Squier HH Jazzmaster hacker's guide revisited, DONE!!!

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Squier HH Jazzmaster hacker's guide revisited, DONE!!!

Post by ohm-men » Sun Oct 14, 2018 8:02 am

Hi all,

A few months ago, I lusted for a Jazzmaster. I had sold my beloved totally AVRI spec upgraded MIJ 1994 Oly White about 4 years ago.
I did not wanna break the bank. I could buy my Jm back, but it would set me about € 800,- back... a defenite NO!
So, I looked for a used Squier VM Jazzmaster, but they were all arround € 300,- and Sunburst. I had my mind set on either a white or Surf Green Jazzmaster. But no avail.... I did find a Surf Green Squier VM Jaguar for € 200,-, so I went for that one.
But...Yup...you guessed it....I still wanted a Jazzmaster... then I noticed this... http://www.offsetguitars.com/forums/vie ... ster+guide... and I was thinking...Hmmm...can I turn that into a classic Jazzmaster???
As it happened, I found one for sale for not too much money. I just flipped some gear didn't used anymore and got home with this for € 130,-
Seller lived near by, so I picked it up.

ImageImageImageImage

So, after playing it for I week, I decided that;
- I really liked the guitar, neck felt great and not as flat as a Gibson 12" radius neck!
- HH/Hardtail is not my cup of tea. (just feels and sounds like a hardtail/HH strat that looks somewhat cool)

So, read the Squier HH Jazzmaster Hacker's guide again and printed a 1/1 scale drawing of a Jazzmaster body with all measurments I downloaded here eons ago. I noticed that the Squier body is spot on the drawing and that after measuring the body it's actually 41,5 mm thick. So only 2,5 mm less thick then my Squier Jaguar.
Another thing I noticed is that a lot of reviewers wrote that the tuners are too close together. I noticed this too. So measuring it, it seams Squier just took a std. Jazzmaster neck drilled for Kluson style tuners and just drilled bigger holes and added modren style tuners.

Then I took my precious price apart...

ImageImageImageImageImage

Ferulles for the string thru were simply glued in the body :wtf: But good for me as the practicly fell out of the body after I took the strings off.
Swimpool route, but not big enough for Jm pick ups. And a lot of holes for the string thru bridge.
Neck is a "C" shape, doesn't differ that much from my Squier Jag, minus the skunkt stripe. Frets apear to be the same.

To be continued...
Last edited by ohm-men on Thu Oct 18, 2018 7:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Squier HH Jazzmaster hacker's guide revisited!

Post by jvin248 » Sun Oct 14, 2018 10:47 am

.

Lol. That lust for a JM and seeing the prices even on the used market remain high! I took the build-from-scratch path.

Going slow because the Jazzblaster version I decided to try a fabric top (which I have done before) and binding with flamed maple strips (which I have not tried before). Next time I'll get plastic binding. the other I'm doing in natural with regular JM controls. The plan is to build necks from blanks...

Thanks for the link to to hacker page.

.

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Re: Squier HH Jazzmaster hacker's guide revisited!

Post by ohm-men » Thu Oct 18, 2018 7:11 am

So, let's begin by adding something the Original "Squier HH hacker's guide" did not include, some actual "hacking....
Took the router out of the basement and made some templates to hack this baby up!
I needed to enlarge the "swimming pool" cavety in order to fit some JM pups and ofcourse I needed a trem rout.

ImageImage

Next I needed to fill the now no longer needed hardtail mounting and string through holes. I bought some Beech profiles at an art store and cut these to the lenght I needed. These were glued in and filled up with a two component filler which dried rock hard and sanded flat with wet.

ImageImage

Did the same with the back of the guitar, filled and painted the string through holes.

