NGD: Road Worn Jaguar

[909one]

Went to Chicago Music Exchange the other day; was gonna buy a fuzz pedal, ended up with a Road Worn Jag. I was pretty blown away by the similarities to a vintage git. The neck profile was pretty spot on with a '63-'65. Side dots in the correct place. The wear is actually tasteful. The metal parts are aged pretty nicely. No mute, but I actually added one I had laying around. The finish is more muted than most vintage examples you would see. I polished up a little section on the back to see if I could get it shiny, and I did. Might do that to the whole guitar to make it more realistic. The stock bridge is actually useable, I noticed they made the posts a little wider so it doesn't rock as much. I think that's a good thing. I shimmed the neck and the strings stay in the slots pretty well. The trem unit doesn't have a lock, and feels a little stifferc ompared to my Jazzmaster, but definitely useable . The Trem bar is slightly different than others, less angle or something. Put a little bend in it and fixed that. The fret work was not exactly spot on, as to be expected. I did a level and crown on it. I might replace the bridge pickup perhaps, it has American '65 Pickups, they sound decent - might want something a little beefier in the bridge.

Overall I feel good about the purchase and would recommend others to check one out.
Here it is with my parts Jazzmaster:

[PixMix]

HNGD! Very nice!

[MKR]

ya that's real nice. quite the pair.

[amv]

The precise shade of CAR I've seen on these guitars is really intriguing to me. Granted, I haven't seen it in real life, but every picture seems to depict it as having an almost magenta-like quality to it. It's very subtle, but it makes the whole guitar look so much more vivid to me. Very cool.

[Larsongs]

Congrats on a cool Guitar! Nice Pair!

[rhythmjones]

Awesome. Those are SOOO sweet.

If I ever decide I need a Jag...

[Gavanti]

The precise shade of CAR I've seen on these guitars is really intriguing to me. Granted, I haven't seen it in real life, but every picture seems to depict it as having an almost magenta-like quality to it. It's very subtle, but it makes the whole guitar look so much more vivid to me. Very cool.

It definitely shades that way. I've seen a few examples of older CAR that ended up a pretty close color, including a JM up on Reverb now. My only real quibble with the finish is that the finish-dulling as 909one suggests was perhaps too aggressive and the micro-scratches (at least on mine) ended up in a fairly predictable circular pattern.

Congrats on the NGD 909one. I like the mute, and it will be interesting to see how it looks if you decide to polish it up.

[Pacafeliz]

Interesting and good review of a nice guitar! Love it!

[909one]

Thanks Guys!
I really like the shade of the red, its more magenta, and that's what drew me to it. I don't really dig brighter reds as much.
I'm going to try polishing it up. You are right there are those circular scratches on there,when I polished up the little section on the back they practically disappeared.

I also installed a Mustang bridge last night, and all of the sudden the guitar woke up! Its way more resonant and louder unplugged. This bridge has the normal sizes posts that allow it to rock back and forth, not like the one that came with it, which prevented rocking. So I don't know if its the saddles of the Mustang type themselves that presented this change, or if its the bridge posts being able to rock, but I feel like the whole guitar is vibrating on the palm of my picking hand when I play. I love this feeling. My Jazzmaster does this, but not as much because I put tape around the bridge posts, I might go remove the tape.

[rhythmjones]

I also installed a Mustang bridge last night, and all of the sudden the guitar woke up! Its way more resonant and louder unplugged.

This has been my experience with putting Mustang bridges on JMs. In my head I attribute it to more saddle mass, but I could be way off on that.

[Gavanti]

I also installed a Mustang bridge last night, and all of the sudden the guitar woke up! Its way more resonant and louder unplugged.

This has been my experience with putting Mustang bridges on JMs. In my head I attribute it to more saddle mass, but I could be way off on that.

It's definitely worth trying a Staytrem in the RW Jag when you have the opportunity. I didn't expect it to make as much difference from the Mustang bridge I had in mine as it did.