A Hacker's Guide to the Squier Jazzmaster Affinity

[sirspens]

For those interested in the Squier Jazzmaster Affinity as a modding platform, here is what I found when I took mine apart...

It has a swimming pool route. Which would make this perfect for a Stratocaster SSS or HSS type mod, except I think you would have to stick with the hardtail bridge.


The hardtail bridge is string-through with furreles on the back side.


A peak under the hood.




The humbucker pickups are unbranded.


And that seems to be a ceramic magnet there, which would match up with the high output and crisp upper end I was getting out of the pickups.


Volume Pot:


Tone Pot:


The tuning machines are probably cheap, but I found them to be very reliable in my long playing sessions for the few days I had the guitar before taking it apart. The large knobs are a bit close together if you are tuning too quickly.


If you are going to try to use anything but the hardtail bridge, you will have this problem to contend with:

I was planning on converting this thing into a dirty Jazzblaster, but this has given me pause. I'm still most likely going to do it. But I'll have to come up with a solution for this issue. Other than that, a standard Fender Jazzmaster pickguard fits perfectly.

The Good: The routing on the body is machine-precise and clean, not surprisingly. The body and finish are both solid, especially for the price. The neck isn't fancy, but I have a tendency to pull quite a bit when playing open chords, and this thing didn't give a bit in pitch. I can't even say that for Gibsons I have owned.

The Bad: You get two color options. No, black and white aren't colors. You get two finish options. The pickups aren't great. It took my a while to dial in some setting that sounded good on my amp and effects, which were completely different than any other guitar I use, including other ceramic humbuckers and P90s. I eventually got them sounding good, but it took a bit of effort. The pickguard is shit. I scratched, and I mean SCRATCHED, this thing with just a few days of play. I don't know what it is made of, but it is far too soft.

Let me know if you have any measurement questions or anything while I have this thing apart. I haven't taken the neck off, yet, but I will if somebody has a question.

[vale]

For those interested in the Squier Jazzmaster Affinity as a modding platform, here is what I found when I took mine apart...

Let me know if you have any measurement questions or anything while I have this thing apart. I haven't taken the neck off, yet, but I will if somebody has a question.

hey sirspens, thanks for the thread. am really into teardowns like this. more interesting to me the what & how of what goes on beneath the surface than the window-dressing thing, which is more about comparing taste.

with this i am curious how much is affinty strat derived (spec for neck may be more affity strat than jazzmaster?) & how much is proper jazzmaster spec, built cheap.
thinner body was one area i though they might save pennies (as they did with mustang) but reports are that thickness is the same.
willl be good to see what you come up with. you've already picked up on the bridge holes outlying the guard, which will be useful information to many potential modders.

since you have come out & specifically offered measurments, can i ask this (posted in another thread but didn't catch on)?

can anyone with one of the new affinity jazzmasters & a calliper thing (or precise-ish measuring device) tell me the thickness (depth front to back) of the neck at the first & twelth frets? & 7th as a halfway house would be a boner. apex of fingerboard (not top of fret) to apex of back of neck.
i'm wondering how it compares with other things i have & also if it based on the affinity strat neck, or the fender jazzmaster neck?

thankq kind measurer who can.

i am basically neck-neurotic & only like skinny shallow necks. small (girl) hands mean i have to stretch in an achy way if necks get thicker as they go up, which is rubbish if i am practising for hours.
so i avoid anything big, which unfortunately rules out a lot of otherwise great guitars.

so curious about this neck. thanks for any specs or opinions you have about it. & will follow this thread with interest.

[preservation]

doing the Lord's work...

[preservation]

if i can find this body on the Stratosphere i'm gonna freak out

[vale]

doing the Lord's work...

amen! & on the sabbath day all creation did come to be laid out before the congregation... & it was good & they were agog.

[Rgand]

I see that these have an alder body, too. It looks to be a fine one to work with. I'd be tempted to put a Warmoth baritone neck on it. That would then make it much like the Fender Baritone Special.

[vale]

I see that these have an alder body, too. It looks to be a fine one to work with. I'd be tempted to put a Warmoth baritone neck on it. That would then make it much like the Fender Baritone Special.

price of a warmoth baritone neck would be more than the price of the whole guitar. & then you need nice bits.
would probs make more sense to buy a squier bass vi & flog hardware you don't need to fund mods.

[Rgand]

I see that these have an alder body, too. It looks to be a fine one to work with. I'd be tempted to put a Warmoth baritone neck on it. That would then make it much like the Fender Baritone Special.

price of a warmoth baritone neck would be more than the price of the whole guitar. & then you need nice bits.
would probs make more sense to buy a squier bass vi & flog hardware you don't need to fund mods.

That's certainly one way to look at it.

[marqueemoon]

if i can find this body on the Stratosphere i'm gonna freak out

Ha. Same.

[vale]

I see that these have an alder body, too. It looks to be a fine one to work with. I'd be tempted to put a Warmoth baritone neck on it. That would then make it much like the Fender Baritone Special.

price of a warmoth baritone neck would be more than the price of the whole guitar. & then you need nice bits.
would probs make more sense to buy a squier bass vi & flog hardware you don't need to fund mods.

That's certainly one way to look at it.

well yes & no, since i forgot that the bass vi isn't a regular jag/jazz shape body. i am sleepyhead.

[Mad-Mike]

Looks like when these start appearing for $54.00 at the thrift shops, I might pick up a few and build a few more Jazzy's for my artillery. Put some older Affinity strat necks on them (the really skinny ones).

The body issues with holes don't bother me at all, most likely I'd end up patching it and refinishing it anyway, I have enough black guitars, and I own 2 white ones, so I'd probably paint it a different color.

