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NGD (x2) Fender Jaguar

rockabilly69

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 29, 2001
Messages
2,872
Years ago I played a Fender Jaguar and man was I unimpressed. It wouldn't stay in tune, and the strings were popping out of the saddles. It was uninspiring to say the least. But recently, I've been looking to build a short scale guitar, just because I like how my short scale 1960 Fender Musicmaster plays, and I thought it would be cool to have a short scale guitar with a bridge pickup. Well a bunch of research brought me back to the Jaguar, and that research also pointed out how bad a Jaguar can play if not setup correctly. Looks like the one I played years back was setup totally incorrectly! So I bought a cheap Classic Vibe Series Jaguar to test the waters.

When I got the Classic Vibe Jag, the setup was miserable, but I figured all out, and I got it playing really good. And then I started modding it with cool parts just to see how good of a guitar I could wind up. By the time I was done with it the only thing left of that Classic Vibe was the body (nice lightweight poplar), the strap pins, and the volume/tone knobs. It now has custom wound pickups (EP Custom), stellar bridge and trem system (Halon), a lacquer finished Pao Ferro fingerboard Fender replacement neck, all new harness with vintage cloth wire - CTS pots - SOZO caps - Switchcraft switches - and Puretone output jack. And a friend of mine had some spare American control plates and parchment pickguard so I popped those on too.

This is what it looks and sounds like now...

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rockabilly69

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 29, 2001
Messages
2,872
Well I just had to know how good of a job I did on that Jag, could it possibly compete against one of Fender's own upper-end Jaguars? As luck has it I found a really cool used Jaguar on Wildwoods guitar site. It was one from a limited series run that Wildwood did with Fender. It is a American Vintage '65 Thin Skin Jaguar. The special features are: a true lacquer finish (no poly undercoat), custom color with matching headstock, and vintage taller frets. This one was a good weight, has a nice bound dark rosewood neck with pearl inlays, '65 Pure Vintage Pickups, vintage style mute system, and rolled fingerboard edges.

Well after a week of owning this one, I can say without a doubt, the new one sounds and feels great, but not any better that the one I built, just two different flavors of great! The new one is a 9.5 radius necks, the old one is 7.25, so they feel a bit different, but they both play great with low actions and no chocking out on bends which I thought would be a problem with the older one. As a matter of fact if I had to pick a favorite it would be the partscaster, but I'm splitting hairs.

This is what the newest one looks and sounds like...

mQKC3dQ.jpg



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