OSG Alex!

I used a Fender Baritone conversion neck on my Squier Masics Jazzmaster and it's fantastic. (I also added a staytrem bridge and trem arm, AVRI tremolo and recently swapped the pups for AV65s. The Mascis' p-90s were way too hot for the sound I wanted for a bari). I had it tuned in B, but a few days ago I tuned up to C and I'm much happier in terms of tension and resonance. Here's a pic for reference.

[s_mcsleazy]

oh, i have one of those bodies in sunburst. i built it to be a jazzblaster thinline then my bandmate was like "i waunt it"


i do also have a baritone partsmaster too. don't remember who made the neck but i had a helluva time getting it into this country.


the major issue you're going to have is with tension. a higher break angle is a must on a bari jazzmaster

[burnthisghost]

Beautiful instruments @Axolotl and @s_mcsleazy! Really inspiring. I dig the look of the white parts and the Maple neck of that JM. And nice look of the sunburst one with the Wide Range Humbuckers.

So Staytrem would be a recommendation and look for a higher break angle you say? I will try with the TOM I think, but still have a 1° shim, maybe after inspection of the materials I will try that right away. Body and neck were ordered, we’ll see..

[CorporateDisguise]

Another thing to note, is you want to make sure you buy long enough strings. I bought a few sets of baritone strings that weren’t long enough, due to the trem. I got a set of D’Adarios that work, but are a bit to light for my needs. Recently, I custom ordered a set from string joy that are fantastic.

[ThePearDream]

Here's my JM baritone parts build.
Warmoth baritone conversion neck on a Squier CV body with a Charcoal Frost-esque nitro finish. The classic JM style pickups sound great. I use String Joy strings on this one, since those are some of the only baritone strings long enough for this vibrato. I think D'addario might be long enough, but they are too thin for my purposes.

[N0_Camping4U]

Here's my JM baritone parts build.
Warmoth baritone conversion neck on a Squier CV body with a Charcoal Frost-esque nitro finish. The classic JM style pickups sound great. I use String Joy strings on this one, since those are some of the only baritone strings long enough for this vibrato. I think D'addario might be long enough, but they are too thin for my purposes.

Damn you did the refin? How many do you have under your belt?

[ThePearDream]

Here's my JM baritone parts build.
Warmoth baritone conversion neck on a Squier CV body with a Charcoal Frost-esque nitro finish. The classic JM style pickups sound great. I use String Joy strings on this one, since those are some of the only baritone strings long enough for this vibrato. I think D'addario might be long enough, but they are too thin for my purposes.

Damn you did the refin? How many do you have under your belt?

Somewhere around 15? 20? I haven't kept count. This one is DupliColor and Deft, over the original (sunburst) Poly finish. The hard work of getting a smooth, level base, was already done, so it was only half the work that starting from scratch would have been.