November Birthdays 
Here's a Jazzmaster I recently finished building. At first the plan was to build a regular Olympic White JM. But then I found a second-hand Allparts Strat neck and decided to reshape it, dye it, refret it and give it a matching headstock.
Specs are:
- One-piece Swamp Ash body
- Nitro finish (Nitorlack)
- One piece Allparts Strat neck (reshaped, dyed, refretted with Jescar 055090).
- 58-61 Jazzmaster Vintage Correct pickups, Q-Pickups (Croatia)
- Home of Tone wiring harness (UK)
- Lavaguard (UK)
- Staytrem Bridge 9.5” radius (UK)
- Fender AVRI trem with Staytrem arm/collet
- Fender tuners, thimbles, strap buttons, screws
- Black plastics
- Weight is 8 lbs or 3.65 Kg
I love how it feels, sounds and looks. The neck is big and comfy. I should've figured out I like big necks 2 decades ago. Is sounds like a Jazzmaster should. That seems an odd statement. The 1st JM I built had a torrified Paulownia body and a torrified maple neck. It sounded nice but not quite like the Jazzmasters on my favoruite Surf songs. This one does. I do think that is due to the wood being regular swamp ash and maple. I reused theQ-pickups and wiring harness from that 1st JM build. The pickups now balance beautifully. Bridge pickup is bright but not harsh.
The body is a one piece Swamp Ash board that had been sitting on a shelve for at least 10 years. Bought from a guy that was done with luthiery and was selling all his stuff (I paid 80 euros). It's light and has a cool looking grain. I do like translucent finished on Teles but not on Jazzmasters.
I decided to use Nitorlack rattle cans because they offer a convincing 'vintage' Olympic White and because their 'GoldenAge' clear has no plasticizer and will check. I do like weather checking on guitars. Great stuff to work with. The primer seems thin right out of the can but it builds up quickly. The colored nitro dries so fast I am quite surprised. While waiting for the clear coat to cure (before doing sanding and polishing) it already started to check at a few screw holes and at the neck pocket.Without heat/cold cycles (notwithstanding a few hours in a garage).Wet sanded up to 2000 grit. Polished with foam pads fixed to an electric drill, using Meguiars polish.
The neck is a second-hand big fat Allparts Stratocaster neck - the Lindy Fralin model. I took off 2mm depthwise and reshaped it by taking material off the shoulders. Still quite big. It now goes from a C-shape between the 1st and 5th fret to a D-shape as you move higher up the neck. It's a one piece neck, rift sawn and stiff. It was almost dead straight, strung up with a set of 10 gauge strings and without tension on the trussrod! So I sanded some relief into the fretboard because I heard Dan Erlewine say guitars sound better with tension on the trussrod than without. The neck now has .008” relief at the 8th fret (11-48 strings), with about half a turn on the trussrod.
I dyed the neck with 'relic patina' from Nitorlack (not its intended purpose but I took a chance). Then refretted with Jescar frets and finished the neck with Nitorlack amber vintage clear & golden age gloss. he decal is from Rothko and Frost in the UK. I decided to not use the smaller subtext because I it looks cleaner without it on this Strat headstock.
From the UK comes this Home of Tone wiring harness. James was great to deal with and this Jazzmaster wiring harness is beautifully made.1MEG Audio taper (volume & tone) / .033uF (Traditional Specalongside 1MEG pots) / With Treble Bleed.
Staytrem bridges are so beautifully made and noise-free. Well worth the leadtime.
I installed a Staytrem collet and arm on the AVRI vibrato. The arm has a nicer curve and is 2 Cm longer - bonus. But I felt the arm had abit too much resistance to be able to play while holding the arm. I want it to stay in place and to be able to move it with just a finger. My solution:
- pull the arm out
- insert a 5mm metal drill bit (orequal Imperial size) all the way down. 5mm was the equal thickness tomy Staytrem arm. Measure yours to be sure.
- You won't be able toturn it by hand.
- Use a pair of pliers or vice grip and give itone turn. A small shaving of nylon came out when I did this.
- NowI could almost turn the drill bit by hand.
- Take out drill bitand insert the arm. Evaluate how it feels.
- Keep doing the abovesteps until you are almost happy. In my case it took 4 turns.
-Put a bit of chapstick or graphite powder on the arm (I mix them up in the chapstick). Now you will be happy with how it feels. Dead silent and smooth.
Last edited: Nov 17, 2024 10:21:16
