Okey dokey, what we have here is my pure ‘surf’ Jaguar. It’s another CIJ from the same era as Rosalita (2002 – 04), yet for some reason it seems to weigh half as much. I’ve modded it to be a little more vintage correct. Let’s face it, I’m writing this, you’re reading it, of course we’re going to go on about it.
Around Christmas time just past I was looking on The Google at Jaguars, and this little beauty popped up. I would love a Fender Custom Shop guitar. Sometimes I’m tempted but I tend to fuck my equipment up fairly easily. A light scratch on something that cost that much would send me on a dark downward spiral of depression. I’d need to set up a new blog called ‘Experiments In MISERY’.
But why drop 2 grand when you can just have a go yourself, right? Further querying of The Google revealed – get this – a guy in Wales selling a CIJ Jaguar. That’s some hit rate in Wales right there. There must have been a job lot of these guitars there years ago. So, flogged the Cabronita on Ebay to fund it and blammo, it was en route. He packaged it in a hard case. Charming. I don’t use hard cases as it makes me look like an actual professional. Screw it, maybe I’ll start.
It played well in stock form. Those damn pickups were still brittle as hell though, but the previous owner had clearly done a good job on setting it up. Even with the stock bridge. The frets were in great nick as well. I really liked the colour because, well, I’m a little shallow like that sometimes. Interesting (not really) fact: it looks like it’s Daphne Blue, but is, in fact, Sonic Blue. Apparently Fender Japan use a slightly darker shade of Sonic Blue. I don’t know where the hell I pick half this stuff up from sometimes. Wow the guests at your next dinner party with that nugget.
So, I studied that Closet Classic carefully to figure out how to effectively clone it. All the while, at the back of my mind, a little voice was telling me that if I pulled this off maybe I could counterfeit guitars and make, literally, some pounds. Here’s what I drew up:
SURF JAG SHOPPING LIST
– Red tortoiseshell pickguard
– Fender Mute
– Extremely vintage sounding pickups
Ebay did the job on the first two no bother. For the pickups, I was kind of limited and kind of not. I didn’t want to put Seymour Duncans in there again. Over on SG101 there was extremely high praise for the Fender AVRI ’65 pickups. I couldn’t find them anywhere. Then I realised they are actually called ‘Pure Vintage’ and were widely available everywhere. Ordered.
Can’t remember what arrived first. Don’t really care, and – frankly – neither do you. I do know that the Mute was the last bit to arrive. So, had all my bits – let’s get making shit.
Stripped it down, got wiring the pickups in. Credit to Fender for these, they come with pickup covers and claws, so no fucking around for an hour trying to solder grounds to stainless steel again. I clearly did a better job with my wiring this time as there’s less hum than Rosalita.
Done. Next up was the pickguard. And great news: IT DIDN’T FIT! Of course it didn’t. I knew this had being going too well. Why, I was even having a few chuckles when I was doing it. Turns out the guard was for an American made Jag, not Japanese. Why they can’t all be the same, I have no idea. Sometimes Fender can be real dicks about stuff.
I marked some holes to drill into the guard, lining up the screws and just got the Dremel out. It’s a fairly tight squeeze, and if you look closely, it shows. Again though, people don’t check out my crotch too much so I think it will fly. I really like the red on blue, by the way. I may start dressing like that. With my hard case. I’ll have a record deal with all the cocaine and limos I can handle within a week.
Next up was the Mute. Now, I had intended this to be fully functional: there is debate in some quarters whether or not the Mute was ever a good idea. What it does is basically flip up and pushes a foam strip against the strings, thus ‘muting’ them. Same effect as palm muting. For surf, clearly useful. People will argue that it’s not as good as palm muting, and is redundant. Most people put them on for display these days. I have never used a Mute before so I can’t comment.
And I still never have cause I could not figure out for the life of me how the hell to install it correctly. As such, it’s there but won’t stay in place when flipped up. I have subsequently found an installation guide so when I change the strings I’ll re install it correctly. It’s kind of annoying actually, as the foam bit keeps catching on my hand and is now peeling off a bit. But hey, vintage correct and all.
Lastly, this time I decided to try a neck shim. A shim is where you artificially raise the fretboard closer to the strings. It’s used on Jaguars a lot due to the higher bridge height offsetting string tension. This, I always thought, was master builder level stuff. Dark arts, you must train for two years under close watch by elders before being allowed to touch a neck, then carefully craft a precise, immaculate wooden square by hand, which is then blessed before being used.
Bullshit. It’s literally just stuffing card into the neck pocket of a guitar. Business cards work great for this. I think I used three all in. Lopped the neck off, put them in the pocket, screwed it back on. Done and done.
Headless!
I sacked the bridge (as usual) and put in a Staytrem Mustang style bridge that was previously in Rosalita. It’s actually a pretty good bridge, good intonation, no rattling. No way was I shelling out for another Mastery. They can sponsor me, by all means, and shower me in the damn things. I can live with that.
All in, this was just an afternoons work. Sometimes I think I’m getting the hang of this stuff.
I decided to roll with 11s for the strings this time to give my wee digits a rest after hammering Rosalita. Put her all back together, strung it up and went surfin’. First thoughts? Neck shims are the fucking business. Seriously. It allows really comfortable action without string tension being compromised.
And then…holy sheeeiiiiit, fuck me sideways said the actress to the Bishop because those pickups are quite simply the dogs balaerics. I have never heard a single coil as sweet as this. Incredibly crisp, clean and they have that ‘vocal’ quality I’m always going on about. Just the right amount of highs and lows. They just…sing. Also, they don’t even feed back that much when distorted and it’s possible to actually play with the treble fully on. A set is about 70 bucks from Thomann and I would urge ANY Jaguar player to install them. Why, only yesterday I ordered another set to put in Rosalita. I don’t care if I effectively have the same guitar twice: they are simply that good.
Someone told me that only Fender do ‘actual’ vintage pickups. Apparently other manufacturers will artificially age modern magnets to make them vintage sounding, but Fender just make them period correct, use weaker magnets or something. Look, I don’t know, if you’re big on magnets this is probably fascinating stuff.
I use this Jag with my surf covers band. Hey, check it out being used at a practice this week. It’s actually good to hear how it sits in a full band mix. Well, is the answer.
experimentsinterror 