Dream Jazzmaster Build, or Yet Another Green Jazzmaster

Talk about modding or building your own guitar from scratch.
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ThePearDream
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Re: Dream Jazzmaster Build, or Yet Another Green Jazzmaster

Post by ThePearDream » Sun Nov 11, 2018 7:06 am

BoringPostcards wrote:
Thu Nov 08, 2018 9:30 pm
Love the neck plate. Confusion is Sex is such a great album. Most of it sounds like NYC traffic accidents and subway riots. I kid. I love showing it to people who only know their later albums. Such a raw recording.
Thanks! I would call Confusion is Sex advanced level Sonic Youth listening. I love it's rawness and energy. I've always had a special love for the iconoclasm of Kill Yr. Idols.
Doug
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Re: Dream Jazzmaster Build, or Yet Another Green Jazzmaster

Post by ThePearDream » Thu Nov 15, 2018 8:06 am

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Doug
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Re: Dream Jazzmaster Build, or Yet Another Green Jazzmaster

Post by ThePearDream » Wed Dec 05, 2018 10:13 am

No time for pics, cause I'm about to leave for the airport, but I just received the neck. It is gorgeous. The Macassar Ebony fretboard looks exactly like I hoped it would and the roasted maple is awesome. Time to get serious about picking a name now.
Doug
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Re: Dream Jazzmaster Build, or Yet Another Green Jazzmaster

Post by ThePearDream » Sun Dec 16, 2018 9:22 am

The headstock has been shaped and I rounded off the overhang. Frets are leveled, dressed, and polished. I laid a few base coats of lacquer down on the head and am expecting decals next week. The ebony is already pretty dark but will get darker once I oil it.

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I racked my brain trying to come up with a name, and was having a hard time coming up with something not already in use, or cliched, or with some random weird association. I wanted something that ended in "er", "or", "ar" for that kind of action sound, but didn't want to use "master" or "caster" and have something goofy like "Surfmaster". The other day I was listening to music on Spotify, just shuffling around and the Sonic Youth song "Disappearer" came on. I did a quick web search and didn't find any weird results in the first few pages. It felt right and worked well with the Kerouac quote I had been considering for the small text. By the time the song was over, I had ordered my decal.

I have multiple decals coming though. I ordered Rothko & Frost's "Jazzmaster" style decal. It's curly bits on the ends look like crap, but I wanted to ensure the layout worked on my headstock. I also have a proper Jazzmaster decal coming, so I can use the curls from that in place of the Rothko ones.
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I ordered my tuners yesterday. Ebay had a one day code for 15% off almost anything, so I was able to save almost $10 by being patient. There's just a few odds and ends and the pickguard left to buy.
Doug
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Re: Dream Jazzmaster Build, or Yet Another Green Jazzmaster

Post by ThePearDream » Sun Jan 13, 2019 9:52 am

The decal is in place and the tuners are installed. Since the lacquer darkened the face of the headstock, I opted to apply a single coat of truoil to the rest of the maple - to get things looking consistent.

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I need to order my pickguard soon. I printed out the pdf template from Terrapin, but the only loose Jazz guard I have on hand to compare it to is a Squier VM (which is not a great match) and the body is still at the finish shop. Can anyone confirm if the Terrapin guard is the right fit on a Guitar Mill body? I really should have checked this before I sent the body off. I should probably just reach out to SneakyT, I have a parchment Jaguar guard from him that is top notch.

I've finally settled on doing the same wiring scheme that I'm using on my other current build:
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This will give me 10 sounds versus the standard 4, with one less control.
Doug
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Re: Dream Jazzmaster Build, or Yet Another Green Jazzmaster

Post by ThePearDream » Tue Jan 22, 2019 6:35 pm

I ended up getting my guard from Decoboom. Andrew was awesome to work with. I had him put a single two way slide switch opening in the normal spot for the volume roller and am drilling the toggle hole myself. I paid for my order late last week and he shipped it out to me the next day. It arrived tonight, less than a week after I paid. The guard aligns almost perfectly with my Fender aluminum pickguard shield. The routing is super clean. As a bonus, the price was lower than the other options I was looking at.