ImageImage

I initially wanted to use the Original HH guard and recut it into a JM guard and ad a piece of pickguard in order to prepare it for a regular JM bridge.
But upon looking up some trem mounting screws on a Dutch online guitar parts store, I noticed they had a beautifull Red Tort guard. They also had a nice photograph on their site with all measurments of the screw- and pu holes, so it was easy to check if it would fit the Squier body. To my surprise, all measurments were spot on, so I ordered it...
The one on the site looked really good, with a lot of depth and a nice red tint. Not Spitfire quality, but certainly nice! To my surprise I got the exact guard they had pictured at the site! I also wanted to match the headstock with the body. Since Squier describes this color as "Arctic White", Some enamel model paint proved to be a perfect match. Used the same paint to patch up the holes of the hard tail bridge!

Image

Pretty Happy with how the mockup looks!

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Re: Squier HH Jazzmaster hacker's guide revisited!

Post by ohm-men » Thu Oct 18, 2018 7:31 am

Since we are having a rather nice "Indian Summer" here, things proceeded much quicker then anticipated.
I took the body with me to work to drill some holes for the new bridge on the drill press.
Added the Gotoh "Mustang" tuners I bought here from member "Lastlol", he was so kind to include all the height adustment JM pick up screws as I had a really hard time finding those.
I found some non matching JM pu covers in my parts bin, a TOM JM/Jag kind of bridge I bought from a member here years ago and forgot about it as it has some weird measuments, meaning it does not fit on regular spaced TOM bridge holes. I think, if I remember correctly it came from a kind of Bigsby Tele kit. Bridge is metric, but made much more "bomb proof" then any Jm/Jag style bridge I've ever seen before. It also has no "curve", so this made it the perfect candidate for the 12" style Affinity neck.
Pu's were bought locally from our Belgian "craigs list" equivallent. They are Squier VM Duncan Designed pu's. Bridge it a bit too hot for my taste, but the neck is nice. But they were only € 25,- so I'm not complaining. They are still heaps better then any CIJ/MIJ or CP Jm pup I ever tried.

Anyway, lets cut this storry short!
Before and After;

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And a few more "Pron" shots;

ImageImageImageImage

As you can see, the Gotoh "Kluson" style tuners fittet perfectly in the std. holes. I used some conversion bushings (9.5mm) to match the 10mm modren style tuner holes. Since I painted the headstock, the paint accumilating in the headstock tuner holes was enough to compensate for the 0.5mm, making the conversion bushings fit like a charm! I only had to drill new mounting holes for the Gotoh tuners and had already filled the modren screw holes.

I found it needed a decal. Even though I want to put a "Gold" Squier Jazzmaster decal on it, I found these slightly underscaled self adhesive stickers in a drawer. Made these years ago for a project, but never used them as they were too underscale for the 70's style JM headstock I hoped to use these fore, but they fit perfect on the smaller Squier Headstock. In fact this decal has the same measurments as the "Spagetti"logo, minus the swirl... FinnEli is the name I'm using for a decade now for my own builds, it's just the first names of my two sons, Finn and Eli :)

Well, I think it became a great Jazzmaster. The Squier Affinity HH is a great modding platform imho. If you have some tools and skill, you can turn it into anything Jazzmaster alike for little money! I think it's much better then any "non Vista" Jagmasters Squier has ever made. (The Vista CIJ squier serries is/was among the best guitars Squier ever made) but, the Affinity HH is a very good guitar for the money!

Image

Last pic is one together with my DIY Bass VI that I build some 8 years ago before the Squier versions were availble. It's based around a reworked Squier Affiny Bronco Bass neck. Maghony body and Maple neck, coupled with a series Strat pu wiring make this a real Beast!
The VI became my main "Band playing instrument" because it sounds so unique. I bought a Squier VI a few years later, but sold it quickly after as it's no match for this one...

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Re: Squier HH Jazzmaster hacker's guide revisited, DONE!!!

Post by Danley » Thu Oct 18, 2018 8:40 am

Cool. Duncan Designed pickups aren't bad at all.
King Buzzo: I love when people come up to me and say “Your guitar sound was better on Stoner Witch, when you used a Les Paul. “...I used a Fender Mustang reissue on that, dumbass!

