I won a baritone JM body...now what?

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Zork
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Re: I won a baritone JM body...now what?

Post by Zork » Thu Apr 08, 2021 11:54 am

Yay! Congrats! Eventually it's coming all together! :)

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daemon
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Re: I won a baritone JM body...now what?

Post by daemon » Thu Apr 22, 2021 4:08 pm

Well the good news is, according to the tech, the neck checked out OK. I may need to tune it up a few steps and leave it for a bit, or it could be that once I get the strings on there it will have plenty of tension (just what I need in my life, more tension!).

I'm still waiting on the pickguard, but in the meantime I figured I'd take a stab at the wiring. I've always been a "put the new wires where the old wires were" kind of guy, or just used prewired stuff, so this is new territory for me but I think I've got it mostly figured out.

One part I'm not sure about is why there are 3 ground wires on the body. I took one and put it through the hole so it's up against the bridge bushing, but where do the other two go?
Image

The wiring I got from another baritone Jazzmaster basically looks like this, with minor differences:
Image

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ohm-men
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Re: I won a baritone JM body...now what?

Post by ohm-men » Fri Apr 23, 2021 8:02 am

Looking good!

As for the ground wires, these are to ground the shielding (paint) under the pickups.
Solder these on the back of the vol pot together with the bridge ground.
They are suposed to make the single coils a bit quieter, although, I'm not sure it makes a lot of difference.
Squier Jazzmasters have a simelar wire running from the bridge pick up cavety to the volume pot, so I asume, these two will have the same function.

Pretty cool the Squier Bass VI neck checked out ok!
I assume someone just put a set of heavy flat woundstrings on a Squier VI and decided that the truss rod did not work propperly as the neck most likely bowed quiet a lot due to the much higher string tension. (It takes more then a quater turn to adjust the neck once you slap a set of La Bella strings on a Squier 6....)

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daemon
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Re: I won a baritone JM body...now what?

Post by daemon » Fri Apr 23, 2021 6:04 pm

Yea, dunno, whatever the case I'm glad to finally have one! I had to resolder some of the wires because I had no sound but now it seems to be good. I appreciate the ground advice, ohm-men. Once I get the pickguard I'm going to make this dream a reality.

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daemon
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Re: I won a baritone JM body...now what?

Post by daemon » Thu May 06, 2021 7:30 am

Well the good news is I finally got it all together:
Image

The pickguard was close, I just had to drill one hole at the bottom near the jack. So far the action is pretty much nonexistent, so there's still some work to be done. It's not really clear how that's even supposed to be adjusted with this bridge. The adventure continues!

On a side note, since I had those extra necks from the auction, I realized that I had all the parts for another Strat aside from the body. So I picked up a nice Fiesta Red one off Reverb and voila. This thing is super light and surprisingly fun to play.

Image

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gdayj
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Re: I won a baritone JM body...now what?

Post by gdayj » Fri May 07, 2021 1:25 pm

This is looking so good!
HERAD guitars

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hexes
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Re: I won a baritone JM body...now what?

Post by hexes » Sat May 08, 2021 11:35 pm

daemon wrote:
Thu May 06, 2021 7:30 am
So far the action is pretty much nonexistent, so there's still some work to be done. It's not really clear how that's even supposed to be adjusted with this bridge. The adventure continues!
the front two posts can adjust the bridge height and then the saddles have some further adjustment as well, no?

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daemon
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Re: I won a baritone JM body...now what?

Post by daemon » Sun May 09, 2021 6:09 pm

hexes wrote:
Sat May 08, 2021 11:35 pm
daemon wrote:
Thu May 06, 2021 7:30 am
So far the action is pretty much nonexistent, so there's still some work to be done. It's not really clear how that's even supposed to be adjusted with this bridge. The adventure continues!
the front two posts can adjust the bridge height and then the saddles have some further adjustment as well, no?
Well, I did end up messing around with it tonight. I found some angled pictures of the bridge online and it was a lot higher than I would have expected. I had trouble figuring out how to make it that high, because there's nothing keeping the bridge from just sliding down the screws, really, unless it catches on a thread. I kept raising it, though, and eventually found a height that worked. It feels "wrong", but I guess that's the way it's supposed to be. The good news is that it plays great now, so I'm chalking this one up as a success.
Image
Image

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hexes
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Re: I won a baritone JM body...now what?

Post by hexes » Mon May 10, 2021 12:09 am

daemon wrote:
Sun May 09, 2021 6:09 pm
[

Well, I did end up messing around with it tonight. I found some angled pictures of the bridge online and it was a lot higher than I would have expected. I had trouble figuring out how to make it that high, because there's nothing keeping the bridge from just sliding down the screws, really, unless it catches on a thread. I kept raising it, though, and eventually found a height that worked. It feels "wrong", but I guess that's the way it's supposed to be. The good news is that it plays great now, so I'm chalking this one up as a success.
wow that does seem high but if it works; then great! i had assumed there was some sort of ridge underneath for the bridge to rest on that wasn't just a threaded screw... that seems pretty wack, but now I see why people have complaints about it. I'd thought tossing a toronado bridge on there would look better, but you couldn't get that height out of it without shimming the bridge itself.

at any rate, glad it plays great! I REALLY liked them stock when they came out. felt it worked as a baritone much better than a bass vi despite being the same scale length.

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daemon
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Re: I won a baritone JM body...now what?

Post by daemon » Mon May 10, 2021 6:26 pm

Well, I consulted with someone who knows a little something about this bridge and it turns out the screws are supposed to go *under* the bridge, not through the holes. :fp:

So, after taking the strings off and putting them back on once again, I have a playable guitar with a much more adjustable bridge. Almost as if they designed it that way.

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