Anyone gotten a Black Bobbin Jazzmaster?

[RIORIO]

If your budget is to stay under 3k and you want an incredible handmade offset, I would highly recommend Walsh Guitars. Drew makes insanely good stuff and I think most builds new are like $2700 (fully kitted out with mastery, boutique pickups, top of the line everything). No traditional JM shape but lots of other great offset stuff. Just my 2 cents as someone who has owned many JM’s and parts guitars…

[wooderson]

Do you even know the definition of a Partscaster? I'm not sure you do.

There is no definition of a partscaster, feel free to check out the OED. It’s a colloquialism used to describe a bolt-on neck guitar put together ‘from parts’ - which, yes, usually refers to parts purchased from multiple sources.

But here’s the thing: there’s no meaningful difference in all of the “parts” coming from one large corporations multiple satellites or being sourced from multiple corporations. Used in this way, it seems to be a cliche criticism of boutique guitar makers - “oh, Danocaster doesn’t hand shape his bodies huh” etc.

In the end, almost all bolt on neck guitars are an assemblage of parts that weren’t made together. The pickguard wasn’t cut for that specific guitar, the pickups weren’t tuned and rewound for it.

Particularly given the modification culture of Fender guitars, it’s an odd position to stake out unless you’re invested in Fender for Fender’s sake. My Jag’s vibrato, bridge, pickguard and pickups are no longer Fender. Short of the neck, three of those are the most important parts of the guitar!

[wooderson]

If your budget is to stay under 3k and you want an incredible handmade offset, I would highly recommend Walsh Guitars. Drew makes insanely good stuff and I think most builds new are like $2700 (fully kitted out with mastery, boutique pickups, top of the line everything). No traditional JM shape but lots of other great offset stuff. Just my 2 cents as someone who has owned many JM’s and parts guitars…

I looked at Walsh a couple of years ago for something else but for the current goal no JM shape is a deal killer. I really don’t think the JM/Jag ergonomics can be improved upon. (Novo actually made it worse with their offset, when I played one - it was more like a giant Strat in the way it sat.)

[Loobster]

Meh. Headstock is vomit.

[JSett]

In the end, almost all bolt on neck guitars are an assemblage of parts that weren’t made together. The pickguard wasn’t cut for that specific guitar, the pickups weren’t tuned and rewound for it.

Les Pauls are set-neck. Their pickups and pickguards and hardware come out of a pile. Even the necks are done as a batch then glued randomly to a body. Most Martin guitars are batch made too. They only chisel and shape the heel/butt prior to glueing but those are batch made too. Along with their bridges and hardware.

Being 'bolt-on' is irrelevant...every major manufacturer batch builds their common production models. That doesn't make them partscasters. You're being ridiculous.

[wooderson]

Les Pauls are set-neck. Their pickups and pickguards and hardware come out of a pile. Even the necks are done as a batch then glued randomly to a body. Most Martin guitars are batch made too. They only chisel and shape the heel/butt prior to glueing but those are batch made too. Along with their bridges and hardware.

Being 'bolt-on' is irrelevant...every major manufacturer batch builds their common production models. That doesn't make them partscasters. You're being ridiculous.

Sure production line guitars are all functionally partscasters. Kind of points to the word being meaningless when used to say why Brand X isn't worth Y.

So Fender's bins all come from their factories and Brand X's bins come from seven different factories of their choosing. The guitar is still a semi-random assemblage of parts - though Brand X likely puts more effort into the final fitting and parts choice relative to a production line American Original.

That Fender owns the CNC machines they use and Guitar Mill owns the CNC machine that Danocaster (or whomever) uses really doesn't make a difference in the end if you don't care about Fender in and of itself.

[JSett]

That Fender owns the CNC machines they use and Guitar Mill owns the CNC machine that Danocaster (or whomever) uses really doesn't make a difference in the end if you don't care about Fender in and of itself.

Danocaster is a goddamn artist and deserves every credit and dollar asked for due to him. To even use him as weight to an argument regards Black Bobbin is insulting to Danos work. Fender should have hired him years ago and paid him vast amounts of money to do all the relicing for their custom shop - the quality of his work should be a source of constant embarrassment to them.

[JSett]

So Fender's bins all come from their factories and Brand X's bins come from seven different factories of their choosing.

This is what defines a partscaster. An assembly of parts from various sources rather than an instrument in stock form from the factory. You've just proved my point.

