new CIJ jag owner is getting used to it now

[MechaBulletBill]

i have a CIJ jag that has no vibrato arm. "must get the correct one" says the internet. i ordered a hosco 5mm non-threaded arm and the bastard thing is far too small for the collet! which one do i actually need? OEM fender arms "for import jag/jm" are out of stock everywhere with no sign of more in future. what the hell is going on in this collet? i guess i need to flip the vibrato unit and have a look.

the other thing is, the pots work weird! i'm not one who needs treble bypass caps on my other guitars (fenders, gibsons, whatever) and don't particularly care for the effect of them, but this jag just goes to mud when the volume goes down a touch. is this just a case of upgrading the pots? do i need a different control plate to fit full size pots?

[GreenKnee]

Hi Billy

I remember having to really hit the arm in to the collet on that guitar when I still had the arm for it (sorry I lost it!) I actually have a spare AVRI vibrato unit with a Staytrem arm and collet fitted that I found last week whilst clearing out more stuff. If you're interested drop me a text and we can work something out

I don't remember the pots acting different to my other Jags. Are you going straight in to the amp? Might be worth trying with a buffer between the guitar and amp, I find this helps things from getting muddy during roll-off. I'm not sure what pots are in it, but may well be worth upgrading anyway. I believe the holes in the control plate may need opening up a little to accept the larger CTS pots.

Hope you're enjoying the guitar

Jack

[MechaBulletBill]

cheers jack. i'm pretty happy with it! it plays really well, pickups sound good and it feels comfortable on the strap.

i do need to get a vibrato arm for it though! just can't seem to work out which one would fit the collet that's in there.

the pots are, i think, stock jpn mini pots. i think there's an order of priority: vibrato arm > get to grips w volume control > get a marr plate and wire it up tele style

[alexpigment]

Probably this one?

eBay

[MechaBulletBill]

Probably this one?

eBay

seller doesn't offer intnl postage but i've sent a message anyway

edit:no dice

[alexpigment]

Not sure where you are, but how about this one?

Reverb link

Not to be captain obvious here, but when you find that everything is sold out when searching for the item *by name*, you can generally still find some when searching for the part number. I believe the part number should be 026-4261-000. Hope that helps.

[GilmourD]

I've got an AllParts BP-2275-001 in my MIJ trem.

https://reverb.com/item/36222331

[MechaBulletBill]

Not sure where you are, but how about this one?

Reverb link

Not to be captain obvious here, but when you find that everything is sold out when searching for the item *by name*, you can generally still find some when searching for the part number. I believe the part number should be 026-4261-000. Hope that helps.

i had found them in stock overseas but am loth to pay £40 for an arm that might not fit a guitar that i might not keep for very long! still getting used to it.

I've got an AllParts BP-2275-001 in my MIJ trem.

https://reverb.com/item/36222331

i am confused as to whether the hosco (which i bought) and allparts arms are the same, the photos used in listings often line up and the spec is the same on paper. it's quite vexing!

[GilmourD]

Not sure where you are, but how about this one?

Reverb link

Not to be captain obvious here, but when you find that everything is sold out when searching for the item *by name*, you can generally still find some when searching for the part number. I believe the part number should be 026-4261-000. Hope that helps.

i had found them in stock overseas but am loth to pay £40 for an arm that might not fit a guitar that i might not keep for very long! still getting used to it.

I've got an AllParts BP-2275-001 in my MIJ trem.

https://reverb.com/item/36222331

i am confused as to whether the hosco (which i bought) and allparts arms are the same, the photos used in listings often line up and the spec is the same on paper. it's quite vexing!

The nice thing is that there's really only two options when it comes to arms until you get to the bougie stuff like Staytrem. You don't have a vintage or AVRI trem so import arm it is.

