Boomerang wrote:

synchro wrote:

I just checked, and according to my radius gauge, both the fingerboard and the bridge on my CV ‘70s Jaguar are 9.5” radius.

Okay thanks that’s good to know. It just seems strange how the 2-5 saddles have a pretty even, gradual taper and then the bottom drops out on saddles 1 and 6. I was under the assumption that all Mustang bridges were 7.25 radius and that was the reason a lot of players use Staytrems since they offer the correct 9.5 radius. Thanks for the info.

What you really have to watch with Mustang bridges is the string spacing. Most fenders are like 55-57mm while a Jazzmaster is 52mm. If you use a regular common Mustang bridge your 1st and 6th string will be falling off the fretboard.

Boomerang wrote:

Thanks for the info. I’m going to hold off on the StayTrem for now and see how this bridge does with a set of 11’s on it. If I’m not happy with it then I’ll probably order a StayTrem. Can you tell me where I can buy those nylon bushings? I don’t want to limit all the travel but my trem use is very subtle with no deep dives. I prefer the slotted machines so the OEM are fine and I’m actually shocked at well this guitar stays in tune even after an hour of playing and trem use. So far I barely touch the tuners.

I wholeheartedly agree that the pickups, pots, wiring and switches work and sound great. I may install a treble bleed but other than that and a possible shim I’m extremely pleased with this guitar. It weighs a ton but I sit when I play 90% of the time so it’s no issue and the offset design is super comfortable for sitting. I’ve been playing for 50yrs and this is my first offset and first 24” scale neck and I’m loving it. And of course you can’t beat the tone for surf.

The bridge thimble sleeves can be found at Darren Riley’s. There are some similar bushings at my local Ace Hardware, but they are too tall and would require a bit of modification. IMHO, these are the best thing Fender ever did for Offsets. The bridge still rocks, but it can’t topple, and having experienced a toppled bridge during a gig, you don’t want that to happen.

My CV Jaguar had some roughness in the tremolo action, and I bought the AVRI tailpiece, but later learned that I could have fixed the OEM tailpiece with a file and a few minutes work. If you look at the drawing below, the bent piece of steel can have rough edges, and if you disassemble the tailpiece and address the roughness with a file, that problem is easily defeated.

A couple of thoughts on StayTrem. I’ve bought three bridges and four arms, from them, and they are good people to deal with. It can take several months for your order to arrive. They are up front about this. You basically get on a list and when your number comes up, they send an email and a PayPal invoice. It usually ships as soon as you pay.

On the trem’ arms, they are either metric or imperial sizes, so if you anticipate that you would end change tremolos to an AVRI, it’s better to have that out of the way before you order an arm/collet from StayTrem.

One other cool thing I have discovered about Jaguars is using the Strangle Switch on the neck pickup. It give a warm sound, but there’s no muddiness in the bottom end.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

Boomerang wrote:

Oh man that is such great advice and much appreciated. I’ll order those bushings and smooth out the trem with my dremal. Thank you so much Synchro.

Always glad to serve as an enabler. Darren Riley has always been a good parts source.

In all seriousness, you’ve got a nice guitar there. IMO, the Squier CV Jaguar addresses a lot of the Jaguar issues people have complained about. I think that the neck pocket is slightly angled, saving the time and materials required to shim the neck.

Enjoy.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

Boomerang wrote:

My main concern with Squires I had in the past is to get one with a good feeling neck and doesn’t immediately require fret work. I usually wind up replacing pick ups and hardware but this guitar is great as is. The neck is great with smooth fretboard and frets, no high frets and the binding and inlay is perfect.

On mine, the frets are perfectly leveled, but not well polished. I may tackle that the next time I change strings. When I was dialing it in; just basic setup tasks, I put on a set of Ernie Ball strings, preferring to use inexpensive strings until I know that I’m finished with tinkering. That was at least six months ago, and those strings still sound great, and being a cheapskate, I won’t change them until they start to deteriorate.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

Boomerang wrote:

synchro wrote:

On mine, the frets are perfectly leveled, but not well polished. I may tackle that the next time I change strings. When I was dialing it in; just basic setup tasks, I put on a set of Ernie Ball strings, preferring to use inexpensive strings until I know that I’m finished with tinkering. That was at least six months ago, and those strings still sound great, and being a cheapskate, I won’t change them until they start to deteriorate.

I’ll wind up polishing these but to be honest they really don’t need it and I’m very picky when it comes to fret smoothness. The last Fender I bought online was a Vintera Telecaster and it was so bad I sent it back. I’ve been a Fender guy my whole life and getting a good one has always been hit or miss. Their quality control is all over the place and that goes for their amplifiers too. I’ve had many Fender amps in my life and love their sound more than any other amp but I’ve never had one that didn’t have problems.

Sad but true. I bought a MIM Thinline Tele a couple of years ago and spent a lot of time essentially rewiring a new guitar. Fit and finish were good, but the quality of the wiring was inexcusable, and should have been obvious to whoever wired it, in the first place.

When I bought my CV Jaguar, I was actually planning to buy a Player’s Edition Strat, but the example I tried sounded so washed out and weak that I put it back on the wall within a couple minutes.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

Boomerang wrote:

synchro wrote:

Sad but true. I bought a MIM Thinline Tele a couple of years ago and spent a lot of time essentially rewiring a new guitar. Fit and finish were good, but the quality of the wiring was inexcusable, and should have been obvious to whoever wired it, in the first place.

