Finished my Jazzuar!
Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2015 12:12 pm
Hey guys, been hanging out for a while getting some insight while building my Jazzmaster/Jaguar and I just completed it.
I ordered a standard alder Jazzmaster body from One Eyed Jacks and a fullscale neck from Warmoth (7.5" with "boatneck" V profile). I dyed the body with Red Mahogany transtint in water. This process took a lot of experiementing. I sanded it back a few times before I was happy with the blend of the grains on this piece of wood. Scary stuff when dyeing! The neck also took several attempts. Tried amber shellac, wiped that back with alcohol, then tried blond shellac with amber transtint, wiped that back, then finally just dyed it with the transtint. Both came out OK but not as good as I'd have liked. Oh well. I then applied many coats of Tru-Oil on the neck and body. I wanted a glossy look and feel so I knew I'd be up around 20 applications of thin wipe-on coats with my fingers. I'd probably go that route again. Beats spraying.
For the headstock logo, I signed my last name on a paper many times and found the one I liked, then imported a picture of that to Illustrator and converted it to a vector file. I found the information on how to do this by googling other people's processes until I found one that I liked. Using a guy from ebay, I sent him the file and he sold me back goldflake waterslide decals. After burning through about 5 decals, I finally figured out how to clearcoat over them without having to pre-mist the decal sheets with lacquer. I ended up just spraying lacquer from a can over the decal. Behlens lacquer sure is nice to spray on a cold dry day! I let the neck and body sit and cure for a few weeks.
So I wanted the redburst/cream theme that I had previously loved from my Tele build and had the finishing supplies to do so. I ordered a custom cream 3-ply Jazzmaster pickguard from Pickguardian with only pickup and bridgepost routes. My plan was to modify this guard to fit the Jaguar control plates. That part was easy enough with a Dremel and file. I had to route out the body to accept the components from those Jaguar plates too. Kinda scary and a pain to use power tools on a freshly finished body. I wanted a 4-way blade pickup selector for bridge/parallel/series/neck. I love having those tones available. On the tone pot, I used a Dimarzio 500k push-pull with a highpass capacitor ala Jaguar strangle switch. Subtle but perhaps I can use it somewhere in the right song. I sprang for an Allesandro volume pot (500k audio in this case). I'm still getting used to its feel but I guess I wouldn't drop that kind of money on a pot in the future. I figured I'd spend the money this time to see what it was all about. It's nice but not thaaat nice for me, personally.
For the rhythm circuit, I decided to ditch the original and add in an on-board fuzz circuit. It's pretty much perfect for such things: on/off switch and two roller pots for volume and gain, etc. I wanted a ratty one so I settled on the Fuzzrite, then heard the Catalinbred Merkin and instantly wanted that thing. So I found a verified layout and built up a board and installed it into my wiring harness. Added a flushmount battery box on the back of the guitar with a stereo output jack to disable the battery when not plugged in. I shielded the cavities in copper foil and used a shielded wire scheme from the output jack all the way to the rhythm circuit plates and back to the fuzz and to the selector switch. Just braided the pickup wires to that. I was concerned about having an fuzz circuit and batter so close to the pickups so I think I went overboard with shielding to try and minimize it. So after wiring up the harness, I wanted to test the fuzz circuit to make sure it worked (prolly should've checked that before but I was optimistic) and wouldn't you know, the whole harness worked perfectly, including the fuzz! That was a relief. Not the easiest pickguard/plates setup to wire a harness to in my case but I got the hang of it eventually.
For pickups, I went with Lollar's standard Jazzmaster set. They are quality! I don't have any firsthand experience with Jazzmasters so I can't comment comparatively. I can say they sound great though.
