MOVED - Jagmaster Project

[scotty66]

So, I just bought a Jagmaster off of Ebay for $150. Sunburst with the tortoise guard. My plan is to:

Strip off the sunburst to refinish in Arctic White

Fill the existing trem cavity.

Install a Bigsby B50 trem with rocker bridge.

Install GFS Dream 90's ( after painting the black cover cream) and upgrade the pots and 3-way switch

Down the road upgrade the tuners.

I'm not looking to totally Jazz it out, but make it "my" guitar. I may  post progress pics along the way. My biggest challenge is filling the trem cavity. Any suggestions ? I have a general plan.

[scotty66]

So here's a few pics of the Jagmaster project so far. I had sanded, primed and put a few coats of paint on when I noticed the grain coming through. So, I stripped it back down and have 3 coats of Minwax Polycrylic on it as a grain filler/sanding sealer. I am actually glad  that I had to sand it down again because it gave me the chance to round out some the contours that were flattened by the sander.

Here's also a pic of the headstock which I painted as well. All it needs now is the decal and some Poly , the new tuners and string trees.

I also painted the pup's the same color that the body and headstock will be. Just wanted to see how it looks....







There's still some cruddies from the old finish I need to clean out.

[dug]

cool!

[fenderjeff]

very nice body!

[Ryan]

Wow, that's a really nice body for a Squier. Good luck filling that trem rout . . . that's a tall order.

[jop]

Too bad it has the trem rout. It has such a nice grain.

[scotty66]

It does has a nice grain to it.

I've decided to forgo filling the trem cavity. Talked to a luthier nearby and he recommended not doing it with the way wood expands/contracts.Especially with this lovely Ohio Valley weather. So, I'll just save me pennies for a Jazzmaster down the road.

I hope to smooth sand it in the morning and shoot a coat of primer on it before I head to work. Pics to follow......

[CROSS_guitars]

Yeah it's a shame the Jagmasters have strat trem routes. I would have preferred a stop tailpiece and TOM bridge.

Your luthier is right, no matter how well you fill the trem route and how much paint you put over it, it will eventually warp through. You will always see where it was, unless you apply 1mm veneer over the whole thing.

[scotty66]

So here's the body with a couple coats of paint..... the Polycrylic made a huge difference in paint coverage.

[elvislives]

Note to self:  Buy some Minwax Polycrylic before starting next project.

[scotty66]

Here's some "progress" pics.... I finally got the body painted and the first two coats of poly on it. Now the wait of 3 days to wet sand and poly again, if needed. I hope the finish smooths out after the wet sand !

I painted the pups and sprayed a light coat of poly on them to keep the paint from potentially flaking. Here's a before/after pic.They were black.

After my decal comes in I can poly the headstock and neck.

[Ryan]

Let me be the first to say that the sanded black pickup look phenomenally cooler than any other pickup I've ever seen.

[dug]

Let me be the first to say that the sanded black pickup look phenomenally cooler than any other pickup I've ever seen.

agreed +1

[scotty66]

Been a while since an update:

Here it is painted and a few coats of poly on , except for the headstock. Still waiting for my custom decal to come in. I think the painted pups turned very well ( yes, the sanded pups looked cool too....maybe for another project!) . I now have the guard rewired with 250k pots and the pups installed. Tomorrow I'll be putting a few more coats of poly on. The Poly adds a nice yellowing effect to the white.  I also stripped the neck to bare wood and put about 4 coats of Minwax Honey Pine Gloss on. Looks good. I'll get a pic of that tomorrow.

[garyptaszek]

looks cool... not sure on the Hum-sized P90's... I've never had the chance to hear some. I sticking standard strat single coils in my jag... its gonna be a clean beast.