A good friend of mine has a '62 Jaguar which he's in the process of renovating. When he got it, it had been repainted in a rather unattractive midnight blue and had humbuckers fitted, along with some weird switching options. It stayed like that for years, but after I got my reissue Jag and he tried that, it made him want to take his back to the original spec.
Having found an area where the top coat had chipped away, he discovered a beautifully aged Lake Placid Blue underneath. He thought it was so gorgeous that he immediately disassembled the guitar and began the long process of carefully sanding off the top coat.
The one thing that concerns him is the pickup cavities. He still has the original pickups and would like to refit them. The enlarged (I hesitate to use the word routed) pickup cavities have not been done well, with the neck cavity being very close to the neck pocket and has been deepened. Here's a pic of what he's up against:
The question is, what is the best plan of action to restore the pickup cavities to the original spec? I suspect that he'd like to go with the best simple option available, as neither him or I are great with power tools!
Suggestions gratefully received.
My wife asked me to stop singing Wonderwall.
I said maybe.....
Comments
If that's going to be too expensive, I would do a temporary job by simply gluing in some small blocks of wood to where the pickup mounting screws go, and leaving the rest of it alone - it will be covered by the pickguard and won't stop a proper restoration being done later.
Don't worry about the thin end wall of the neck pocket, it won't matter - even the tiny bit of support from the corners will be enough to hold the neck in place, since it clearly has been for a couple of decades!
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
The end of the EG II neck IS the edge of the neck pickup cavity. The neck is secure in the pocket and the screws fasten the body to the neck tongue well. The reputation that these necks have for excessive flexibility is because the tongue is too shallow relative to the full thickness of the neck.
Both pickup cavities have been deepened to accommodate the height adjustment lugs of humbuckers. These will need refilling in order to grip the height adjustment screws of Jaguar single coil pickups.
I said maybe.....
Almost every vintage one through my hands has been different in that area.
Here's a 1966 Jag midway through a refin which was never structurally molested - have a look at the same area - you can see it's been extended, either in the factory (most likely) or by one of its owners to stop the mechanism binding.
The technology back in the 60s was a far cry from today's CNC machines!
www.rexterguitars.co.uk
also I have some templates made from this body (without wonky trem rout!) cross referenced with a '64 if you want any assistance rerouting those pickup cavities
www.rexterguitars.co.uk