Now I just need to do the wiring and get the finished body back.
Doug
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Re: Dream Jazzmaster Build, or Yet Another Green Jazzmaster

Post by PixMix » Tue Jan 22, 2019 6:57 pm

Great progress! Love the decal too. Which Decoboom pattern did you go with?

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Re: Dream Jazzmaster Build, or Yet Another Green Jazzmaster

Post by ThePearDream » Tue Jan 22, 2019 7:16 pm

It's just a plain, boring 3 ply parchment. I think that's part of why I was able to get it so quickly. I definitely want to get some of his other stuff soon though.
Doug
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Re: Dream Jazzmaster Build, or Yet Another Green Jazzmaster

Post by PixMix » Tue Jan 22, 2019 7:55 pm

That's cool, it'll look great on green. Looking forward to seeing the progress.

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Re: Dream Jazzmaster Build, or Yet Another Green Jazzmaster

Post by ThePearDream » Thu Jan 24, 2019 5:08 pm

This isn't about the green Jazzmaster, but is closely related enough that I though I'd post it here.

Since I'm about to have my perfect Jazzmaster, my Squier VM Jazzmaster is about to become redundant. So, I decided to move my Warmoth baritone neck onto it. At the same time, I decided to test out my wiring scheme in my Squier. I tore the Squier down, spruced up the shielding and re-wired it. I also pulled off the covers from the AV65 pickups for use on the green build - which I had been planning on doing all along. I had some 20+ year old Japanese covers that I put in their place.

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The wiring scheme sounds great. I love all of the tonal options and the Jazzmaster pickups work great for a baritone. Surprisingly, I had no trouble with intonation on the stock bridge.
Doug
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Rgand
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Re: Dream Jazzmaster Build, or Yet Another Green Jazzmaster

Post by Rgand » Fri Jan 25, 2019 8:01 am

Really looking forward to the green one all assembled. That's a beautiful color.

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Re: Dream Jazzmaster Build, or Yet Another Green Jazzmaster

Post by ThePearDream » Sun Jan 27, 2019 9:32 am

Rgand wrote:
Fri Jan 25, 2019 8:01 am
Really looking forward to the green one all assembled. That's a beautiful color.
Me too. I'm guessing it'll be another 6-8 weeks before I get the body back.

No pics, but the nut is made and polished up, I'll fine tune the slots during assembly.

Wiring is done and the pickguard is ready to be dropped in. Complete with overpriced Fender witchhats.
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I'm using a large format toggle for my DP3T toggle. I like the beefier feel and these from NKK have a nice action to them, while the bat is still shorter than the normal switchcraft type, so it isn't in the way.
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Things get real tight on the backside of the switch. Now that I've done a few of these, I have a good strategy down for how to tackle them - which is to start on the middle row of lugs.

There's a few dog hairs in there. These are purely for tone.
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Lastly, since this is a special project, I sanded out the lines from the injection molding on the toggle tip and polished it back up. I did the same for the trem tip.
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Does anyone else ever do that? Or am I just nuts? I think those little details matter and they make a real difference to me.
Doug
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Embenny
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Re: Dream Jazzmaster Build, or Yet Another Green Jazzmaster

Post by Embenny » Sun Jan 27, 2019 9:59 am

That's some very tidy wiring. I love experimenting with wiring schemes, but admittedly mine end up looking more like science experiments than Rothstein guards.

I've never sanded/polished a switch tip but it never occurred to me, either. That looks great and I think I'll be giving that a try!
The artist formerly known as mbene085.

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Rgand
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Re: Dream Jazzmaster Build, or Yet Another Green Jazzmaster

Post by Rgand » Sun Jan 27, 2019 10:24 am

OCD is good. It results in very nice work. Looks great so far.

I like those white witch hat knobs.

Dog hairs are a nice touch, too. :w00t:

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Re: Dream Jazzmaster Build, or Yet Another Green Jazzmaster

Post by smjenkins » Sun Jan 27, 2019 11:52 am

I'm loving all the updates on this thread but every time there's new action I feel like I'm in a procedural cop show: Show me the body!

I can't wait to see what it looks like with the metallic green and the mint guard together.

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