premiere guitar seems to be having a nels cline love affair lately & has this little tidbit from his & lee ranalo's guitar tech.
jm tips

5 Essential Jazzmaster Maintenance Tips
Eric Baecht
How to keep your Jazzmaster rock solid on the road.

Working as a guitar tech with Sonic Youth for a dozen or so years, and now working with Nels Cline, I've become pretty familiar with the Jazzmaster and how to keep it rock solid on the road. The following tips are for road guitars, not necessarily nice vintage Jazzmasters used for recording or collecting. I'm all for keeping guitars as original as possible, but if you're taking it out on the road, occasionally some compromises need to be made.

1. First things first: Change the bridge!
   If you've got a stock old-style Jazzmaster bridge, you know how useless they are with any sort of passionate playing. Fender has improved the bridge design a bit lately, but at the very least I'd recommend swapping it out with a Mustang-style bridge or, even better, the Mastery Bridge made by John Woodland. We put them on all of Sonic Youth's Jazzmasters and it really was a game changer. Even with the Mustang and Tune-o-matic bridges we previously used as replacements, there was a considerable amount of filing the string slots so the strings wouldn't slip out during hard playing, but with the Mastery those days are over. It's a simple drop-in replacement, designed to last forever and highly recommended!

2. If you use the tremolo a lot, you must lube.
   There are many choices out there and I can't say which is the best, preferably a petroleum/graphite combo. Make sure your strings slide freely within the nut before applying it. Here’s how to check: Next time you change strings, take the strings you've just removed and slide them through their respective nut slots. There shouldn’t be resistance. If there is, lube the nut of the wound strings and then run a string back and forth through the slot until it feels right. This seems to be less destructive than sandpaper or a file. With the plain string slots, I might use some very fine sandpaper or Mitchell's Abrasive Cord, with some lube, to get it nice and slippery. Do this with every couple string changes and gradually it will (hopefully) stay more in tune. Also, make sure to get the underside of the string trees, preferably with the abrasive cord, or run an old low-E string under them.

3. Combat floppy tremolo bar syndrome.
   This is a bummer with almost no solution, though some of Fender's newer designs are addressing this. For the traditional style bars, one thing we did in Sonic Youth is use a threading die to thread the end of the tremolo arm and screw on a lock nut so the trem arm would stay in place. Depending on the tightness of the lock nut, you can adjust the tension of the arm. One problem is this is a little destructive to the originality of the instrument, so you need to make that decision. Also, you can't remove the arm at all, which for Sonic Youth was okay because they could go crazy and the thing would never pop out—that's why they started doing that in the first place. With this mod you can't remove the arm when casing up your guitar but we've found it's not really necessary. Even in a hard case, just find the angle (sort of over the jack) that the arm will bend the least when it's in the case. Believe me, those SY guitars traveled millions of miles and it was never an issue. Always pulling the arm out when casing contributes to it getting "floppy" as well. More recently, Nels' main guitar had a super floppy arm and I didn't want to modify it in any way or change the Trem plate. I found the tiniest hose clamp I could find and squeezed it around the sleeve that holds the arm in on the underside of the tremolo plate. Not too, tight but just enough. So far so good! I'm just checking it every few string changes to make sure it's holding.

4. Consider the electronics.
   If you're really rocking and the rhythm circuit is not your cup of tea, you could try what we did in Sonic Youth and get in there and do some soldering and completely bypass it, so you don't hit that switch accidentally and cut off your sound. Some players like to keep it as a convenient kill switch, and some folks really like the added tonal options the rhythm circuit provides—to each his own.

5. Replace your pickguard.
   If you've got a vintage Jazzmaster with the old-school celluloid pickguard, these things tend to shrink over time and you might find it impossible to adjust pickup height as the covers are being squeezed by the pickguard. There are only a few solutions to this. On Thurston Moore's guitars I've dremeled out the pickup holes a bit to make them fit, but ideally you can swap out the guard with a new one.

