Korina Jazzmaster MKII

[ragamuffin]

Whelp, I ordered up an AVRI tremolo unit, a Herad anodized gold guard, and a bunch of miscellaneous parts! Now I mainly need a neck, bridge, and tuners.

Whats the general consensus on a good bridge for use with a Warmoth 10-16" compound radius neck these days? Is the "modified Mustang" bridge that Warmoth sells my best bet for something "budget-ish"? I'd really like to do a Tuffset but I'm not sure that I'm ready to shell out that kind of money when I haven't even got a neck yet.

[JJStrummr]

I ordered a Tuffset JM bridge with the brass saddles for my new JM build. I had used Bensonite for the last two builds and love them but the radius is not adjustable like it is on the Tuffset. But the Bensonite is just a wonderful bridge.

https://imgur.com/5bUyCxA

[ragamuffin]

I ordered a Tuffset JM bridge with the brass saddles for my new JM build. I had used Bensonite for the last two builds and love them but the radius is not adjustable like it is on the Tuffset. But the Bensonite is just a wonderful bridge.

Great looking build! I'm interested to hear how you like the Tuffset, it looks like the perfect bridge to me. Bensonite bridges look great and are slightly more affordable too; if only the made an adjustable.

[ragamuffin]

The Spookies got here "spooky" fast!

[ragamuffin]

Ordered the neck today! I'd seen roasted birds-eye maple pop up on the Warmoth Instagram page and thought that that might be super sexy on this build so I shot the big W an email and they said they could do one for me! I wasn't planning on ordering a neck right away, but I went ahead and did it to secure the roasted birdseye.

[ragamuffin]

Hey guys, the wood has arrived and I'm going to start building today!

I was considering routing a slight angle into the neck pocket, say .5 degrees or so; do you guys recommend doing this? Any tips on achieving it?

[MrJagsquire]

Interesting project. I'm particularly with you regarding weight as I've been looking at Fender/Squier Jazzmasters on sites that list weight and some of those are heavier than I'd prefer, let alone your lead weight (though lovely looking) first build. I've even considered buying a lighter weight ready made bare wood body to build my own partscaster, but I've been burnt before building (well assembling and spraying) partscasters. I might take the easy way out and stick with a selected ready made one, plus I actually need to play some JMs again to see if I really do want one rather than just the idea of one.

I certainly haven't got the skills to make a body from a wood blank like you have.

[bodhi]

Hey guys, the wood has arrived and I'm going to start building today!

I was considering routing a slight angle into the neck pocket, say .5 degrees or so; do you guys recommend doing this? Any tips on achieving it?

In my opinion it makes sense most of the time with traditional JM parts. Might not always be the best idea, f.e. I noticed that when I'm adding a trem to a telemaster body, that with the neck pocket angle I had put there (was probably more than 0.5 degrees) the distance between the telecaster bridge pickup and strings was too large at full extension, so need to undo some of the neck pocket angling

It's a lot easier to get a stew mac shim, but it's seldom obvious which one would work the best...

As for creating the angle, I've taken to just propping up my neck pocket template on the body with some scrap pieces of wood, and use a digital angle gauge to check the resulting degrees. Works well enough.

[ragamuffin]

Hey guys, the wood has arrived and I'm going to start building today!

I was considering routing a slight angle into the neck pocket, say .5 degrees or so; do you guys recommend doing this? Any tips on achieving it?

In my opinion it makes sense most of the time with traditional JM parts. Might not always be the best idea, f.e. I noticed that when I'm adding a trem to a telemaster body, that with the neck pocket angle I had put there (was probably more than 0.5 degrees) the distance between the telecaster bridge pickup and strings was too large at full extension, so need to undo some of the neck pocket angling

It's a lot easier to get a stew mac shim, but it's seldom obvious which one would work the best...

As for creating the angle, I've taken to just propping up my neck pocket template on the body with some scrap pieces of wood, and use a digital angle gauge to check the resulting degrees. Works well enough.

Thanks! I'll try the business card under the pocket template trick.

So far I've got the body cut out and shaped!

(Note the balmy Florida winter)

[ragamuffin]

I also did some forstner-ing and routed the neck pocket. I put a small metal straight edge ruler under the neck pocket template to give it a bit of an angle and I think that worked out well! Using the neck from another build I found that the neck pocket is a tad looser than I'd like, but the angle seems to be good. With a long straight edge on the fretboard I found the height at the bridge to be a little under 3/4".

[ragamuffin]

Fully routed now! Not the cleanest routing job, but it will be under the pickguard. Got it all sanded and ready for finishing. I also received the anodized aluminum pickguard from Herad today in the mail today and it looks great

[ragamuffin]

First coats of oil on. It's not looking too pretty at this stage, but I know it will look great when done.

[ragamuffin]

Hey guys, before I go any further I want to do something that I should have thought about sooner; to be sure that my pickup cavities are the right depth. They are currently around 3/8" or 1cm. I read that this is the correct vintage depth somewhere, but I'm also seeing 5/8" in some places.

Will the current depth do, or should I route a little deeper? Thanks

[ragamuffin]

Any thoughts on pickup route depth?

[badform]

Any thoughts on pickup route depth?

It's not exactly definitive, but here's a thread I found.