And from Croatia comes Q Pickups. I chose these after watching a comparison vid on YT. Set of 58-61 Jazzmaster Vintage Correct pickups.

Last edited: Jul 21, 2023 11:03:41

After shooting the body with 2k clear I sanded and polished it. Feels like a thin, hard finish. I then levelled, crowned and polished the frets. I put four coats of boiled linseed oil on the neck. Feels silky smooth. And chunky. It came out well.

Put the neck on the body and strung it up for the first time. It needed a 1 degree shim for a properly set Staytrem bridge - by which I mean as high as I can get it without strings touching the edge of the bridge. Action is nice and low with an almost straight neck. I was surprised the neck needed to be adjusted into a slight upbow, using 11-52. Also surprised that the same set of strings feels slinky on this guitar while feeling chunky on my Squier JM.

Last edited: Sep 24, 2023 05:31:02

edwardsand wrote:

Looking good - I'm waiting for the pics of the complete guitar!

Sorry - forgot to include a pic...!

Last edited: Aug 17, 2023 09:58:07

That looks great. Amazing work, well done!

The electrics were installed without a problem. I used copper tape to shield the cavities and pickguard. The wiring loom from Home of Tone fitted beautifully on the Fender AVRI pickguard. I only had to solder the 2x2 pickup leads and the ground wire. The Home of Tone website lists many many wiring harnesses (and diagrams) - check them out please and give them your business.

Upon installing my new Staytrem bridge I encountered the grounding issue of the strings and bridge suddenly having no ground. Scratched my head & took out my multimeter. The two threaded bridge studs weren't conductive to electricity (the other parts were). I contacted John at Staytrem because I couldn't imagine this was by design, from the perspective of functionality (ground wire attached to treble bridge thimble) and safety.

He emailed me back after an hour or so (service!). He mentioned I highlighted an issue that he hadn't encountered before but on inspection of other bridges this is happening on some but not all of them. He investigated further and the issue was most likely caused by a small amount of oil residue from the manufacturing process inside the bridge post.

John told me to try gripping the plastic part on the end of the posts with pliers and turn very slightly, as this seems to solve the issue by bringing the threaded stud into full contact with the post. So I gave both posts 1/8 of a turn. John was right - that fixed it! He stressed he will be taking steps to make sure this does not happen in future. I'm mentioning it in this thread for the few others the may come across this same issue.

Give Staytrem / John your business. I like the Staytrem bridge for its quality of design and execution. Stainless steel. Solid, no rattles. It comes in 9.5 and 7.25 radius. It has a string spacing of 5.2 instead of the standard Fender 5.5/5.6 (so the strings won't get easily pulled over the edge of the fretboard). The hex scews that adjust the saddles are off-set for easy access. Fender now uses Staytrem on selected models.

Last edited: Aug 24, 2023 10:44:01

The guitar is as good as finished. It weighs in at 2.8 Kg or 6.2 lbs - almost half the weight of my 1981 LP Custom. I've often read that heavy guitars have more sustain than light guitars do. This one has similar sustain to my LPC - so that bit of common knowledge is out the window (fight me in the comments).

More importantly I love the chunky, assymetric neck. I may or may not take a bit off the shoulder (bass side) between the 1st and 3d fret. But will first play it for a few weeks. Neck is almost dead straight, action is low, tuning stability is good (thank God).

Acoustically it sounds like a semi-hollow to my ears. Amplified it rings out beautifully. Hard to explain, but if my Squier Jazzmaster were 2D this one would be 3D. The set of 58-61 Jazzmaster Vintage Correct pickups from Q Pickups are nicely balanced and very sensitivy to pick attack. Also very happy I choose the fairly standard spec Home of Tone full wiring harnass, with 1MEG Audio taper for volume and tone (and treble bleed cap). Lots of different tones by turning the knobs. 1MEG is not too bright at all (tone pot at 6 or 7).

My conclusion is to use quality parts where they really matter. I used Fender Jazzmaster aged white pickup covers (005-4442-049) but refuse to pay almost $50 for the 2 matching Fender knobs. These are $15 and match perfectly: Set of 2 Jazzmaster push fit witch hat volume and tone knobs Ivory fits CTS

AndrewTesta wrote:

Would love to hear more about these pickups!

In addition to what I mentioned earlier, I find they don't colour the sound of the guitar. It sounds amplified like it does acousticly. Also they're nicely balanced

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Last edited: Feb 02, 2024 09:18:20

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Last edited: Feb 02, 2024 09:16:55

It's beautiful. I love the paint color and the overall color scheme of dark tort pickguard and cream for pickup covers, etc. And I dig the F tuners. Sounds great as well.