Advice needed for fixing up a Jazzmaster conversion!

[MrJamesBrown]

if you really can't stand the thought of how it looks under the pickguard you could always just get yourself a real jazzmaster body and swap all the parts onto that. you got a pretty good deal on the guitar and still don't really have that much money in it right now. even without the body all those parts will essentially cost you about £150.

Yeah, sorted the bridge. Strings are on now, action is a little high (get's higher up the neck, but isn't that what neck shims are for?)

I guess if I'm replacing the pickups, I might as well replace all the wires and pots. Won't cost too much if I just do it over time...

[NickD]

Funny, something very similar was once done here.

Thats been done before here, Aug made Shadow the Shadmaster from a Jagmaster body. He added a Jazzy trem though.

Here it is black like aug maded, then in white like I maded...

The Shadmaster was done a whole lot better, the trem was filled in with actual wood both front and back, was routed fairly well and it is shielded properly (even so, Aug was so drunk he positioned the bridge wrongly & More Cowbell had to make it right). I've had it for maybe four years, it currently looks a bit like the white(ish) pic, but has a dots neck, not the B&B and different pickups with no rhythm circuit. It plays pretty well, I have flatwounds on it and its tuned to C G D G B B.

The OPs guitar has promise, but will need a fair bit of work. If it plays well then that's what matters.

[MrJamesBrown]

Well, I've added 2 shims using playing cards, and man does thing play a lot better now!

However, the truss rod was so tight that I couldn't turn it clockwise to add relief- the strings are just a little bit too high as we get past the 12th fret. I'm gonna try lowering the bridge a tad, although I fear it may fret out the lower frets. But, otherwise, would adding another shim be a bad idea? It's close to being perfectly playable- and I'm gonna "go Thurston" and bypass the rhythm circuit for the master volume anyway. I figure if I get it as well setup as I can now, I can see to the electronics at a later date.