Custom Jazzmaster Build.

olafgarten

Hi, in future I am planning to build a Jazzmaster style guitar, but I had some questions.

1. Where can I source a custom routed Jazzmaster Body in the UK, I would like 3 P90 routs, and holes for a Bigsby.

2. Would the Bigsby have problems with the break angle of the headstock

3. When I have the body unfinfished , what is the best way to get a glossy walnut stain on an alder or swamp ash body.

Thanks in advance

jellybelly

Hi man, I built myself a Jazzmaster with the 'Costello'-style walnut stain about a year and a half ago - it's my number one guitar!

I got the body from www.guitarbuild.co.uk, it'll cost some extra money to get something 'non-standard' cut, same for the pickguard, but it shouldn't be astronomical if it's just on alder or swamp ash

I can't help you much with the bigsby... I imagine it would be OK, but the Jazzmaster has one of the best trem units around and feels bigsby-ish compared to a Strat, if you've never tried one!

For finishing, I left mine pretty much matt. It's an alder body and I used wood DYE (not stain) from B&Q. 2 coats and it evened out nicely. I then put a load of coats of Tung Oil on (same brand) and 2 final coats of thinned 'poly' finish. If you plan on tinting a neck or anything, the same wood dye comes in 'antique pine' which does a good 'vintage tint'.  http://www.diy.com/departments/colron-refined-walnut-effect-wood-dye-250ml/175937_BQ.prd.

I'm certain if you got half way through that someone else could guide you on how to get it to a high gloss - I'm trialling Tru-Oil on a tele build at the moment and it's a little glossier, but you might have to go for the lacquer option which is hard to do without all the 'proper' equipment. Never tried it and I like my guitars workmanlike!

Hope that helps!

olafgarten

Thanks for the tip, I'm not planning to do this anytime soon, as I don't have any money.

Approximately how much did it cost you in total?

jellybelly;769180" said:

Hi man, I built myself a Jazzmaster with the 'Costello'-style walnut stain about a year and a half ago - it's my number one guitar!





I got the body from www.guitarbuild.co.uk, it'll cost some extra money to get something 'non-standard' cut, same for the pickguard, but it shouldn't be astronomical if it's just on alder or swamp ash

I can't help you much with the bigsby... I imagine it would be OK, but the Jazzmaster has one of the best trem units around and feels bigsby-ish compared to a Strat, if you've never tried one!

For finishing, I left mine pretty much matt. It's an alder body and I used wood DYE (not stain) from B&Q. 2 coats and it evened out nicely. I then put a load of coats of Tung Oil on (same brand) and 2 final coats of thinned 'poly' finish. If you plan on tinting a neck or anything, the same wood dye comes in 'antique pine' which does a good 'vintage tint'.  http://www.diy.com/departments/colron-refined-walnut-effect-wood-dye-250ml/175937_BQ.prd.

I'm certain if you got half way through that someone else could guide you on how to get it to a high gloss - I'm trialling Tru-Oil on a tele build at the moment and it's a little glossier, but you might have to go for the lacquer option which is hard to do without all the 'proper' equipment. Never tried it and I like my guitars workmanlike!

Hope that helps!

jellybelly

Body was about £80? Neck I already had (from a Mexican Classic Player Jazzmaster, but any rosewood strat neck should do) - say £150 with tuners? Say £40 in total for finishing materials; mastery bridge and thimbles were a lot, £130 shipped from the US. Had scratch plate (say £15?) and some electronics - you can save a lot by not having a rhythm circuit and wiring it pretty much like a telecaster, might cost you £35 for electronics and you can always add the rhythm circuit later - I made mine with 2x 1 meg pots but still barely use it? Pickups were £50 each for seymour duncan antiquity 1s from over the pond although the bridge pickup has changed several times since! If I had my time again I would have gone straight for a custom set from The Creamery (roughly £120?) Trem units can be had for £30-40 although I upgraded mine with the staytrem mod, another £30. Hardware (screws, strap buttons, neck plate etc) another £30 say. I fully shielded all the cavities with sticky-backed copper - cost maybe £20. Total I think I spent would have therefore been around £650-£700 with a Mastery, a staytrem or something more basic would have brought the price down. Considering there's a costello JM in the classifieds for well over £1k I'm happy. Plus it's MINE. I get compliments all the time at gigs (although some people don't understand why I chose brown) and it means a lot more when they say how nice it looks and sounds!! Let us know how you get on - if you're skint you can always jus build it up - get the body and the finishing stuff first, sort that out, then the neck then the hardware?