I went with a Mastery bridge and vibrato unit. I thought about a Staytrem bridge and then retrofiting a fender vibrato with their arm adapter but figured I'd only be about $100+ short of the Mastery and since I had the savings I might as well go for whole package. It is indeed a solid piece of machinery. I worked on drawings and looked around for someone locally who could laser cut a slot in the stainless steel tremelo base plate so that I could install a Fender trem-lock button but the cost of doing was crazy high. I even designed a couple alternative locking mechanisms that installed into the wood of the body and utilized one of the plate mounting screws but I've yet to actually go through with it. I was convinced I'd miss having a lock on the trem in the case of a broken string so we'll see what experience tells me after a long time of playing shows with it. Speaking of strings, I went 11ga Thomastick-infeld flatwounds with a plain 18 G string and I love these strings! They are bright enough that I still feel a good definition in the band. On this guitar, they do feel slinkier than my 11g set of DR roundwounds on my tele but that is a combination of the string length and type too. They feel slinky but also heavier when I go to bend a whole step or more so I think that has to do with the added length behind the bridge.
Anyway, I just wanted to post a follow-up on my build and maybe some of you could glean some information from my experience since that's exactly what I look for when I'm scouring the internet with a build in mind. I have to say this is one of my favorite playing guitars. It's just so enjoyable to play. The action is easy and the neck feels great. I used an unbleached bone nut and took the effort to do it right. My intonation is pretty nice all the way up too. I am just elated! It's scary when you put this much effort into something and you can only do your best and hope it sounds and plays well or that you'll bond with it. You know it's a step up when everyone in the band keeps mentioning how good it sounds!
Also, I must mention that I recently learned about pickup height. Yeah I know, I've read about its importance forever but I didn't realize how much difference it makes. My Tele, which I exclusively played until now, always sounded rather anemic. I had it at a jam one night and a guitar player noticed that my pickups were way low and he realized that's why he couldn't ever hear me when I was on stage playing through the same amp as all the other players! I just figured it was the single coil nature not to be as loud as other guys' humbuckers. He told me those pole pieces shouldn't be much more than about 1/8th of an inch from the strings, my bridge pickup was pretty much flush with the bridge plate... yeah... So my point is, as much as this new guitar sounds good, I'm thinking a big part of that improved tone over my Tele is the fact that I put those pickups MUCH closer to the strings. You can actually play with dynamics when they're that close. It was an eye opener, especially on my Tele. Ok, I'll leave you with some pics. Thanks for the much appreciated knowledge you all have here and share with everyone.
I ordered a standard alder Jazzmaster body from One Eyed Jacks and a fullscale neck from Warmoth (7.5" with "boatneck" V profile). I dyed the body with Red Mahogany transtint in water. This process took a lot of experiementing. I sanded it back a few times before I was happy with the blend of the grains on this piece of wood. Scary stuff when dyeing! The neck also took several attempts. Tried amber shellac, wiped that back with alcohol, then tried blond shellac with amber transtint, wiped that back, then finally just dyed it with the transtint. Both came out OK but not as good as I'd have liked. Oh well. I then applied many coats of Tru-Oil on the neck and body. I wanted a glossy look and feel so I knew I'd be up around 20 applications of thin wipe-on coats with my fingers. I'd probably go that route again. Beats spraying.
For the headstock logo, I signed my last name on a paper many times and found the one I liked, then imported a picture of that to Illustrator and converted it to a vector file. I found the information on how to do this by googling other people's processes until I found one that I liked. Using a guy from ebay, I sent him the file and he sold me back goldflake waterslide decals. After burning through about 5 decals, I finally figured out how to clearcoat over them without having to pre-mist the decal sheets with lacquer. I ended up just spraying lacquer from a can over the decal. Behlens lacquer sure is nice to spray on a cold dry day! I let the neck and body sit and cure for a few weeks.
So I wanted the redburst/cream theme that I had previously loved from my Tele build and had the finishing supplies to do so. I ordered a custom cream 3-ply Jazzmaster pickguard from Pickguardian with only pickup and bridgepost routes. My plan was to modify this guard to fit the Jaguar control plates. That part was easy enough with a Dremel and file. I had to route out the body to accept the components from those Jaguar plates too. Kinda scary and a pain to use power tools on a freshly finished body. I wanted a 4-way blade pickup selector for bridge/parallel/series/neck. I love having those tones available. On the tone pot, I used a Dimarzio 500k push-pull with a highpass capacitor ala Jaguar strangle switch. Subtle but perhaps I can use it somewhere in the right song. I sprang for an Allesandro volume pot (500k audio in this case). I'm still getting used to its feel but I guess I wouldn't drop that kind of money on a pot in the future. I figured I'd spend the money this time to see what it was all about. It's nice but not thaaat nice for me, personally.
