To build, or not to build...that, is the question...

[zhivago]

I wanna get a second Jazzmaster to handle most of my playing live duties...certain parts of our set are quite "heated" so the '61 is getting a bit too trashed.

so I thought I'd use the '61 for rehearsals and recording (and the occasional gig) but put together a second Jazzmaster with the odd twist here and there.

initialy I thought I'd get a CIJ neck and body and then throw a couple of AVRI pups on there.

the more I think about it though (and read around the forum) I'm thinking about something a bit more...special

so I thought I'd go for:

Musikraft neck, clay dots, vintage-size frets, correct pre-cbs size headstock....I'll spay it very lightly with nitro myself
Body - I'm looking at USACG for that
pups....normal Novak JM neck pup....and possibly the humbucker JM sized pup for the bridge
knobs...hehe...CBS knobs
I want a kill swith pot as well
AVRI trem
Mustang bridge
and I wanna put a vintage tortoise shell guard on there.

after thinking about colours, I initially thought of black...but I already have two black guitars...so I wanna go for....


gulp...

70s poo brown stain, like this guitar here:



I'm gathering the money at the moment...gonna fund this by selling all sorts of stuff (some of which is on ebay already)


so to begin with, how does one achieve the poo-brown stain?

and

where do I get tone or volume pots that can be momentarily pushed down to kill the signal?

I'll start buying the parts in about a month's time (payday)

[k o y l]

Hey Hey Nice project ! 

I'm very far from being a pro about finishing but for the finish you want, I'd use the neck refinishing method found on reranch: using a mix of nitro and amber tint but with a lot more of amber tint in the mix.
This body looks a lot like a piece of furniture so I guess furniture finishing techniques might work well.

About the kill switch pot: Do you want a pot that cuts the signal when you push on it (means you have to keep pushing if you want the signal to remain cut... like Jonny Greenwood little kill switch on his tele) or you push= cut signal & you push one more time= uncut signal ?

I'm already curious about hearing what you think of the Novak HB for JM btw (if you end up putting one in your project)..

[mynameisjonas]

great idea!
i've always liked the brown stain/vintage tort combo. i know most people here don't, but you can count on my full support


i guess the easiest way of doing the brown stain is to apply it to the bare wood and then clear coat. there's usually a wide variety of browns available in the shops, so you shouldn't have any problems getting the color you want.

[Jay]

I'd venture a guess that that's a fairly common Walnut color.  For the kill switch, why not use the upper toggle for this purpose?  Or do you use the upper control section ordinarily?

[PorkyPrimeCut]

Nothing wrong with poo brown. My JM almost ended up like that. Long before I knew anything about refins I was gonna buy some wood stain from Homebase & slap it on myself!! 

[chrisjedijane]

sounds like a good idea

have you thought about using creosote? 

[StevenO]

Nothing wrong with poo brown. My JM almost ended up like that. Long before I knew anything about refins I was gonna by some wood stain from Homebase & slap it on myself!! 

I was in a similar boat when I first got seriously into jazzmasters and jaguars. I would go onto ebay a lot looking at all these nice vintage jazzmasters and I would see all these really gnarly looking brown stain jazzmasters and I would be all "that's awesome! reminds me of those gibson es-something-something from the 70s." It was my favorite look on a jazzmaster. Might still do it one day. I never understood why people didn't like them.

Yannis, you don't still have your ash jazzmaster body? You could always get that refinned in white blonde, non? Or are you keeping that for future purposes and for now you're just set on brown stain?

Should be a good project, good luck!

[OffYourFace]

poo stain on a new guitar fine...  but in the case of my Oct. '58 body, no f***ing way!  
I bought a Musikraft Neck recently, a quartersawn CBS big head strat.  I was disappointed.  If you're going to finish it yrself, then it'll be fine.
They're getting 'there' but the shape & contour of my neck seemed a bit too chunky, felt too newish.  I would do some sanding after you get it, give it a more broken in feel.  I ordered the heavily rounded-off edge fretboard feature... eh.  Plus they take for freaking ever!  2 months?

[mezcalhead]

I wish you all the best with this and I'll help in any way I can, but I'm one of the guys that doesn't really like that finish (perhaps I've been conditioned not to like it because it's usually slapped on with a paint brush and accompanied by irreversible "improvements").

Might I suggest that you consider a non-traditional wood for the body since you're starting from scratch? If you want a walnut look, why not actually use walnut for example. USACG strike me as fairly flexible guys. Neale had some pretty good results with this approach - I think using mahogany and/or korina.

