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#1
04-01-2021, 07:32 PM
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NGD Fender Jaguar
This little cream puff started life as a lowly Squier Classic Vibe 70's Jaguar.
I bought it to test the waters on Jaguars. Here's how my interest in Jaguars started... I've always loved short scale guitars, as my favorite couch guitar is a 1960 Musicmaster, so I thought I'd like to try another short scale with a bridge pickup, and that brought me to the idea of a Jaguar. I was intrigued by the wiring setup on a Jag with it's separate rhythm circuit. Having three different neck pickup sounds at the flick of two switches sounded cool to me (rhythm circuit, lead circuit, lead circuit with strangle switch). The few vintage Jags that I played years ago were setup badly, so my first impressions weren't good, but lately the popularity of offsets has taken off, so I wondered if there was some new hardware available to make them play better, or were people just learning how to set them up better. So the search began and I started by reading every online article I found about Jaguars, and I watched every online setup video that I could find on youtube! Time to test the waters, so I bought a Jaguar... 1) I started with a Classic Vibe 70's block neck Jaguar. I found one with a poplar body, in Daphne Blue, and only 8.2 lbs (some custom shop Jags weigh more than this). More than once, I've read that poplar, although kind of ugly in it's natural state, was a pretty good tone wood. So what the hell, I took a chance. When I got it, it was setup terribly, strings would pop out of the bridge, the fingerboard and frets were terribly finished, the nut was slotted and finished badly, and the tremolo made ridiculously bad mechanical noise. But this guitar was ridiculously low priced, and all of these problems were fixed very easily after watching this video... I did everything he did in this video, neck shims, hammer trick on the trem arm, filed the contact points on the trem, loctite on everything that could move, etc. And after all this setup work, it was great playing and very good sounding guitar!' 2) But I wanted a locking trem, so I bought and installed a Japanese AVRI locking tremolo. Setting it up was helped by this... https://offset.guitars/the-goodies/s...remolo-system/ Here's a pic after that install...  3) So I was thinking to myself, I wish this was a dot neck, and I don't really like binding so.... I found a cool Classic Player Lacquer 7.25 radius unbound dot neck, and it had a really cool looking stripe running down it's Pao Ferro fingerboard. Some people don't like Pao Ferro, but I've loved Pao Ferro fingerboards ever since I tried the first one on my Custom Shop Tele Jr, and it's on one of my Zemaitis metal tops. I love the way it feels like ebony, but looks like rosewood! The fretwork and finish work on this neck was GREAT!!! And the neck came with a pre-slotted nut, which I f'd up, so I bought a Tusc nut blank and a Tusc string retainer, and went to work...  I also changed the bridge to something I could adjust for the new 7.25 radius of the neck... At this stage, this is what it looked like...  and a close up of the stripe...  4) Okay I was starting to really like this guitar, and I noticed it had a really great neck pickup tone, but the bridge pickup tone was a little weak, so I thought let's find some pickups, and while I'm at it let's swap out all the cheap Squire wiring to all switchcraft, CTS, and good pushback wire! The pickups I used were wound by EP Custom that I found on Instagram and Reverb. https://www.instagram.com/epcustompickups/?hl=en https://reverb.com/item/36479833-ep-...-wound-formvar They are wound to 6.3K neck, 6.9K bridge, and were lightly potted as a unit, pickups/cover/claw!  And a very good friend had some American control plates and a parchment color pickguard that he gave me, so I got to wiring it up...  and buttoned up...  All I really needed was the right strap, which I found, and now I'm in business, and the only thing left from the original Classic Vibe is the body, the strap pins, and the tuners. Although I did a lot of parts swapping this thing sounds killer, and plays fantastic, with an extremely comfortable low action. And it cost me less than a Vintera Jag, and I would be willing to bet this one sounds and is setup better than one of those! I put a lot of work into it to get it there! 
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#2
04-01-2021, 08:02 PM
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Well the new bridge that I installed although the correct radius was little off on the string spacing (55mm vs 52mm which I needed), so... the party continued today as I installed a Halon bridge and tremolo. I didn't need a new tremolo but their's offered a feature of an arm that returns back to two different positions and less slop!
Mini review: the bridge is solid and sounds great, it's machined (not cast) out of aluminum and the saddles are brass. They are very high quality metals, 7075 aluminum and MS 58 brass. The thing rings like a tuning fork! And there is NO noise from the contact points in the tremolo, although there is some movement noise in the arm I will adjust out. Although to get the precision of the machining and the adjustable trem arm, I lost the locking system on the trem.  
Last edited by rockabilly69; 04-03-2021 at 11:20 AM.
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#3
04-01-2021, 08:16 PM
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You did some makeover on that Squier, RB69! The satisfaction of hot-rodding a guitar is a rare joy found in the guitar world. Really nicely done, you should be proud of this end result.
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I love playing guitar
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#4
04-01-2021, 08:20 PM
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And yes, hot rodding a guitar is fun, as they are meant to be played, and all the things I did make it a better player and sounder! And now I know I like Jaguars!
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#5
04-02-2021, 07:06 AM
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That surely sounds stage and studio ready! And by the way, you have some smooth chops bringing out the best of your handiwork. Just wonderful all around.
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I love playing guitar Last edited by Chickee; 04-02-2021 at 10:16 AM.
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#6
04-02-2021, 10:21 AM
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Nice story, great looking guitar, and you make some fine sounds with it!
I'm a sick puppy, I kind of like the occasional mechanical noises of the Jaguar/Jazzmaster vibrato, not to mention the pseudo koto or zither sounds from strumming between the bridge and tailpiece.  I took a slightly less extensive route with my Squier Jaguar. I "reverse" shimmed the neck pocket to increase the break angle over the bridge, installed Tusq saddles for friction reduction, and called it a day.
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----------------------------------- Creator of The Parlando Project Guitars: 20th Century Seagull S6-12, S6 Folk, Seagull M6; '00 Guild JF30-12, '01 Martin 00-15, '16 Martin 000-17, '07 Parkwood PW510, Epiphone Biscuit resonator, Merlin Dulcimer, and various electric guitars, basses....
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#7
04-02-2021, 10:30 AM
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#8
04-02-2021, 10:38 AM
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I’ve never had to reverse shim, but whatever it takes to get it there if you’re making good music with yours that’s all that counts!
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#10
04-02-2021, 09:58 PM
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Really well done. Congrats!
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#11
04-03-2021, 06:42 AM
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That's what I call a NGD! Lots of customization but it sounds like you've enjoyed the process and have great results.
Phillip McKnight, Guitar YouTuber, has a "Sharpen Your Axe" series. He would be proud of you.
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#12
04-03-2021, 11:13 AM
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#13
04-03-2021, 11:15 AM
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#14
04-03-2021, 11:22 AM
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And here's another song with the new bridge and tremolo. I did this one as a demo for Halon Guitar Parts...
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#15
04-03-2021, 12:06 PM
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