Elvis Costello Jazzmaster early Spitfire tort guard

[scriffraff]

That gold guard and walnut body are a match made in heaven. Looks great!

[mcjt]

oh yeah, it's the same guard i used to have.
On the white korina JM (1.2kg, 1pc body!!!!) i used to have. WHY did i sell it? ARGHHHH

[ryverb]

Wow, that Korina body!

[otis]

So I went back to AVRI tort on my Costello Jazzmaster for a while



About a month ago I got an early spitfire tort guard from Despot that he failed to use on his incamaster.
Here's the guard

I couldn't get the guard on my Jazzmaster because of it's thickness. it is roughly 1/4th thicker than an AVRI guard and the threaded part of the pots doesn't protrude enough to be able to tighten them.

I emailed Spitfire about this and he told me that it is a very early guard (N°24 if I remember correctly). He used a different type of white-black-white pickguard material than nowerdays and his tort-layer was way thicker than now.
Today spitfire tort guards are of vintage-correct thickness and fit without problems.
Mark was very informative about the guard I have; it's nice to see how helpfull and dedicated to his products he is.
Since I didn't want to loose the shielding guard on the Costello, I finally decided to take away the bottom white layer round the cutouts of Jack, switch and pots with a dremel.



It may look a bit messy, but at least now, the guard fits my Jazzmaster and once it's on, it looks neat.



I like the pattern in the tort and the color of the guard, but there are some lesser aspects that seek my attention.

The thickness of the guard is obvious from a players point of view and also in the width of the vintage-correct 30° angle




The angle itself isn't constant; at some spots it is steeper. Near the input-jack I made a very short excursion with the dremel resulting on a little damage noticable on the front.
I could sand away this small spot on the edge(I touched up about 2 cm).



Also, the white layers are really stark white.
The original tort on the Costello's white layers was parchment, and the AVRI tort in the first picture has mint green.
Both result in an edge that has much more vintage appeal(apart from the angle).

Finally, The cutout for the trussrod isn't centered; this is rather obvious and also the reason Despot says he never used it in the first place.
I can picture these irregularities can be perceived as minor, but somehow I've been looking at Jazzmasters too much not to notice them time and again.
On the other hand, the tort itself is very convincing! pure lava.




All in all, The quality of the tort is what's most eye-popping. Considered this is one of the very earliest ones, it's normal that there are some things that needed further perfection. I think the overall quality of N° 24 is a testimony of how talented Mark is. His current Spitfire guards must be very impressive!
Thanks Spitfire; thanks Despot!

What do you people think of the current incarnation of the Costello?
cheers
Tom

[otis]

Daylight- outdoor pics
Mark, my hat's of to you!

[Despot]

That turned out really great Tom!

You were probably better off doing the modification than waiting for me to remember to send you that spare wiring harness (I should have just sent that to you as well - I had it attached to the guard for safe keeping so it was actually more work to remove it than it would have been to just send it all!!).

You should do something about that truss rod adjustment cut out though - my original plan was to find a bit of spare tort and sand it down to fit into the slot, then just glue it in place leaving no cut out (my own vintage guard has a cut out that has shrunk to where it looks like there's none there anyway, so it wouldn't look weird). That's the only reason I never used it on the Incamaster.

I still think the gold guard looked better on the Costello - but that's just me. There was something about the brown and gold combination that worked well ... but I know you weren't a fan of how it sounded. That Spitfire guard is a whole lot better than Fender tort that's for sure!! I'm glad to see that it finally found a good home.

[takeittothemall]

The quirks of the Spitfire guard don't bother me. I think it looks great.

[otis]

Hey Kevin,

I gave it a go cause I wanted something to do other than read all day, and I felt my shoulder would be up to it.
the little error I made at the end was because I actually wasn't ready for it yet, but all turned ok-ish.

Also, somehow I didn't like the idea of having to mess with the wiring of my EC, even though it would be an upgrade.
So I decided to adress the guard (didn't like this idea either/anyway, it looks ok from the front).

Filling the hole with a piece of tort would be best, indeed.
Also, I wonder if and how I could make the white edges more tan.

The gold guard looked the part, indeed, but it didn't work for me on this JM.
On the other hand, I never gave it a fair chance either.
To really know the impact of the guard, I should make recordings and compare them.
I just had the impression that it sustained shorter and the guitar became more silent acoustically.
In about a week I'm gonna install mastery thimbles in the EC. I think I'm gonna check/ try to record the actual difference in sound than.

[thegumbootman]

That looks fantastic!

I based my MJT Jazzmaster off the Elvis Costello sig and I also got a Spitfire pickguard. I kind of wish my pickguard was a bit lighter coloured like yours.

[otis]

The quirks of the Spitfire guard don't bother me. I think it looks great.

I'm not sure; somehow the stark white makes it look like a 'fake'; not the real thing.
Don't get me wrong; I think Spitfire does fantastic work, but the white/black/white basis he worked on at the time doesn't look like the real deal in person.
It's not about the thickness of the black line, it's really the kind of white.

Someone knows how to cure this?

[druunkonego]

...it's really the kind of white.

Someone knows how to cure this?

Coffee bath... pour a little dark brew coffee in a cookie sheet and let it sit over night. By the next day it should look more vintage.

I'm not sure how Spitfire does it but this is the trick I used for all of my white plastics and I think it worked very well.

Here's a pick I lifted from the web.

[pad]

...it's really the kind of white.

Someone knows how to cure this?

Coffee bath... pour a little dark brew coffee in a cookie sheet and let it sit over night. By the next day it should look more vintage. It's the trick I used for all of my white plastics and I think it worked very well.

I read about that, too! If you want it to age faster/heavier try black tea, might work better.

[markblack77]

walnut + gold = fine looking guitar