For the rhythm circuit, I decided to ditch the original and add in an on-board fuzz circuit. It's pretty much perfect for such things: on/off switch and two roller pots for volume and gain, etc. I wanted a ratty one so I settled on the Fuzzrite, then heard the Catalinbred Merkin and instantly wanted that thing. So I found a verified layout and built up a board and installed it into my wiring harness. Added a flushmount battery box on the back of the guitar with a stereo output jack to disable the battery when not plugged in. I shielded the cavities in copper foil and used a shielded wire scheme from the output jack all the way to the rhythm circuit plates and back to the fuzz and to the selector switch. Just braided the pickup wires to that. I was concerned about having an fuzz circuit and batter so close to the pickups so I think I went overboard with shielding to try and minimize it. So after wiring up the harness, I wanted to test the fuzz circuit to make sure it worked (prolly should've checked that before but I was optimistic) and wouldn't you know, the whole harness worked perfectly, including the fuzz! That was a relief. Not the easiest pickguard/plates setup to wire a harness to in my case but I got the hang of it eventually.
For pickups, I went with Lollar's standard Jazzmaster set. They are quality! I don't have any firsthand experience with Jazzmasters so I can't comment comparatively. I can say they sound great though.
I went with a Mastery bridge and vibrato unit. I thought about a Staytrem bridge and then retrofiting a fender vibrato with their arm adapter but figured I'd only be about $100+ short of the Mastery and since I had the savings I might as well go for whole package. It is indeed a solid piece of machinery. I worked on drawings and looked around for someone locally who could laser cut a slot in the stainless steel tremelo base plate so that I could install a Fender trem-lock button but the cost of doing was crazy high. I even designed a couple alternative locking mechanisms that installed into the wood of the body and utilized one of the plate mounting screws but I've yet to actually go through with it. I was convinced I'd miss having a lock on the trem in the case of a broken string so we'll see what experience tells me after a long time of playing shows with it. Speaking of strings, I went 11ga Thomastick-infeld flatwounds with a plain 18 G string and I love these strings! They are bright enough that I still feel a good definition in the band. On this guitar, they do feel slinkier than my 11g set of DR roundwounds on my tele but that is a combination of the string length and type too. They feel slinky but also heavier when I go to bend a whole step or more so I think that has to do with the added length behind the bridge.
Anyway, I just wanted to post a follow-up on my build and maybe some of you could glean some information from my experience since that's exactly what I look for when I'm scouring the internet with a build in mind. I have to say this is one of my favorite playing guitars. It's just so enjoyable to play. The action is easy and the neck feels great. I used an unbleached bone nut and took the effort to do it right. My intonation is pretty nice all the way up too. I am just elated! It's scary when you put this much effort into something and you can only do your best and hope it sounds and plays well or that you'll bond with it. You know it's a step up when everyone in the band keeps mentioning how good it sounds!
Also, I must mention that I recently learned about pickup height. Yeah I know, I've read about its importance forever but I didn't realize how much difference it makes. My Tele, which I exclusively played until now, always sounded rather anemic. I had it at a jam one night and a guitar player noticed that my pickups were way low and he realized that's why he couldn't ever hear me when I was on stage playing through the same amp as all the other players! I just figured it was the single coil nature not to be as loud as other guys' humbuckers. He told me those pole pieces shouldn't be much more than about 1/8th of an inch from the strings, my bridge pickup was pretty much flush with the bridge plate... yeah... So my point is, as much as this new guitar sounds good, I'm thinking a big part of that improved tone over my Tele is the fact that I put those pickups MUCH closer to the strings. You can actually play with dynamics when they're that close. It was an eye opener, especially on my Tele. Ok, I'll leave you with some pics. Thanks for the much appreciated knowledge you all have here and share with everyone.
If I could make any suggestion, it would be to put a polished steel switchtip on, to complete the look with the mastery and jag plate. Staytrem makes them.