[MechaBulletBill]

The nice thing is that there's really only two options when it comes to arms until you get to the bougie stuff like Staytrem. You don't have a vintage or AVRI trem so import arm it is.

that's not entirely true. there are fender-made vibrato units with a screw-in arm, aftermarket units of various spec, possibly even pop-in arms at some point. i bought one that specifically said "for import guitars" and it does not fit and have not had chance to get my tools out, look under the vibrato plate to see what exactly is going on under there.

[alalalkasar]

You could try some PTFE plumbers tape, should only cost a few £s, wrap it around the thread and screw it in.

[GilmourD]

The nice thing is that there's really only two options when it comes to arms until you get to the bougie stuff like Staytrem. You don't have a vintage or AVRI trem so import arm it is.

that's not entirely true. there are fender-made vibrato units with a screw-in arm, aftermarket units of various spec, possibly even pop-in arms at some point. i bought one that specifically said "for import guitars" and it does not fit and have not had chance to get my tools out, look under the vibrato plate to see what exactly is going on under there.

True... I forget about the screw in arms because their existence doesn't really make sense to me.

Which exact bar did you buy and which trem did it not fit in?

[MechaBulletBill]

it was the hosco made arm and, after some bending on a vice, i have got it to feel secure in the collet (and smoothed out the awful angles on it a bit)

i also disconnected the rhythm circuit because the bridge pickup switch was a switchcraft replacement that isn't as smooth as the stock ones, so the old rhythm switch is now on the bridge pickup.

the pot tapers are still frustrating me, even just 10 - 8 on the volume is a wild reduction and too subtle to reliably do mid-song.

it seems as though i can just fit a US spec plate and it will just look a bit oversized next to a japan pickguard?

[MKR]

Hey i'm surprised i missed this thread until right now!

I picked up a CIJ last saturday and i also had a bunch of questions with mine. Wish i saw this as i would have just posted here.

Mine also came without a trem arm. I ended up using the trem arm from my squier bass VI (never used the trem on that anyways). when i put the arm in the first time, the collet did not hold it in firmly enough, so i just took off the trem unit and "closed" the colllet teeth a bit with some plyers. Problem solved. Trem works perfect and arm stays nice and firmly in position.

My pots kind of suck i think. The volume especially drops a lot with a slight turn. i also loose a ton of brightness. I think these CIJ's just used shitty pots.

[Axeman52]

the other thing is, the pots work weird! i'm not one who needs treble bypass caps on my other guitars (fenders, gibsons, whatever) and don't particularly care for the effect of them, but this jag just goes to mud when the volume goes down a touch. is this just a case of upgrading the pots? do i need a different control plate to fit full size pots?

that isn't caused by low quality pots. I don't know exactly what causes it (I'm by no means an electronics engineer) but what I do know from experience is that 1M pots are just considerably more sensitive to whatever it is that causes high frequency loss than 250 or 500k pots... so replacing the stock mini-pots with a full size CTS 1M pot might give you a smoother taper but it's not gonna change the amount of high frequency you lose as you turn the volume down. (maybe someone more clued in can explain why this is, but I think it's because 1Mohms is pretty close to the input impedance of most amps and pedals).

If you want to avoid having to use a treble bypass cap your other option is to find a particular buffer/clean boost/always on effect that happens to eliminate the high frequency loss problem. If I had a better technical understanding of this I could probably advise you on exactly what you'd need, but alas, I don't, so I won't

FWIW, I don't tend to use treble bypass caps in my guitars, but for those with 1M pots or with wiring configurations that just happen to cause lots of tone suck like gretsch wiring, I find they can't really be avoided if you want to use the volume control effectively. My "default" is a simple 180pf cap, which is what PRS use. I do this because I own 2 PRS guitars and it was several years before I realised why those guitars sounded so crystal clear at lower volume - they have a 180pf cap, the effect of which is subtle enough that you might not even know it's there, but you'll certainly notice that the guitar has considerably more clarity as you roll the volume down. Just installed a 180pf cap on my jaguar this afternoon, seems to work pretty well though I don't wanna commit to saying "it's awesome" after only spending a couple of hours with it