PHZA's Menagerie of Unusual Jaguars

[thephza]

Hi all,

With four Jaguar builds completed and a couple more on the way, I figured I'd start a thread to consolidate what I've done (for myself as much as anyone else). I welcome questions, conversations, and suggestions. Please bear in mind that I definitely consider myself a parts curator/tinkerer and that I'm definitely not qualified to be a luthier or a tech. Everything I do is purely to challenge myself, learn something, experiment, and then end up with a playable art project.

First up is a the Jaguar I started about six months before the pandemic. In reality, I started reading wiring schematics and watching soldering videos for four to six months before that.

• Body: Made by Nomoonlaser out of pine with the trem route set back an extra 1.5" to more comfortably accommodate the behind-the-bridge Telecaster neck pickup.
• Neck: Made by Warmoth out of birds eye maple with black pearloid block inlays.
• Tuners: Gotoh vintage.
• Pickups: Bridge and neck by Maisietone; behind-the-bridge (BTB) by Dawgtown.
• Pickguard: Made by me out of a 1953 Massachusetts tow truck license plate.
• Hardtail: Staggered brushed stainless steel hardtail conversion plate by Expressway with individual volume knobs for each pickup; tone controlled by red chicken head knob,
• Control Plates: Brushed stainless steel control plate with minitoggles as three-way primary pickup selector and then secondary three-way selector for no BTB, with BTB, and only BTB pickup options.
• Killswitch: Red Tesi IDO.
• Strings: D'addario medium jazz flatwounds 11-50.

[thephza]

I know this picture pre-dates strings, but it's my favorite pic of this build.

• Body: Made by Lomic Guitars, I believe out of poplar with custom routing to accommodate the pickup configuration and Jazzmaster-like control placement, despite still being a 24" scale length.
• Neck: Made by Warmoth out of bloodwood.
• Tuners: Gotoh vintage.
• Pickups: All are Guitar Fetish (GFS) goldfoils; the neck is a single coil despite having a humbucker profile.
• Pickguard: Made by Lomic Guitars.
• Bridge/Trem: This is a Duesenberg Multibender with the benders set to a full step on the G and B strings.
• Controls: The volume knob is a Shadowkill pot that doubles as a killswitch and the tone knob doubles as a push-push coil split. The glow-in-the-dark chicken head knob controls a five-position rotary varitone switch with different capacitors. The pickup control switch is a six-position Freeway toggle.
• Strings: I can't remember which lighter gauge strings I put on this, but I hate them. I want something heavier, but don't know how they'll react with the bender.

[thephza]

This guitar still needs a lot of work. It's plays like crap and I'm having a hard time getting the bridge to behave the way I want, but I'm placing the blame on the neck:

• Body: Made by Nomoonlaser out of reclaimed cedar with additional custom routing by Lomic Guitars.
• Neck: Made by Disado out of pure unadulterated garbage, disguising itself as something with beautiful vine-of-life inlays. I replaced the horrible nut with a Guyker titanium nut, because ANYTHING would have been an upgrade.
• Tuners: Wilkinson.
• Pickups: Set of lipstick pickups by Dragonfire.
• Pickguard: Made by Lomic Guitars out of some translucent pink acrylic I sent him.
• Hardtail/Bridge: Eyb Guitars sitar bridge.
• Controls: Standard volume and tone, but with a 10-position blade switch by Freeway.
• Strings: D'addario half-rounds per Eyb recommendations for best sitar sound.
• Fairy Lights: Two sets of cheap remote controlled fairy lights are woven under the other wiring and produce cool drone interference when turned on.

[thephza]

And the latest addition to the menagerie: the FranKOIstein Jaguarillo!

• Body: Made by Fox Carpentry out of reclaimed wood from a late 1800s/early 1900s Daniel F. Webster upright piano with lots of extra hacking by me to make everything fit.
• Neck: Made by Warmoth padouk and canary with bloody basin jasper inlays.
• Tuners: Gotoh locking.
• Pickups: All Guitar Fetish (GFS) with a Nashville hot filtertron neck pickup in the bridge, a lipstick in the middle, and a gold foil bridge in the neck position.
• Pickguard: WD Music Jaguarillo with the bridge position custom routed for an enclosed humbucker..
• Hardtail: Eyparts antique bronze hardtail.
• Control Plates: Eyparts antique bronze control plate with blue aluminum oversized knobs. 10-position Freeway blade switch. Forney turquoise switch tip.
• Killswitch: Tesi blue arcade style killswitch..
• Strings: D'addario medium jazz roundwounds 13-56.