Important: if you remove a vintage celluloid pickguard, mount it (with the original screws if possible) to a piece of wood so it doesn't shrivel up too much, in case you ever decide to put it back on your Jazzmaster.

As far as new pickguards go, the real Fender tortoiseshell-style is pretty passable, or another cool solution is an anodized aluminum pickguard from tone-guard.com. Sure, you don't want to lose any of your axe's mojo by changing the guard, but the whole point is functionality, and you've got the old one properly preserved in case you ever want to go back.

Bonus tip: On old Jazzmasters, the foam under the pickups tends to rot out. I've found a great replacement. At first, I was getting this stuff from a guy on eBay who was calling it "NOS Jazzmaster P-Bass Pickup Foam," but I found that it’s basically an adhesive weather stripping you can get at any hardware store. You can use it for all kinds of things, like inside the battery compartments of effects pedals.

Matt Heaton & the Electric Heaters
"Dick Dale meets Dennis Lehane"
http://www.heatonsurf.com

Leo gave us amplifiers so we wouldn't HAVE to strum hard.

Last edited: Mar 29, 2012 01:18:33

Also if your pickguard does shrink you can heat it up a bit in the oven to get it to expand enough to screw it back on. Just don't overcook it!

I came. I saw. I left.

squirt50 wrote:

I also had a problem with the stock bridge on my AVRI JM constantly dropping during a set. The cheap set screws used for bridge height would come loose and the bridge would slowing sink during my performance until the action became unplayable. Ended up having to put a drop of lock tight under each screw to hold it tight. Now it works fine. Anyone else have this problem?

One of my AVRI's does this, just started recently. It is a 1999 "first run" version that had been trouble-free up to that point. Blue Loctite solved the problem.

I had a MIJ Jazzmaster several years ago that the saddle screws would rotate and cause the saddles to drop.

Regarding the "Change the Bridge" thing, if you play very aggressively, all you have to do is slightly deepen the groove that the string rides in with a v-shaped jeweler's file. It is way cheaper than a Mastery bridge and allows perfect intonation, unlike a Mustang bridge. I tried one of those and took it off the next day.

Jack
aka WoodyJ

The Mariners (1964-68, 1996-2005)
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Thanks for sharing! Concerning the super floppy arm: I have a CIJ Jazzmaster and the tremelo is just that, super floppy. Like it's falling out when I lean forward. I don't mind that much, because I kinda like it when the arm fall down all the way when I let loose. I feel that the arm is in the way when it is stuck and you're not using it. However, I was wondering if it is basically ok to let it be super floppy or am I really screwing it up, like I'm damaging the inner works.

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matt wrote:

I just stayed in a house with a '64 Jazzmaster which I am seriously GASsing over. The thing is beat to hell & rusting away in a basement. I'm going to try and acquire it. I'll post some photos in another thread when I get a chance. but MAN did that pickguard shrink!

Whoa...I get serious GAS just thinking about it. A '64 Jazzmaster

Hope you can snap it up Please keep us updated

You're not drunk if you can put your socks on while standing.

eddiekatcher wrote:

Very slightly bend the end of the tremolo arm that goes down into the ferule into a very shallow curve. Slightly is the operative term. This will put a stop to the floppy tremolo bar issue. It doesn't take but just a very slight curve. Have patience, you can get it right and correct that modern Fender lack of attention to vintage detailing.

eddie k

I'm surprised the author didn't know about this, unless he just chose not to do this for some reason.

For newer members who may not have seen this yet here's a tip (Eddie's I believe) on how to bend the arm slightly. Drill a hole just a hair bigger than the trem arm diam.(3/16ths I think) into a scrap of 2x4 going at least 1" deep or so. Clamp or vise the wood so it's rock solid, then place the end of the trem arm down about an inch into the whole. Slowly push back on the arm bending it just a small amount, you should barely see the bend in it if at all. Do a little at a time, then test it on your guitar. It takes very little. I did this what? 5 years ago and it's still holding perfect. Works on Jags too.

Danny Snyder

Latest project - Now That's What I Call SURF
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