[vale]

Put some older Affinity strat necks on them (the really skinny ones).

hey Mad-Mike, when you say skinny do you mean skinny across the nut/frets (usually 42mm ish)? or skinny as in apex of fretboard to apex of back of neck (shallow in depth, in other words)?

am trying to work out which squier/affinty necks are shallow, but it's a specification that doesn't really appear in the standard blurb on websites, more a word of mouth thing (with all the contradictions & inconsistencies that go with anecdotal & subjective reports).

i know the affinity strats (or some of) had thinner bodies than regular strats, so maybe it folows that their necks were that bit shallower to compensate. but if so which ones? maybe these affity jm's are shallow too, so you wouldn't need to swap?

anyway, thanks in advance for any clues you can offer as to where i should be looking for shallow squier necks.

[Mad-Mike]

Put some older Affinity strat necks on them (the really skinny ones).

hey Mad-Mike, when you say skinny do you mean skinny across the nut/frets (usually 42mm ish)? or skinny as in apex of fretboard to apex of back of neck (shallow in depth, in other words)?

am trying to work out which squier/affinty necks are shallow, but it's a specification that doesn't really appear in the standard blurb on websites, more a word of mouth thing (with all the contradictions & inconsistencies that go with anecdotal & subjective reports).

i know the affinity strats (or some of) had thinner bodies than regular strats, so maybe it folows that their necks were that bit shallower to compensate. but if so which ones? maybe these affity jm's are shallow too, so you wouldn't need to swap?

anyway, thanks in advance for any clues you can offer as to where i should be looking for shallow squier necks.

I'm probably meaning both. I've owned 2 Squier Affinity Strats - a 1998, and a 2004, both of them had extremely thin nut widths, comparable to my Jag-Stang, and a very thin cross-section - especially the 1998 model which had a maple one piece neck. The neck felt a lot like a Hondo Paul Dean neck from the back (Hondo Paul Dean necks are very skinny from both counts as well - and those have a 1" nut width, the narrowest I've ever seen on any guitar).

It seems sometime around 2010 or so Squier started putting these thicker necks with the same nut width on their guitars that I don't like much at all. That's one reason I've stopped picking up Affinity guitars because the necks on them are not as comfortable as the old ones from 1998-2009ish.

The bodies were always thinner than normal on all fo the Affinity guitars. They share the same thickness with the older 24" scale conversion neck JAgmasters as they came from the same factory. The body thickness is thicker than a Mustang but thinner than a regular standard Fender guitar, the body outlines are pretty spot-on though.

I currently have a 2007 Affinity telecaster with a very similar neck profile to the strats that I bought new in 07' (it's my main and only Telecaster).

As for the bodies - the older Affinity guitars used "agathis" for the body wood, my 98 and 04' strats had that. Fender started introducing Alder on that series around 2006-2008ish when they started offering the Affinity Telecaster in "Butterscotch Blonde" (and originally it was a special model that was probably intended for limited production but they took off like wildfire, coincidentally around the time my most viewed youtube video was getting a lot of hits featuring one of those "Specials"...hmmm). Sometime around 08' or so I started seeing the specs for the Affinity guitars change to Alder from Agathis, and they started offering Metallic colors (originally the Tele and Strat only came in White, Black, Red, and Blue with Sunburst coming in later on).

Yako in China is the company that produces the Affinity guitars s- that's why the serials start with CY (China Yako - then the first two digits are the year)... Yako also made the Jagmaster for awhile.

Here's the ones I have own(ed)
98' Affinity Strat (maple board) - CY98
04' Affinity Strat (rosewood board) - CY04
07' (actually 2006) Affinity Tele Special - CY06
07' Jagmaster - CY07

Also, the Squier Affinity series were produced in a special run for Musician's Friend under the Rogue Label (another guitar that did this was sHarmony's "36" student guitar" the H-804 that they sold in the sears catalog - the Harmony/Rogue and the Squier/Rogue came out around the same time in 1999). The Rogue version comes in the same colors sbut I don't know what the neck properties on those are.

[vale]

^^^ Mad-Mike, you just wrote the bible! huge thank you for that post.

it sounds as if we have pretty similar neck tastes & needs. am always surprised by how many different permutations of single pickup/humbucker/tremolo/no-tremolo/etc/etc for there are for every guitar, & yet usually the neck stays stubbonly one-size fits all. that's the bit i interact with most & have least abilty to tweak myself, so that's where i need the options to be able to get something i like.
i basically buy guitars for the neck feel first, body shape second, & the electrics & hardware doesn't even figure because i have my own fixed ideas about that stuff so it invariably gets stripped & parted out.

in a way it's a good thing, as my neck fussiness means i have all but given up window-shopping for new things really & just stick to something i had tweaked to my tastes neckwise. which saves time & energy.
but on the other, it would be nice to have one other guitar i really liked the neck of, just to alternate.

so your mini-guide as to which affinities might suit me is really appreciated as it gives me starting points where i had none.

it look as if the affinity jazzmaster (going but known nut with) is going to be the later standard depth. but if it is roughly swappable with old affinity necks (bridge may need replacing if neck is much lower) that's useful to know.
i also wonder if it means that (if the old & new affinty necks are similar in construction (truss rod depth) that a new neck could be safely shaved back to the thinner old depth without risking stability. that would also be usful to know.
that would save a lot of agony if so.

food for thought.

[Hellopike]

Looks like when these start appearing for $54.00 at the thrift shops, I might pick up a few and build a few more Jazzy's for my artillery.

Think that'll happen with these? New Guitar prices keep going up and as a result so do the used prices. And yeah you can find affinity strats for about $50, but that's no guarantee the JM will be- take the affinity telecaster for example. They hold their value more than the ubiquitous Strat...