[wooderson]

Danocaster is a goddamn artist and deserves every credit and dollar asked for due to him. To even use him as weight to an argument regards Black Bobbin is insulting to Danos work. Fender should have hired him years ago and paid him vast amounts of money to do all the relicing for their custom shop - the quality of his work should be a source of constant embarrassment to them.

He's still a $4000 reliced partscaster, though. I think his paint jobs are quite nice, he formulates a great aged metallic (I have a Telecaster Deluxe that was supposedly refinished by him - I've never emailed to verify that, though), the relicing is usually quite tasteful (though a bit much on the metal parts IMO).

But if he's worth $4k, I'm not sure what's insane about a similar "partscaster" selling for less. These guitars being less of a partscaster, by your argument, since Iconic seems to have their own CNC machines.

This is what defines a partscaster. An assembly of parts from various sources rather than an instrument in stock form from the factory. You've just proved my point.

Yes, and as I keep saying, this is a distinction without a difference in this context. There is no meaningful difference to parts coming from factories owned by one manufacturer and parts coming from factories owned by multiple manufacturers. They're all just parts in a bin being assembled.

The only way that "partscaster" might have some meaning here is in the older sense of combining pre-finished parts from existing guitars - the body from an '82 Strat and the humbuckers from a '61 Les Paul and the neck from a Charvel.

[marqueemoon]

That Fender owns the CNC machines they use and Guitar Mill owns the CNC machine that Danocaster (or whomever) uses really doesn't make a difference in the end if you don't care about Fender in and of itself.

Danocaster is a goddamn artist and deserves every credit and dollar asked for due to him. To even use him as weight to an argument regards Black Bobbin is insulting to Danos work. Fender should have hired him years ago and paid him vast amounts of money to do all the relicing for their custom shop - the quality of his work should be a source of constant embarrassment to them.

Only tried one Danocaster in my life. Whatever they do with the necks is pretty special. Easily the closest to a played in vintage neck I have ever tried. I was not super impressed with the other aspects.

I haven't played an Iconic, or a Seuf, but I've tried JM-alikes from Waterslide, Shelton, TMG and a few others and can't really find fault from a sound, playability or looks standpoint (well, the old Shelton headstock was pretty fugly, and many Waterslides have that nasty looking truss rod access on the headstock, but yeah).

Not everyone has the time and inclination for a project, and vintage instruments are through the roof which creates an opportunity for some folks. It's not something I personally want, but I'm not mad about it.

[wooderson]

I haven't played an Iconic, or a Seuf, but I've tried JM-alikes from Waterslide, Shelton, TMG and a few others and can't really find fault from a sound, playability or looks standpoint (well, the old Shelton headstock was pretty fugly, and many Waterslides have that nasty looking truss rod access on the headstock, but yeah).

Huh, never noticed that on the Waterslides. That is an odd choice - yeah, totally more usable in the long run but cover it up with something or go full '70s bullet IMO.

[kick_the_reverb]

Has anyone here arguing about Fender being "partscasters" and "CNC machined" been on a tour of the Fender factory in Corona? Or Ensenada? I have been to both. There is a LOT of manual shaping work and other manual work done to manufacture Fender guitars. I was surprised how much manual work was involved for being "factory run-of-the-mill" guitars.
As for Shelby Pollard, that's the guy that says the Staytrem bridge is only a cosmetic improvement (so drill your guitar for Mastery thimbles and buy a Mastery bridge, and coffee, from him).
The points about the "art" pickguard and horrible headstock choice have been made already, but I agree with them.

[pscates]

...and I thought those MJT headstocks were a bit goofy/bulbous. We have a new winner.

[GreenKnee]

I quite like the weird Bigsby-esque headstock myself. Different strokes though I guess.

The Black Bobbin seems like a nice guitar for a decent boutique price. Iconic make fantastic guitars from what I've seen (never played one but hoping to try one at Anderton's).

[Loobster]

Interesting debate. Not sure where I stand on the "Fender are partscasters" debate. I see the rationale behind it, but Fender are the original, the template, and since everything is done in house, it's not really the same thing, even though their guitars are made from a collection of parts. A bit different to sourcing a load of parts from different manufacturers and 'rolling your own', so to speak.

Anyway, I was under the impression Black Bobbin pickups were very expensive but they're only a tiny bit more expensive than regular Lollars and actually cheaper than Novak...