[Shadoweclipse13]

These are all amazing!!!

[JackFawkes]

Very cool! Any chance of seeing a "family portrait" of them all together?

Jack

[thephza]

These are all amazing!!!

Coming from you, I take that as an enormous compliment. I'm pretty sure I referenced some of your wiring diagrams!

[thephza]

Very cool! Any change of seeing a "family portrait" of them all together?

Jack

That hadn't even crossed my mind. Brilliant idea. I'll see if I can figure out a good shot and make that happen soon! Thanks!

[Norrin Radd]

Absolutely spectacular! I can’t decide which one is most impressive - they are all so good! Can you tell us more about the finish on the 2nd one please?

[marqueemoon]

These are all really cool. Hope you get the sitar one sorted soon.

[Nudger]

This guitar still needs a lot of work. It's plays like crap and I'm having a hard time getting the bridge to behave the way I want, but I'm placing the blame on the neck:

• Body: Made by Nomoonlaser out of reclaimed cedar with additional custom routing by Lomic Guitars.
• Neck: Made by Disado out of pure unadulterated garbage, disguising itself as something with beautiful vine-of-life inlays. I replaced the horrible nut with a Guyker titanium nut, because ANYTHING would have been an upgrade.
• Tuners: Wilkinson.
• Pickups: Set of lipstick pickups by Dragonfire.
• Pickguard: Made by Lomic Guitars out of some translucent pink acrylic I sent him.
• Hardtail/Bridge: Eyb Guitars sitar bridge.
• Controls: Standard volume and tone, but with a 10-position blade switch by Freeway.
• Strings: D'addario half-rounds per Eyb recommendations for best sitar sound.
• Fairy Lights: Two sets of cheap remote controlled fairy lights are woven under the other wiring and produce cool drone interference when turned on.

Hats off for your attempt at sitar guitar,Luv to see the finished article.
Those Eyb bridges are a real pain to set up.. I sold mine. Went with a danelectro sitar bridge when converting a guitarlin. Much better/stable/simpler/less fiddly/rattly.

[Shadoweclipse13]

These are all amazing!!!

Coming from you, I take that as an enormous compliment. I'm pretty sure I referenced some of your wiring diagrams!

Thanks dude I'm glad! I've always thought information was to be shared and used

[thephza]

Absolutely spectacular! I can’t decide which one is most impressive - they are all so good! Can you tell us more about the finish on the 2nd one please?

First of all, awesome handle.

Re: the finish, that guitar is definitely the one that got a billion questions from people. I had originally asked Lomic Guitars for some kind of drab green stain-like color. When we found one that I like and that he had access to, it was applied and then the body was sent to his finisher. Something odd happened either with the finish over the stain or perhaps the buffing and then gradually over time the coat began displaying this checkering pattern. It was a happy accident. The coat is definitely coming up in some places now, a few years removed, so it's not the most stable accident, and it's unclear if it can be replicated accurately. But, as with all my projects, I appreciate them for all their quibbles.

[thephza]

Hats off for your attempt at sitar guitar,Luv to see the finished article.
Those Eyb bridges are a real pain to set up.. I sold mine. Went with a danelectro sitar bridge when converting a guitarlin. Much better/stable/simpler/less fiddly/rattly.

I had researched the Danelectro bridge along with a few others, but was concerned about whether I'd be able to dial in the intonation. The Danelectro bridge looked like the one with the greatest chance of mechanically "Sitar-ing" accurately. I'm thinking about junking that neck and getting something from Matt Schiemann, which I've been meaning to do anyway. This is encouraging me to go back to it. Thanks for the inspiration!

[thephza]

These are all amazing!!!

Coming from you, I take that as an enormous compliment. I'm pretty sure I referenced some of your wiring diagrams!

Thanks dude I'm glad! I've always thought information was to be shared and used

It's super appreciated and concrete evidence of what a great community looks like. Out of curiosity, are you entirely self-taught or did you have training with regard to wiring schematics?