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Re: Squier HH Jazzmaster hacker's guide revisited, DONE!!!

Post by Stephen_42 » Thu Oct 18, 2018 9:13 am

Suggestion: The lack of rhythm circuit is very obvious with the white finish underneath. Why not try getting some black tape, and taping it to the back of the pickguard to stop the white showing through the holes? (Unless you like the white showing through, of course!)

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Re: Squier HH Jazzmaster hacker's guide revisited!

Post by Embenny » Thu Oct 18, 2018 9:29 am

Wow, great work!

I played one of those JMs yesterday for the first time. I was shocked at how much nicer the neck felt than my Squier Bullet Mustang.
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Re: Squier HH Jazzmaster hacker's guide revisited, DONE!!!

Post by ohm-men » Thu Oct 18, 2018 10:04 am

Thanks for looking in!
Stephen_42 wrote:
Thu Oct 18, 2018 9:13 am
Suggestion: The lack of rhythm circuit is very obvious with the white finish underneath. Why not try getting some black tape, and taping it to the back of the pickguard to stop the white showing through the holes? (Unless you like the white showing through, of course!)
I was thinking in the same line. I have some semi gloss black tape, but I couldn't find it. So it's on my to do list.
Perhaps I'll add the rythem circuit later on, as I a kind of mis it now. But that means taking the guitar apart again and routing it.
But this will be something for later on.

As far as the Duncan Design pu's go, I have never heard these before, as I have never played a VM Jazzmaster before.
I did use the Squier HH 500 K pots as I read that the Duncan Design pups are quiet trebly, to be honnest I still find them trebly with the 500 K pots.
I found a PIO cap in my parts bin that has the correct load for a Jazzmaster, so I guess next time I have to open it up, I'll replace the stock cap.
Thing is, I still got the SD Antiquity II sound in my head when it comes to Jazzmasters, the Duncan Designed ones are perhaps a bit too modren sounding to my taste. They remind me a bit of a set of SD "Hot" for Jazzmaster I once had and didn't like at all...

Now that I played the guitar for a few hours, I'm really happy with it. Best rout for a good JM on the cheap!

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Re: Squier HH Jazzmaster hacker's guide revisited, DONE!!!

Post by aliendawg » Thu Oct 18, 2018 11:08 am

Nice!! It looks really good. Congrats on the project, dude
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Re: Squier HH Jazzmaster hacker's guide revisited, DONE!!!

Post by Danley » Thu Oct 18, 2018 11:22 am

I have an SD 'Hot' set. Evan Skopp on the Duncan forum (ex-product manager or something) claimed the 'Hot' was the model for the DD bridge while the 'Vintage' Duncan was the basis for the neck. This makes sense to me as a combination since the Jazzmaster neck tends to be an overpowering position without engineering in a significant output difference to the bridge.

The 'Hot' bridge vs the DD bridge aren't quite the same; DD being a bit warmer in fact and lower output. I'm fine with the 'Hot' set and the DD set, but if you want a squeaky, twangy vintage tone they do lose in a side-by-side comparison to the 'Vintage' Duncan set. I appreciate the added warmth of the 'Hots' at the same time, for the bridge in particular.
King Buzzo: I love when people come up to me and say “Your guitar sound was better on Stoner Witch, when you used a Les Paul. “...I used a Fender Mustang reissue on that, dumbass!

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Re: Squier HH Jazzmaster hacker's guide revisited, DONE!!!

Post by DrQuasar » Thu Oct 18, 2018 1:04 pm

Beautiful work and turned out really nice. Cool guitar!

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Re: Squier HH Jazzmaster hacker's guide revisited, DONE!!!

Post by AcrylicSuperman » Thu Oct 18, 2018 4:44 pm

Turned put killer. Good job!

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Re: Squier HH Jazzmaster hacker's guide revisited, DONE!!!

