Mini Jazzmaster Partscaster

[sirspens]

This is a bit of a silly mod project. My 6 year old nephew is learning to play guitar. (I buy all of my sister's children musical instruments at every chance to torture my sister, you know.) I bought him a 1/2 scale classical last year to start learning on, and he is coming along pretty well. So, wanting to get him an electric guitar, and not just any plain boring electric guitar, I set out on this mission.

I started with a Squire MiniStrat from which I took the neck, a 3/4" scale (22-5/8") guitar, to fit his reach range.


After acquiring the MiniStrat and doing a LOT of measuring, I realized that the 3/4" scale has the exact same distance between the heel of the neck and the bridge as a Strat or JM, meaning you can swap it 1-for-1 with any 25.5" scale guitar with the standard Strat/JM neck pocket.

The Jay Turser Jazzmaster "clone" JT-JG (http://www.jayturser.com/products/electrics/jt-jg.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) isn't really exactly a clone, it has a smaller body, by several inches. So I got one of those.


A sidebar, reviewing what is under the hood of the Jay Turser JT-JG... It has a basic Strat set-up for the pickups and switching, except only one master tone knob. Along with a Strat style tremolo.


The pickups are exactly like I found in my mid90s MIM Fender Stratocaster, ceramic magnets over steel slug pole pieces. These don't have the best sound, but I'll come back to that later. Typical 250k alpha pots for a Stratocaster style guitar.


While I had the guitar apart I took a tracing of the pickguard and scanned it and the pickguard in case I want to come back later and make some changes to the pickups and electronics.


It took me a number of tries that I lost count of (around 10) to shim the neck correctly, and I had to adjust the bridge quite a bit because the MiniStrat neck has way more curve than the JT neck had, but in all the switch-out was fairly painless. Here is the guitar back together...



Here it is along side one of my Jazzmasters, for comparison...




Here is an overlay...


I have until Christmas to play the guitar and decide if I want to make changes to the pickups. I played it for about an hour today, and it sounds surprisingly good, especially the neck pickup. The bridge pickup is a bit too brittle, even for my taste, and I like brittle. I don't think I can fit JM pickups on this thing without some serious reworking of the pickguard and routing. At the moment I am consider gold foils or P90s. (Just two)

[sirspens]

Which, by the way, leaves me with an odd duck, a MiniStrat body and a Jay Turser 25.5" scale neck...

[kdanie]

I like the mini JM a lot. Cool gift for a kid.

ken

[Embenny]

That is really really cool. That kid has an awesome uncle! I also like the fact that you're insoctrinating him as an Offset player early on.

I also like that bizarre small-bodied strat partscaster that resulted. It looks like something a hipster Mac Demarco fan would like

[PixMix]

Nicely done Mr. Cool Uncle! You went all out with a body swap. I really like that! I only repainted the start body for my 6 (soon to be 7) year old son.

[Benjammin]

very cool

[joeld]

Agh! My brain hurts! How's does a shorter scale neck intonate on a body meant for a full size neck?! Is it a conversion neck?!

[Shadoweclipse13]

I love it! Actually I love both! The resulting weird Strat is super cool. Here's an idea for pickups. Mini goldfoils from GFS!! They have that extra bit cool aesthetics that I think your nephew would really dig

[sirspens]

Thanks to everyone! My sister was in town the other day and I showed her the guitar and amp I have for him. She is super excited.

Agh! My brain hurts! How's does a shorter scale neck intonate on a body meant for a full size neck?! Is it a conversion neck?!

The distance from the heel of the neck to the bridge was the same on both guitars, so it works perfectly, intonates perfect, and it even sounds good tuned to Ee, whereas I thought I would be tuning it to Gg to get a good sound out of it.

[leokula]

That turned out great, I really like it. If you told me about this idea, I'd figure you'd have a lot more trouble than you did. Great job!

[Rgand]

Awesome project. Really fine work, there.

[FightingPlankton]

Agh! My brain hurts! How's does a shorter scale neck intonate on a body meant for a full size neck?! Is it a conversion neck?!

It has fewer frets. Idk about heel to bridge, but as long as 12th to bridge is the same as 1st to 12th, it should work.

Edit: I just measured my mini up to my full size strat and the distance from bridge to 12th is definitely not the same. that being said, my measurements are approximate...not exact.

here's heel to bridge mini(just under 7")


full strat heel to bridge(exactly 7")


heres 12 to bridge mini(11.5")


and full strat 12 to bridge (12.75")

[sirspens]

Agh! My brain hurts! How's does a shorter scale neck intonate on a body meant for a full size neck?! Is it a conversion neck?!

It has fewer frets. Idk about heel to bridge, but as long as 12th to bridge is the same as 1st to 12th, it should work.

Edit: I just measured my mini up to my full size strat and the distance from bridge to 12th is definitely not the same. that being said, my measurements are approximate...not exact.

Interesting.

What is important is that the nut to the bridge be the same on both guitars when done (obviously), and if the heel to the bridge is the same on both guitars, it will work, because the neck is a constant. I also used the measurement to the back of the bridge when measuring because I didn't really care where the saddles were currently adjusted to. I knew that I would have roughly the same range of adjustment on both guitars. And that measurement was within 1/16", well within the adjustable range of the saddles.

Mine was so exact that I didn't even have to adjust the saddles to get the intonation correct in the end. It surprised the hell out of me. But after I got the neck shimmed correctly, the saddle height adjusted, and the guitar tuned up, I went to intonate and everything was dead on tune at the 12th fret.

I've been playing it for weeks now, and it sounds great, all up and down the fret board.