I got this body from an OSG member a while back. Then last week I scored myself an older Japanese made neck. I don't know what year it's from because someone sanded off the Made in or Crafted in part and the serial number. At least they refin'd that section nicely so you can't see it.
I bought a custom 5-ply pickguard. I think this looks a lot better than the 1-ply solid black that the HH Special originally came with (which i never had anyway). It really enhances the sexiness of the jaguar design.
The pickups are some custom made HBs i had made about 17 years ago! They were made by a guy named Kevin Smith aka Smits Pickups. These are Low-Wind pickups with A2 magnets and no potting. The neck is 6.2k and the Bridge is about 7.4k. They sound like slightly fatter single coils and the guitar still sounds like a jaguar. Sadly he's no longer in business. All the pickups he rewound for me were the best I've ever had. My Duo Sonic has '69 pickups that he rewound and they sound like vintage pickups. He also rewound some '59 JM pickups i had years ago. They sounded better than the Fralin and Novak rewinds I had.
The pots are 1meg for volume and 500k for tone, .022 uF cap. This combo gives me a nice balanced chime-y clean and articulate overdrive. I do have the strangle switch engaged but most of the time I don't need it (will be great for recording tho!). The rhythm ckt is not wired in but I'll probably use the switch for an out of phase option.
I've got some large cosmo knobs on it for now. I might switch to normal Jaguar/MXR knobs. Strings are 12-52 tuned Eb atm for our show next week.
Side Question... Does anyone know when Fender Japan stopped using the "silver" dot inlays? It has those and the profile is a slim C like the older necks. It could be an early to mid 90s MIJ neck but there's no way to tell.
But always assumed he meant fender USA. But the USA fretboards are never waxy and smooth like the Japanese necks.