When I bought my CV Jaguar, I was actually planning to buy a Player’s Edition Strat, but the example I tried sounded so washed out and weak that I put it back on the wall within a couple minutes.

My current main guitar is a 1994 mim squire strat I paid $220 for new. I went to the music store that day with the objective of buying the best strat in the store regardless of price. The neck on this guitar was like butter and no other strats at any price or country of origin even came close. I later wound up replacing the wiring harness, switch and pots and installed a set of Fender 69 custom shop pickups and I wouldn’t take anything for it. After 20 years I did have it refretted with jumbo frets which cost more than I paid for the guitar but it was worth it to me and after 30 years it’s still going strong.

I had a ‘93 MIM Tele that was pretty good. It sounded amazing and had a nice neck. I added Fender Vintage RI pickups and did some major revisions electrically, but the mechanical aspects of the guitar were strictly OEM. A few years later, I wanted a Strat, and I chose a MIM Tex-Mex Strat over a U.S. made one. It actually had a better feature set. IIRC, I never changed anything electrically. My great-nephew plays it, to this day. There was some great stuff coming out of Ensenada in the ‘90s.

I’ve had great results with Fender Japan instruments. I currently have a CIJ Mustang Bass, which I’ve owned for roughly 15 years, and i have a MIJ Bass VI that I’ve owned for about 10 years. Both are excellent instruments, but i did replace the pickups on the VI with Fender Pure Vintage. I’ve experienced that Fender Japan Jaguar/Bass VI pickups can be very harsh.

There are a couple of guitars I’ve owned for over 20 years, and several for over 10 years. At this point in life, there are only two guitars i would consider buying, a Jazzmaster, because I’ve never owned one, and a Sadowsky Jim Hall Model archtop, although I have a Guild T-400 which sounds great for Jazz, in spite of having been designed as a Duane Eddy model.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

I’m definitely a Gretsch guy. Filtertrons are pretty focused and do quite well at Surf.

If it weren’t for Duane Eddy, I doubt that any of us would be here talking about Surf. He didn’t invent the genre, but he sure laid the groundwork. The mid ‘50s Gretsch he played on his early recordings had Dynasonic single coil pickups, which have a bit more heft to the sound than Fender single coils, but have incredibly strong highs. Play it through a modified Magnatone amp, and bounce the output into a 2,000 gallon (empty) water tank, and you’ve got Duane Eddy’s sound.

He later went to a Guild, but it had D’Armond single coils, which are essentially Dynasonics. My Guild has that same body, but uses Guild mini humbuckers, which aren’t far off from Filtertrons, sonically speaking. It’s a slightly more complex sound than Filters, but nowhere near Gibson humbucker territory.

Here’s a picture of it hanging out with my Bass VI and a Tele.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

Boomerang wrote:

synchro wrote:

I’m definitely a Gretsch guy. Filtertrons are pretty focused and do quite well at Surf.

If it weren’t for Duane Eddy, I doubt that any of us would be here talking about Surf. He didn’t invent the genre, but he sure laid the groundwork. The mid ‘50s Gretsch he played on his early recordings had Dynasonic single coil pickups, which have a bit more heft to the sound than Fender single coils, but have incredibly strong highs. Play it through a modified Magnatone amp, and bounce the output into a 2,000 gallon (empty) water tank, and you’ve got Duane Eddy’s sound.

He later went to a Guild, but it had D’Armond single coils, which are essentially Dynasonics. My Guild has that same body, but uses Guild mini humbuckers, which aren’t far off from Filtertrons, sonically speaking. It’s a slightly more complex sound than Filters, but nowhere near Gibson humbucker territory.

That’s a beauty and I bet it sounds great. The only Guild I ever owned was back in the 70’s I bought a Guild M-75. Kinda like their version of a Les Paul. It was a great guitar but of course like everything else I owned back then I traded it away only to regret it and wish I still had it.

Hey one more thing real quick and we’ll wrap this up. I looked at those nylon bushings on Darren’s site but it doesn’t list the CV Jag in the description for guitars that they’ll work with. I sent him an email asking if they would fit my guitar and he said he couldn’t verify it and that I should take measurements and compare to the nylon bushing specs. Are you using these on your 70’s CV Jag with the mustang bridge?

I bought the bushings I used from Darren Riley, so I’m pretty sure you’re safe. The bridge on my CV Jaguar is the OEM bridge, which is Mustang style.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

I did the bushings on my 70's CV Jag. They work great. Much better than using electrical tape around the bridge posts. Stabilizes the bridge while still allowing it rock just enough.

Surfadelphia wrote:

I did the bushings on my 70's CV Jag. They work great. Much better than using electrical tape around the bridge posts. Stabilizes the bridge while still allowing it rock just enough.

That’s exactly what I want. I don’t want to completely block off the movement since Leo designed it to move. I use the trem very subtly so not much movement is needed. I think these will work well. Did you have to shim your neck? My bridge isn’t sitting all the way down but I was thinking maybe a .25 shim would help. What do you think?