Another Jazzmaster Project

[Danley]

So I have a 'Telecaster' I'm sort of sentimentally attached to, but just don't play for a variety of reasons:





I should mention this is basically my collection of leftover parts (Mighty Mite neck I had to severely shim the truss nut to get straight, MIJ bridge/vibrato I had to repair the pivot and replace the rusty/broken saddle screws, a Jaguar neck pickup under the cover, a Rose Picasso WRHB clone etc.) Not under any delusion I can make a masterpiece without replacing every bit of it. Particular issues I have with it:

• I didn't originally want a bastard Telecaster, but someone cheated me out of building a Jazzmaster body so I was stuck at the time with picking up the least expensive body I could find and making it work with the Jazzmaster hardware; this is an MIM body, five pieces and veneers front/back; it was stripped to wood and covered with elmers glue and fabric at time of purchase
• Mostly the finish bothers me; I used Duplicolor True Match for the metallic/clear, but seems I chose the wrong primer; where the finish is worn through (which is multiple places) I can scrape the primer away with my fingernail, and it is soft/rubbery. Hard to capture, but there's severe checking on the front of the body (of the sort some people might enjoy but I don't.) My refinishing skills were also sub-optimal at the time, I caked the metallic on too much, runs, sand-throughs etc.
• I drilled/routed the body for Jazzmaster equipment back in college, and while it functionally intonates, everything fits, strings don't fall off the fretboard etc. - it annoys me that I can notice the little things I was too lazy to do right, for example the giant block of bondo filling most of the old pickup route is quite visible from shrinking

Sooo... Made a cheap offer on a similar butchered Mascis body. It's really tough to tell what's going on here, but apparently it was stripped on some level and re-coated in lacquer; there appear to be gouges and filler, as well as the (I hope drilled straight) bridge cups. My plan is to refinish in the same Nissan 'Orange Mist' (I need an orange guitar,) hopefully able to sand down and spray over whatever's on there after doing some filling etc. The old Telecaster body will sleep till I'm nostalgic for it.

Part of me also wants to re-shape the Mighty Mite neck a bit; I hate how Mighty Mite specs their necks thicker under the first fret (apparently purposeful if you look at their spec. sheet,) and I might just refinish the whole thing in Minwax wipe-on poly since the existing satin finish is somewhat sticky, oddly. I have a couple spare Jazzmaster pickguards and a rhythm circuit, but not sure how I'll translate the five-way switching to this; I want to keep that somehow.

[Danley]

Have the body - first order of business was figuring out the existing finish. It was previously stripped bare; there are some places the body-edge radius was not treated with much respect, but it’s mostly fine and will look better with a bit of effort.

The finish melts pretty easily with acetone, and seems dried pretty hard - it also smells terrible, not like I expected of nitro or even acrylic; more like an old school library smell. Contemplated sanding it to retain the surface as primer but probably just going to remove it all and start from scratch. Have paint now too

New thought on doweling/re-drilling the bridge: A couple years ago when I didn't care/wasn't paying attention, Staytrem released conversion bushings to do exactly what I am trying to do (and then quit making them.)The bridge post spacing is identical to the rocking bridge - both 2" 7/8 / ~74 mm.

The holes for the bridge mount on my body are actually intact. So... I purchased some stock Adjust-O-Matic mounting bushings; taking measurements there will be enough metal for me to drill these, and fit the standard Jaguar/Jazzmaster bridge cups within them. I could even cut the bushings somewhat short - all that's needed is for them to sit flush on the body, and for the cups to mount to the bushings flush in turn (remember - I'm the guy who filed down modern Klusons/bushings to avoid drilling a vintage Mustang headstock)





Ordered more parts:

[glvourot]

Its going to look great when you are done, considering the great job you did with your dad's F-100. Remember , patience !

[Danley]

Well - I had a dull, depressing Thanksgiving so it came together un-planned. It plays/sounds good! Maybe a bit snappier than my VM:



With flash:

[john o]

Cool looking JM, unique!
I have never played one. What am I missing?

[Danley]

Cool looking JM, unique!
I have never played one. What am I missing?

Thanks! I love Jazzmasters, and while Mascis was my inspiration to play one (along with Sonic Youth,) Mascis' signature models are not to my taste -- hence the customization One favorite thing is the ergonomics; they have a large body and the bridge is 'higher up' height-wise vs. say a Strat/Telecaster, and also located farther from the strap button than either of the two others. For me, both those traits make the guitar easier to play.

The second 'unique' thing is the vibrato/bridge; when set up well, Leo's original rocking bridge design lets the guitar keep perfect tune with vibrato use (on the other hand I once had a Classic Player Jazzmaster with a Tune-O-Matic that was not well suited to vibrato use at all, and was a clicking de-tuning mess. The Mascis also uses a Tune-O-Matic stock, so I was quick to ditch that with my 'fabrication' of bushings to use the original rocking bridge design on this body.

(Another note: Some people complain about the bridge rattling - but I've never had that issue on my guitars. But I've played guitars that *do* have the issue, and it's usually related to either a bad overall setup, or cheaper import bridges; so it probably helps I have an AVRI bridge on the blue one above, and fitted brand new saddles to the MIJ bridge on the orange one.)