[zhivago]

hey guys, thank you for all the replies and the support!

ok, as far as the kill switch, yes, I want it like Johnny Greenwood's...press it (with no click) and it kills the sound until released...does anyone have a link to a place where I can buy one from?

I thought about using the upper slider switch, but I might knock by accident while strumming, so I thought the volume or tone pots are ideal

regarding the ash body, it's now Mezcalhead's, so I'll just have to get a repro one....in general I wanna use as little vintage parts, if any (apart from the tortoiseshell guard, which will have to be vintage)....this guitar will be trashed all over the place (we gig loads)

thanks for the tips on applying the finish

regrading Musikraft necks...hmmm...it's so weird half the people here have a good experience and half bad...I dunno what to do....maybe go USACG for the neck as well?

what is involved in the modifying of the headstock?

do they do clay dots?



70s Poo Brown Power!!  

[zhivago]

I wish you all the best with this and I'll help in any way I can, but I'm one of the guys that doesn't really like that finish (perhaps I've been conditioned not to like it because it's usually slapped on with a paint brush and accompanied by irreversible "improvements").

Might I suggest that you consider a non-traditional wood for the body since you're starting from scratch? If you want a walnut look, why not actually use walnut for example. USACG strike me as fairly flexible guys. Neale had some pretty good results with this approach - I think using mahogany and/or korina.

hmmm...good point on the wood choice...what does wallnut sound like? I don't think I've ever played a guitar made of it before....

[eupat]

i can't decide myself if I like or not brown stain...

[k o y l]

hmmm...good point on the wood choice...what does wallnut sound like? I don't think I've ever played a guitar made of it before....

I've read on a french guitar luthier forum that Walnut has the same specs (weight, density, workabilty) and sonic properties as maple. It was also written than European Walnut is very expensive... but US walnut might may be less ...
Sample pics of the wood:


The warmoth site says it's like hard maple but not as bright.
Woods description @ Warmoth: http://www.warmoth.com/guitar/options/o ... ywoods.cfm
(it might be inspiring... there are other woods in the same kind of color that are beautiful)

ok, as far as the kill switch, yes, I want it like Johnny Greenwood's...press it (with no click) and it kills the sound until released...does anyone have a link to a place where I can buy one from?

I did some little research (I googled "momentary push potentiometer"): those kind of switches  do exist but I only found somes for industrial applications (No 1meg, not even 500k... always less than 100k  )
I found this for ex; http://news.thomasnet.com/fullstory/526485/612

I'm afraid it will be hard to find some that are guitar-friendly..
If it reveals to be impossible, why not use one like Johnny ? ... maybe a bigger one..
This one would be what you need. Momentary and the signal pass thru when released http://www.conrad.fr/webapp/wcs/stores/ ... =recherche


Have you considered an Allparts neck ?
I saw they make what they call a "Fat" version of their neck. Unfortunately, there's no further infos on the specs (it's "chunky").. but since your neck on you 61' is fatter than the modern JM neck, you might like it..
Fat Neck: http://www.allparts.com/store/necks-gui ... roduct.asp

[zhivago]

hey thanks for all the info!

that wood in the pics has quite weird figuring...it's kinda too much really...I think I'll stick to the original plan...I just wanna get as close to the JM in my first post 

I dunno if I could go for one like Jonny's...it would kinda spoil the look of the guitar...not to mention the fact that I'd have to drill a vintage guard (or find one that was drilled already (another possibility, I guess)

I had a look at Allparts, but I don't see any necks with clay dots (I LOVE clay dots )


thank you for all the help guys, this is gonna be great 

another crazy idea I've had is to include a SHO circuit onboard the guitar for extra juice! 

[glimmertwin]

Musikraft isn't all bad but I think we can all stand to learn from each other's mistakes(including my own) - don't buy their ebay stuff(it seems to be sold 'as is' but it's their shop's mistakes) and don't get the heavily rolled fretboard as it's not done very well.  Outside of that I think they are decent  if maybe requiring a little sanding to make them feel a little more broken in, soften some edges.  Also, they don't position the side fret marks in between the fretboard & neck wood like in vintage ones by default but they will do it by request.  BTW, I'm speaking strictly to their unfinished necks now.  I have a Musikraft JM neck being built now - I was pleased with the tele neck I got from them although it feels tons better now with a little playing wear built into it(and some light sanding) than it did at first with those crappy heavily rolled fingerboard gauges.

...that being said, USACG crafts a much better product (but with no JM headstock out of the box )  You just have to figure out what's more important to you.  Out of the box, the neck I got for an old USACG tele was flawless!

...and for making a nice looking neck, I would suggest the method used in the link attached - it is loads better than tinted laquers wihch tend to obscure and dull the grain. 
http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/vinneck.htm