1962 Jazzmaster resurrection

Bringing your older offset back to life.
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mgeek
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Re: 1962 Jazzmaster resurrection

Post by mgeek » Tue Aug 22, 2017 4:18 am

zepset wrote:If you are going to refret the guitar anyway, why not use that as an opportunity to correct the neck bow? It sounds like you need the opposite of a compression refret. Enlarge the fret slot width a bit, or use new frets with smaller tang that will not resist string pull as much as what you have now.

This would only have validity if the reason for the back bow was 'too wide frets forced in', which is almost certainly not the case.

Heat treatments work 99% of the time, can be done again if it doesn't, and you don't have falling out frets or a neck that suddenly thins out in the middle (as you would with a planed fretboard) or any other hard to reverse nonsense.

:P

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infiniteposse
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Re: 1962 Jazzmaster resurrection

Post by infiniteposse » Tue Nov 14, 2017 10:00 pm

Hi all. I thought I'd followup on this since a few things have moved forward since I last posted.

Firstly, Saul Koll had the guitar for some time and was able to make great progress with the heat treatment. It didn't get back to 100% with just the heat, but between that and a refret by Saul it plays perfectly now with incredibly low action with 10's. He was also able to add some more room in the truss rod so if minor adjustments are needed in the future, there's room.

After its visit to Saul the guitar got dropped off with Matt Wright, who helps me out with lots of amazing electric guitar work. He's tackling the pickguard and just getting everything else shipshape on the guitar. Today was the first day the guard came off and we were able to see what was under there. I really had no idea what he'd find...

In short, things are looking pretty great. The majority of things look period correct and it all seems to be there. Pots are 1962 Stackpoles, grounding trays were there, wiring looks clean with some new-ish tape in place of decayed tape in a few places. The only thing that's a little odd is the bridge pickup's leads were cut short and new wire got spiced on at some point. I'm unsure what that's about, but it looks period correct I think... I'd love feedback from folks who know better.

Matt also discovered a few small wood chips that he'll reglue back in place. He's also going to be dowelling the old pickguard screw holes and drilling new holes to match the existing size/shape of the guard, so that it's a perfect fit. He's also going to enlarge any spaces in the guard that need it so that it fits the guitar, as is, perfectly. It's going to be a great player.

I'm going to try and post a new album of Imgur pics in a single post to save some hassle. Hopefully it works.

https://imgur.com/a/FJiZ0

PS - I tried to embed the gallery but just couldn't suss out what to do. The link takes you to all of the new pics of the guitar.
Lee

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jdr1014
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Re: 1962 Jazzmaster resurrection

Post by jdr1014 » Thu Nov 16, 2017 3:16 pm

This is excellent - I like what you are doing! Thanks for sharing this journey with us :)

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RandyRandom
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Re: 1962 Jazzmaster resurrection

Post by RandyRandom » Tue Nov 21, 2017 12:58 am

i like the finish! i would leave it like it is :P
:D Gotta love them Offsets :D

Any other austrians around here?

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infiniteposse
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Re: 1962 Jazzmaster resurrection

Post by infiniteposse » Sun Dec 03, 2017 9:45 pm

I thought I'd do a followup now that I've had the guitar in hand for a bit. I really like it. The sound of the pickups is really muscular and full. They're higher than I'd normally expect them to be, but they sound awesome. It's playing really nice and the neck body combo come together for a very resonant instrument.

Re: the finish, my plan is to leave the body alone. I don't want to put any more money into it.

I'm somewhat considering having Danocaster refin the neck since it's already oversprayed (or refined (how could I tell?)), but again, no huge rush on this.

If I were to go in this direction, how could I do an exploratory job of bringing down the new nitro to see if there's older finish below there? Is there's a subtle, progressive way to remove the new? Wet sanding? I kind of imagine the neck finish was worn/beat when they did the body refin and they might not have actually done any significant sanding. Any thoughts on ways to test this idea appreciated. It's a non-original decal that was applied poorly, so there's not much to loose.

I didn't give a clear synopsis of the work done, so I thought I'd circle back and repost a greatest hits of what happened.

In short:
- Electronics cleaned up - Pickup leads had been cut oddly and fugly wire had been used to get the length needed. Matt redid all of the cloth wiring cleanly.
- Pickguard removed and holes filed to better fit around pickups and bridge thimbles.
- 2 cracked bits of wood were found under the guard and were clamped and glued back into place.
- Lots of glitter was found in the grounding tray for the upper horn for some reason.
- Old foam was pulled, saved and replaced with nice, resilient modern foam.
- All electronics date perfectly and all hardware is accounted for, miraculously.
- No markings were found on/in the body. All of it was refinished when the work was done in the past.

Here's a few pics, some posted before, some not.

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Lee

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