Costello-ish Bastard Jag Build

Talk about modding or building your own guitar from scratch.
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andy
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Re: Costello-ish Bastard Jag Build

Post by andy » Fri Jun 15, 2018 8:05 pm

Did you use the aerosol minwax for the body?
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Re: Costello-ish Bastard Jag Build

Post by my main man » Fri Jun 15, 2018 8:21 pm

andy wrote:
Fri Jun 15, 2018 8:05 pm
Did you use the aerosol minwax for the body?
I used brush-on Minwax pre-stain wood conditioner, followed by one coat brush-on Minwax dark walnut stain, followed by a few coats of spray-on Minwax semi-gloss poly. Ive done a handful of refins in the past and this was 100% the easiest finish I’ve ever done.

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Re: Costello-ish Bastard Jag Build

Post by my main man » Fri Jun 29, 2018 11:37 am

Slight update. All the parts are here now except for a string tree that's on its way. Last night I spent some time with a jeweler's saw to open up the pickup routes on my pickguard. I think I will get a custom pickguard made eventually (or make one myself...who makes the best tort blanks?) but this will do for now. Sorry to all the people who voted no rings. I need them now because it looks terrible without them.

Here you can see where I opened up the pickup routes:
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Testing the rings:
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Quick daylight shot of it semi put together:
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Mother-in-law is in town all weekend so I'll be busier than normal but I'm hoping to get it wired up sometime tomorrow or Sunday. Just need the string trees and potentially a custom headstock decal and I'll be ready to go. I'll try to get some sound clips when it's wired up, assuming I'm able to not fuck it up too bad.

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my main man
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Re: Costello-ish Bastard Jag Build

Post by my main man » Fri Jun 29, 2018 11:48 am

I also might need a vote on which project is next.

Teardrop made from Ikea cutting boards and spare parts I have lying around:
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Or giving this vintage Italian guitar a full-on makeover:
Image

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Re: Costello-ish Bastard Jag Build

Post by solfege » Fri Jun 29, 2018 1:28 pm

That all looks great!

I'm probably going to end up with something very similar when I'm done. I've got a vintage neck now, and an ash body on its way. I've been thinking of trying to do the body amber to match the neck -- all of which would also look a lot like my old Gretsch acoustic -- but if that doesn't work out, the Elvis is probably going to be the fallback. Needless to say, I've been following your project with interest.

So do you think you can get the cutting board teardrop to fit a JM trem? B/c if so, man, go for it!

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Re: Costello-ish Bastard Jag Build

Post by my main man » Fri Jun 29, 2018 1:41 pm

solfege wrote:
Fri Jun 29, 2018 1:28 pm
That all looks great!

I'm probably going to end up with something very similar when I'm done. I've got a vintage neck now, and an ash body on its way. I've been thinking of trying to do the body amber to match the neck -- all of which would also look a lot like my old Gretsch acoustic -- but if that doesn't work out, the Elvis is probably going to be the fallback. Needless to say, I've been following your project with interest.

So do you think you can get the cutting board teardrop to fit a JM trem? B/c if so, man, go for it!
Haha. yeah thats the dream. I have the trem from a VMJM adn I think I can make it work. I have room to make the body bigger too.

One note about matching stains for the body and the neck: I actually wanted to do a matching walnut stain headstock for this Jag but the maple neck and my alder body take stain waaaaaay differently. I had an old strat neck lying around so I tried doing the walnut stain on its headstock and the color came out completely different because of the different densities. Test the amber stain in a pickup cavity or something before you try the whole body. A lighter stain might work a lot better though.

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Re: Costello-ish Bastard Jag Build

Post by mackerelmint » Fri Jun 29, 2018 3:19 pm

Ohhh, that jag. Very nice. Walnut stain is just a fantastic look on a guitar.

As for projects, that old Italian jobbie deserves some love, whereas there's never been a teardrop guitar that wasn't better used as a cutting board.
This is an excellent rectangle

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Re: Costello-ish Bastard Jag Build

Post by my main man » Mon Jul 02, 2018 10:13 am

Tried wiring it up last night and failed miserably. Was all excited that I was going to be able to play it before bed but I did something very very wrong. I have an SOS text out to a friend right now.

In the meantime does anyone have a pic of the wiring for their lead circuit? The schematic I used wasn't terribly clear and the only other ones I was finding were for mods.

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Re: Costello-ish Bastard Jag Build

Post by JVG » Tue Jul 03, 2018 12:01 pm

The Seymour Duncan wiring diagrams (freely available on their webpage) are usually pretty good and quite clear. I'd recommend having a look there. I know they have a Jag diagram. If your humbuckers have the old style braided lead, you will need to change the way you ground them, compared to 2-lead single coils.

Cheers!
J.

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Re: Costello-ish Bastard Jag Build

Post by HNB » Tue Jul 03, 2018 3:12 pm

Here you go. I like this one because each wire is a different color so it is easier to make sure things are going to the right places.

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my main man
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Re: Costello-ish Bastard Jag Build

Post by my main man » Tue Jul 03, 2018 6:07 pm

Thanks for that! I’ll take a look. In the meantime, can anyone see if there’s something obviously screwed up here? The rhythm circuit is kind of working now but this area is just completely silent.

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Re: Costello-ish Bastard Jag Build

Post by my main man » Mon Jul 09, 2018 12:11 pm

Got way too frustrated with the wiring. I eventually was able to get everything to work but it had a really bad ground loop problem and I couldn't figure it out myself. I took it to my luthier friend to have him or one of his people finish it up for me. It's in the shop now but I took one more pic in the daylight before leaving it with him. This is the most accurate color of all the pics I've posted. So excited to get it back and play it again.

Image

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Re: Costello-ish Bastard Jag Build

Post by Maggieo » Mon Jul 09, 2018 12:22 pm

Man, that is going to be so awesome.
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Re: Costello-ish Bastard Jag Build

Post by kracdown » Mon Jul 09, 2018 3:06 pm

awesome, but begging for spitfire...

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Re: Costello-ish Bastard Jag Build

Post by my main man » Mon Jul 09, 2018 5:10 pm

kracdown wrote:
Mon Jul 09, 2018 3:06 pm
awesome, but begging for spitfire...
I knooooooow but my wife is about to have a baby literally any day now and I can't justify the cost for like the next 25 years.

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