GUITAR BUILD PROJECTS, DRUM FETTLING, CUSTOMISATION & DIY TECH
With the neck, scratchplate, body and now hardware, all having been "aged", and with other bits and pieces in various states of preparation - a couple of days focus should see the Strummercaster finally start to come together.
It seems the Staytrem bridge must be taller than the stock design Jaguar bridge. Either that, or the neck heel is too deep. The action on the Jaguar is well above what you'd call normal - even with the bridge screwed all the way down to the deck. Fortunately - there's a cure.
The neck and body have been evolving and developing separately. I'm keen to get to the point where I can join everything together, and start to work on the guitar as a whole. It makes sense to dress the frets while the neck is off. It's cold in the workshop - and I can get this done on the kitchen table, where it's warm.
The hardware for the telecaster is a collection of old re-used, newly purchased and the odd faux-reliced piece from eBay. The hardware needs to look like it's been around the block a few times - and needs to be in keeping with the look of the build. Time to see if I can work out how to age metal.
As with most projects, all the individual elements build one on another - each relying on the quality and accuracy of the previous steps. So fitting the pickups feels a little bit like putting the pinnacle on a house of cards. Here's hoping all my preparation leads to an easy installation.
The pickups for the Jaguar have arrived! Time to pull this project together - well, see if I can wrap up the construction anyway. I need to make sure the neck is good to go - so it's in the best possible shape for the first setup.
I figure the body is about 75% of the way done. It's a good idea to bring the whole project along to the same level - so I want to concentrate on the neck and scratchplate to bring them up to speed.
Having taken a brand new Telecaster body, and faked a bit of a paint job on it - I now have to find a way to convincingly reproduce 40+ years of use and abuse. Of course, I could just sit and play the guitar for 40 years - but I want faster results than that. Could I do it in a day?
I have a copy of an original, hand-drawn, Fender wiring diagram I found on the web. It's dated 7th August 1962. That's exactly the same week I was born, (and the same week Marylin Monroe passed). As I've mentioned before in previous posts - to me, the Jaguar design totally encapsulates that era. Rockets, chrome, conical bras, spacemen, surfboards, cars with fins. You can see it all in the lines of a Fender Jaguar. And it's one of the reasons I embarked on this whole project to begin with.
In the original, 1962 Jaguar design, all the ground side of the circuit ran via a series of linked, brass plates which fitted into the bottom of each recess cavity. However I end up doing the wiring - I'll have to replicate this function in some way or other.
Garageland 