Always loved the look of an offset, but the Telecaster was the first true love, and when I saw telemasters and jazzcasters, it really stuck with me. Had the chance to play a Johnny Marr Jaguar at a local shop last year and connected immediately with how it felt & played and really sealed the deal. I wanted to give my first stab at doing something on my own instead of going to the custom shop route. I bought a Squire Vintage Modified Jaguar off secondhand at a that made the rest of the project seem reasonable.
There have been plenty of mistakes along the way. Some I decided to keep visible because I felt like it was a part of the learning curve (and partly frustration Ha!). For now it is what it is, and I’m still proud. Instead of trying to cram the entire build into one post, I'll go in sections with as much information as I can give. I don't own a woodshop, or a garage, I have my apartment, a tiny balcony, a rehearsal space, and limited access to a friends tool shed and carport. With patience an a lot of determination I was able to make these work for me.
Alright, let's start with the body!
I came across an Image online of this customized Squire VM Jaguar. I loved the color and tones. Almost pulled the trigger on ReRanch Desert Tan 55’, but found a nitro-combi spray locally. I was able to test multiple colors & not feel guilty about shipping costs and buying blindly online.
The first steps were to gut the second-hand purchase, strip it, plug unwanted cavities, route new cavities, sand, bondo, seal, color, clear, and finish with compound.
Below is the inspiration:
Here is the body process:
Body is basswood, I wanted a light guitar. While I feel its possible to refinish a basswood body, I don't recommend it. The fibers tend to break, rip up, dent and heats very easily. I had to sand, re-sand, fill, re-sand...fill....you get it. Heating the poly and scraping it up was not fun. If I do this again I would use ash, or something similar.
I needed to plug up the jaguar control plate cavity. I got some scrap basswood shaped as best as I could, glued and malleted into place.
Sanded it down level and filled it. Surprisingly worked well, hopefully, it doesn't shift as the body goes through the elements of time.
Got a fostner bit and my dinky black and decker drill and went nice and easy for routing, Followed again by, sanding, re-filling, re-sanding.
Color
Sprayed the first coat outside. Realised I was using the wrong color (Ivory), So I used it a Tack coat and switched over to the appropriate color. Eventually, I switched to shooting passes and coats in a spray booth as the first few passes and coats were drying before they hit the body and caused an awful textured layer. Sanded it down and started over.
These rattle cans were working great, The nitro-combi worked fine, sandable, dried well, true color. Somewhere one of the passes became a lot darker than the rest, and I didn't realize this until I started sanding what was supposed to be a final coat, wet sanded 800-1200 grit. Dark splotches started showing up as I sanded certain areas. I think this is from running the cans to close to empty. Having already sanded and re-colored quite a few times (and going through 3 1/2 cans of color) I decided to keep the imperfections and move forward, I thought the coat felt nice and thin, as I had sanded so many time, more on this afterward...
Clear
I used a mixture of Watco Clear Semi-Gloss & Satin. let it sit for 20 days in a warm and dry area for wet sanding. In hindsight I would've just went with satin. 2 cans, 800-1200 grit wet sanding. nice and thin.
Rubbing Compound & Polishing
I bought a polishing pad and drill extension and used Meguiars 7 Rubbing Compound & Car Glaze polish. a little goes a long way.
It does attract dust and lint and can leave the guitar feeling gritty if left out for a while, but it does feel and look like a factory finish of polyurethane, which is cool, but not what I was after! haha.
Mistakes
- Drilled a hole too deep and went through the body of the guitar,
- Needed to chisel away the side of some cavities for the pickguard and one of them cause cracking and a puncture on the back of the guitar.
- Weird discoloration from user error or faulty cans.
- Sanding possibly too far & exposing uncured paint.
- Applied color to thick and possibly unevenly, the whole point of a nitro-finish is how thin it can be, and easily it applied. Failed on this.
Recap
Becuase of the discoloration and other faulty cosmetic blemishes I tried some relicing in some inconspicuous spots. Checks and dings, general wear, and weather checking (hair dryer & compressed air). I decided not to do anymore, because of how thick the finish is, and I felt like it wasn't authentic looking enough, and I wasn't about the sand away the clear coat to make the discoloration look naturually worn. I'm thinking of ordering a Jaguar body of ash, or some other wood and doing this all over again later on down the line, but for now I can live with it, and I feel like I can do this better. I would use this paint again, but I would control the environment a lot more to ensure proper distribution and cure times. looking back over these photos, the color is insanely ambiguous, it looks green in some light, yellowish in others, tan or cream. I'll follow up with the rest of the process as I get around to it. Thanks for reading!
- R
Patched hole
Puncture hole from extending cavity
Splotchy discolartion Above on the Horn & Arm area
Relicing revealing paint thickness
FINAL FINISH
Inside and outside images to show color variation