Next unique point - the pickups. This is my third Jazzmaster at this moment so I went 'unique' with it (neither pickup on the orange one Jazzmaster; it's actually a Jaguar pickup/humbucker under the covers.) Which is one good thing about Jazzmasters; you can pretty much stuff any pickup you want invisibly. But the stock pickups are basically fat, round-sounding alnico single coils, that are also pretty noisy (which is why Leo shielded the Jaguar well as an upgrade.) If you like sixties surf sounds, you'll like the Jazzmaster cleans. They tend to have pretty raunchy distortion characteristics, thanks to packing a lot of harmonic overtone content into each note (and overtones from the 'third bridge' effect.) Jazzmasters use 1 meg pots, so can be a bit brighter with everything on ten.

Last unique point is the wiring - it's pretty much just a normal three way switch for the two pickups, but the upper switch activates pre-set volume and tone (set by the rollers on the bass bout) that work only on the neck pickup; this is usually referred to as the 'rhythm circuit,' and it has lower value pots that load the pickup more for a darker sound as well. At one point I pretty much ignored the rhythm settings entirely, but now I find it useful.

Def. recommend picking a Jazzmaster up if you haven't - I'm temped by one of the new American Professional series, which aren't too terribly priced; just don't need any other guitars at this point, especially with three other Jazzmasters in the house I don't plan on parting with They're not for everyone, but they're for me.

[WitSok]

Nice job Danley. It looks great!

Sorry to hear you had a depressing Thanksgiving, hopefully completing the project brightened the day.

Well done and cheers,
Dan

[john o]

Thx Danley, for the info. I will have to check one out soon, maybe at GC.

[Danley]

Took a pic of all my Jazz-items to cheer myself up They were all projects in their own way:

[mutts]

Looks really good. I still would like to get a Jazzmaster at some point but It seems when I look at them it's always the pricier ones that draw my interest. Maybe someday.
Another Dino fan here.

[Danley]

Looks really good. I still would like to get a Jazzmaster at some point but It seems when I look at them it's always the pricier ones that draw my interest. Maybe someday.
Another Dino fan here.

Nice - Green Mind is a record I need to put on at least once a month. I regret not picking up one of the MIJ purple Mascis guitars when I had the chance about ten years ago; it sat around Best Buy for years, and when they closed out all their music gear I think it went for less than $600 (they now approach $2k which is ridiculous, but I'd loved to own one still.)



Then again my favorite recorded Mascis tone might not be a Jazzmaster (especially once he stomps on the fuzz) :

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JllKqhBIQNs[/video]

[mutts]

Looks really good. I still would like to get a Jazzmaster at some point but It seems when I look at them it's always the pricier ones that draw my interest. Maybe someday.
Another Dino fan here.

Nice - Green Mind is a record I need to put on at least once a month. I regret not picking up one of the MIJ purple Mascis guitars when I had the chance about ten years ago; it sat around Best Buy for years, and when they closed out all their music gear I think it went for less than $600 (they now approach $2k which is ridiculous, but I'd loved to own one still.)



Then again my favorite recorded Mascis tone might not be a Jazzmaster (especially once he stomps on the fuzz) :

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JllKqhBIQNs[/video]

I tried one of the purple ones quite awhile back but did not love it. I'm also not sold on the color. At six hundred it would have been a good deal for sure. I seem to recall reading that the purple one actually has Strat style p'ups though.
Green Mind is a great one. I've been impressed by the releases since they reunited and lately gravitate to those. The whole catalog is surprisingly consistent imo.
How about his tele tone?
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9--XTVoT1vk[/video]

[Danley]

That’s correct on the MIJ Jazzmaster pickups, they’re basically Strat pickups under covers (all MIJ/CIJs have them - not only the Mascis.) Odd thing is I think Fender US recently released the Vmod pickups that are very similar to that in concept. Of course the stock Mascis has P90s under Jazzmaster covers. Apparently he uses his Squiers pretty often on tour, but I guess all my favorite recordings are probably either regular Jazzmaster or Telecaster pickups.

When I think of his Telecasters I think of the below; alienating the Jenny Jones show audience with a weird distorted vibrato and MXR Blue Box right off the bat How about that audience:

[video]https://youtu.be/kwbq7yX_9l0[/video]

[Foxbat_25]

That guitar looks gorgeous, you can tell why it's been chosen by so many artists!! Is there any recording of you playing on one of these beauties? I'd be quite curious to see how they actually sound, as I've only listened to live concert recordings....

[Danley]

That guitar looks gorgeous, you can tell why it's been chosen by so many artists!! Is there any recording of you playing on one of these beauties? I'd be quite curious to see how they actually sound, as I've only listened to live concert recordings....

Absolutely - I've been meaning to do some short comparison clips between this one and the blue Squier VM in particular, just need to dig my interface etc. out. Since you're interested I'll post it here when I do it

[WitSok]

Looking forward to hear those clips!
Cheers, Dan