Jookyjr

My dad did a Jazzmaster with a Bigsby, body from guitarbuild. Looking at his notes it cost £20 on top of the body price for the custom routing (which was leaving the normal trem 'hole' off I expect, but I thnk was a standard charge). 

There weren't any major problems with the neck angle, but he may have shimmed the neck, which isn't unusual on a Jazzmaster anyway.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mymTRqUQ80w/Unos--EiImI/AAAAAAAAGmw/jCddoyzC7lM/s1600/007.JPG

Moss

@Jookyjr I remember that one - one of my favourites he ever did (along with the pink JoBo one)

Jookyjr

@Moss said:

Jookyjr I remember that one - one of my favourites he ever did (along with the pink JoBo one)

He really shouldn't have sold that one, it was his dream guitar. And then UPS smashed it when it was being delivered to somebody on here I think.

The Jobo was cool, I liked that too. He should do some more paislley

olafgarten

Another question, could I get away without any switches, and just have 3 volumes, one for each pickup.

Do volume pots completely mute the signal at 0?

jellybelly

Yes they would - if you used 1 meg pots with no tone, it would be the same sound as a 500k volume and 500k tone full up. You might want to go with the firebird way of doing it, with 3 individual volumes and a master tone control. Non-reverse firebird is my next build!

olafgarten

jellybelly said:

Yes they would - if you used 1 meg pots with no tone, it would be the same sound as a 500k volume and 500k tone full up. You might want to go with the firebird way of doing it, with 3 individual volumes and a master tone control. Non-reverse firebird is my next build!

I was looking to do something similar, so the 1 meg volume would completely silence the pickup?

jellybelly

olafgarten said:

jellybelly said:

Yes they would - if you used 1 meg pots with no tone, it would be the same sound as a 500k volume and 500k tone full up. You might want to go with the firebird way of doing it, with 3 individual volumes and a master tone control. Non-reverse firebird is my next build!

I was looking to do something similar, so the 1 meg volume would completely silence the pickup?

The way volume pots work, when at '0' offer no resistance, and therefore the entire signal is shunted to ground (correct use of the word 'shunted' guys???). The higher value affects the other end of the volume range - a higher MAXIMUM resistance (ie. a 1meg, or 1000k, pot vs a 250k pot) offers more resistance to the signal going to ground, and therefore more goes down your guitar cable, in a nutshell!

Think of it as a fork in a river. One way goes to your amp, but its hard to swim in that direction. The other way goes to a dam. If the dam is closed (volume control at full) the water has no choice but to go up the first stream to your amp. The more the valve in the dam is opened, the more water gets lost through it rather than going up stream to your amp. When the dam is fully open (volume control at '0') it's so easy for ALL the water to go though it that it stops going upstream to your amp entirely, all of it is going through the dam - the water desperately wants to go through the dam and will only go to your amp if it has no choice!

The idea of a higher resistance just affects how much water gets through at '10'. A 250k resistance actually still lets quite a bit through the 'dam', a 1meg lets almost none of a single-coil's signal get lost to the 'dam'...

I hope this explains it? I'm worried it's just going to make it worse... I have almost no idea why capacitors can affect a Low Pass Filter though so if someone has a good explanation about tone controls I'd love to hear it!