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Hi! Remember about a month ago there was some discussion about the Squire
Super-Sonic? Well, I bought one on eBay for $230 that still had the original
strings on it and the plastic on the pickguard. I thought I'd tell you what
I've done with it. First of all, it has a thin and narrow 24" scale neck,
which I like very much. The radius is 9.5", a bit flatter than the Jaguar
7.25" radius. Also, it has a strat tremelo and the truss rod adjusts at the
headstock (another feature that I like). Mine is silver sparkle with black
knobs and a white pickguard. The first thing that I did was to order two
Seymour-Duncan lipstick tube pickups for strat. I paid $105, including
shipping. Without re-routing, I have the neck pickup straight accross.
Unfortunately, the humbuckers that come on the Super-Sonic have a bridge
pickup that slants in the opposite direction than a tele or strat. The first
string pole piece is farther from the bridge than the sixth string pole
piece. That's the way the bridge lipstick tube pickup is currently slanted,
but I don't really like that. So, with a slight bit of routing at the two
corners, I'll be able to slant the bridge pickup like a tele.
That's really what this guitar sounds like. I didn't know if it would be a
surf guitar. I was hoping, but it ended up sounding a lot like a telecaster.
I also like to play rockabilly. So, this isn't a bad thing. The 24" scale
neck is extremely comfortable and I'm very pleased with this guitar. These
lipstick tube pickups just don't seem to lend themselves very well to surf
and I wanted to pass that on. Now, once I re-route the bridge pickup, I'm
going to have a new black pickguard made. With the silver sparkle and the
chrome lipstick tube pickups, it should look very cool!
So, then I just happened to go to my favorite vintage guitar store the day
after I got my Super-Sonic all set up with the new pickups, etc. I looked
around for awhile, but the closest they had to a surf guitar was a Hagstrom
2 for $200. The headstock had apparently broken and been glued back on. I
wasn't interested in that, but as I was leaving, the owner came out with a
white, 1995-96, made in Japan Jaguar in great condition. I couldn't believe
it! My mouth was watering as I asked him what the story was. He said that he
had just traded for it within the past hour, didn't know anything about it
and he was just getting ready to set it up. To make a long story longer, I
asked him if he would consider selling it to me right then and if I did the
set-up myself, would he take some off the price. He sold it to me for $349,
which I think was a good deal. It plays really nice and has great intonation
and sound. Eventually, I'll buy some Seymour-Duncan vintage pickups.
The Jag has a fairly thin neck, at least when compared to the vintage ones
or even the new American ones that I've tried, and it's very comfortable,
but after playing the Super-Sonic, with the thinner, narrower and flatter
neck, the Jag feels almost chunky! Funny how that works. Of course, after
playing the Super-Sonic, my Mexican strat feels like a telephone pole!
So, the bottom line is that I tried to make a surf guitar myself and, even
though I failed, I'm very happy with the end result! I'm also very, very
glad that I have a Jaguar now.
That's it. Thanks for letting me share my stories!
Tom
Nice work Tom,
Japanese (MIJ) Fenders are great guitars, I have a couple of friends who
play them in great surf bands and they like the MIJ Jazz and Jag more
then the MIA Fenders, well the hardware isn't as good as the MIA's, but
can be replaced. And as for the SD pick ups, they are absolutely great.
I just replaced mine with SD Antiquity I on my MIJ Jazzmaster, what a
difference.
Well, I'm sure you will like you MIJ Jaguar.
Jerry S. from Belgium