Post by blimpage » Fri Oct 19, 2018 4:57 pm

Looks about 1000% cooler now. Very nice work!

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Re: Squier HH Jazzmaster hacker's guide revisited, DONE!!!

Post by ohm-men » Sat Oct 20, 2018 10:55 pm

Thanks all for liking what I did with this HH Jm.

Well, after playing it for a few days now, I gotta say I totally love this guitar! Sound is very close to my old Jm, but due to the Jm/Jag/TOM bridge it's slightly more focussed sound wise, let's say less loose. Not a bad thing at all imho. After fiddeling arround with the pick up height of the Duncan Designed Jm pu's, I gotta admit they are quiet nice! The neck and middle position are on par with what I had in the past. The bridge on it's own is still not entirely what I want, but I remember that this is something I expirienced in the past with all other Jm's I used to own. (I think I just like the bridge sound of a Jag a bit more, when loaded with a good bridge pu that is)
I did replace the tone cap with a PIO cap I found in my parts bin. This makes the tone control far more useable and much less strangling/dead sounding then the mica? cap that Squier used in their guitars when rolling off the tone.

To my big surprise, I think the the "no name" trem. It's very nice too. I used to replace the trem's on my MIJ/CIJ guitars in the past for AVRI or Vintage as I found the Japanese trems always felt flimsy. After measuring the "no name" trems, they are actually much closer to AVRI specs then the Japanese Fender trems. For instance the collet is thicker, the plates are thicker as well and the whole thing just feels more solid then the Japanese ones. Ofcourse you have to life without the "trem lock". I don't really mis it, as I never used it in the past.
As far as the trem arm goes, I have no idea if the "no name" trem arm's are better. I made one myself with a 5mm steel bar I found at work. (came off a shop display the guys there designed) I bended it into the right shape, polished it and put a parchment trem tip on it. It's slightly longer then a stock trem arm, as I copied the one I have on my bass VI (which I originally copied from a vintage VI)
Trem arm stays nicely in place, because the 5mm steel bar I used was powder coated, I just sanded/polished the the bar, except for the part that slots into the collet, making it sit nicely. Since this powder coating is heavy duty, I'm confident it will stay on, even after heavy trem use. (I had to sand the stuff for ages, just to get it off...)

So, to cut this story short, I think the Squier HH Jazzmaster is a very, very decent modding platform that can be had for cheap. The end result is on par, perhaps even better then the Japanese Jm's I used to have regarding build quality. Compared to an older MIJ, the Squier is just much better. (The neck pocket on the Squier HH Jm is one of the best fitting I've ever seen. Neck pops in and does not fall out, when unscrewed)
It's not vintage spec, but that's not my concern,nor does it bother me that's it is no Fender. (I feel the same about the VM Squier Jaguar)
If you have the time, skills and tools and looking for a Jm on the cheap, then this one is the ticket to go imho. Body on the HH is defenitly some sort of Asian Alder and not mystery wood. (I think it's the same wood as used on the Japanese Offsets as far as my knowledge goes, smells and cut's the same) Paint job is pretty thin but decent, though does flake when cut with unsharp tools or router bits.

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Re: Squier HH Jazzmaster hacker's guide revisited, DONE!!!

Post by Danley » Sun Oct 21, 2018 3:09 am

Of the half dozen MIJ/no-name/Squier/ vibratos I've used, I found them to be pretty much identical in spec to each other (and each of the more recent ones were faulty/unstable in the same way.) If they switched suppliers for the no-names that's only a good thing. Totally not surprised you feel it's better quality than MIJ, which is something that needs to be said when it's recognized; Squier makes really great guitars nowadays, and there are things about the VM series I like more than the MIJs, and feel they are much better out of the box (pickups, necks, overall body shape- although they are thinner & basswood.)
King Buzzo: I love when people come up to me and say “Your guitar sound was better on Stoner Witch, when you used a Les Paul. “...I used a Fender Mustang reissue on that, dumbass!

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