My first shortscale.

The original shortscale guitars; Mustangs, Duo-Sonics, Musicmasters, Jaguars, Broncos, Jag-stang, Jagmaster, Super-Sonic, Cyclone, and Toronados.

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James
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My first shortscale.

Post by James »

Today I collected the Mustang I bought on ebay on Sunday. I had a bit of a play with it on the train home, and decided to get it apart as soon as I got in for a couple of reasons. I was anxious to see dates and what was going on under the pickguard, but mostly because the guy who sold it was a Mustang noob. The strings were coming straight through the tailpiece so there was the tiniest break angle over the bridge. The high and low e strings having the lowest saddles would pop out of the groove as soon as you touched the string. He also hadn't used the hole in the centre of the klusons and had use them like the other type with just a horizontal hole. You could lift the string off the peg with your fingers because of it.

I took everything apart except the tuners and strap buttons. Disassembling the bridge was a bit of a bastard with the little springs but everything else went smoothly. I found out the bridge is actually a proper vintage one rather than a comp stang one. Just the bridge cover is from a comp stang and the rest is from 64-67. The neck is Dec 63, A width and 22.5". So the smallest of the small. It plays very nicely though, I'd actually say it's quite similar to hurbs duo with a less wear andmore gloss on the back. In terms of wear it's probably on par with Fran's 64 jag.

The guy gave me a small bag of parts including a new switchcraft mustang switch, two spare mustang knobs and two white strat tone knobs. It also had some screws which seem to be for most of the basic things (spare neck and bridge screws, that sort of thing) and the leftover cloth wire he had which was quite a bit. There was also one black robroe cover which came with one of the pickups so I'm assuming the pickups are mustang ones. All I know so far is that they're fender and 70s. I have some numbers from the back of them and will look into it shortly. At the moment I have two strat covers on them, but I photoshopped robroes onto the last imagine and it'll have robroes as soon as they arrive from doog.

The pots are modern CTS jobs. The tone pot is a TBX thig with some sort of push/pull action. So far, I'm not a fan and I'm tempted to replace the lot.

I put 13s towards the end of the pics, and with the wraparound the bridge the trem works perfectly. Lot's of travel in both direction. It is hyper sensitive but I'm assuming that's the nature of the beast. The reason it was borked before was the guy threading the strings straight through. I imagine that saved me a few quid in the auction though. The refin isn't the best job, and to draw a comparison again it's probably slightly worse than the duo. It doesn't look too bad overall but it's far from a pro job and when the money is flowing a little more freely i'll probably refinish it more of a vintage white.

I think it's far to say that the price I paid is a bit of a joke. It's easily a £600 guitar if not more.

And on to the pics. Im going to stick them under a spoiler tag just to save the scroll button on the first page. I think all of the pics will be click to enlarge types. If you only enlarge a couple make it the front of the headstock and the last pic. I've just realised there are no pics of the back of the body and no pics of the whole guitar. I'll take a new batch on a sunnier day once I have the new pickup covers on.
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Mike
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Post by Mike »

Holy fuck. The photoshopped picture it looks beautiful. Where did you buy 13s?
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Post by robert(original) »

holy crap, that thing looks amazing!
the bridge looks too new!
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Post by James »

Mike wrote:Where did you buy 13s?
Webstrings. I got ten packs of .012 -.056 and two packs of .013 - .056. Both have wound G. I got all the 12s for the jazz box and the rob custom which are longer (gibson scale and I think standard fender) and thought 13s would be too much. Now I need loads more. I might even go higher if they've got it. Worked out very close (think under but might have been over) £24 for 12 packs inc. shipping.

Potential note of caution, the unwound strings on the jazz box have gone shitty quite earlier. I'm going to hold out to see how the 13s do on the mustang before I order any more. I'm sure it was just me playing it a lot with dirty hands that did it but I wouldn't want to end up with 20 packs of strings that die quickly.
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Post by Thom »

Beautiful! You must be well happy!
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Post by James »

robert(original) wrote:holy crap, that thing looks amazing!
the bridge looks too new!
The other side of the saddles are quite old and dirty looking and the underside of the cover is a pitted mess. I polished everything up quite a bit but I was surprised how little aging there is on the trem plate.
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Mike
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Post by Mike »

I noticed that you're looking at wound G with 12s. :-/

Thanks for the heads up.
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Post by Hurb »

Yeah OK that's fucking amazing james! you got such a great deal there. you bastard! haha
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Post by markleton »

I really love the white/tortoiseshell colour scheme. T'was a steal indeed and you got it cheaper than I got a 70s copy including delivery! Score.
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Post by Mike »

I can't believe the price.

All bets are off now James, you're officially "Jammy Fucker" from now on.
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Post by Neil »

Sweet mother of god that thing is gorgeous. I'm on a bit of a white guitar kick lately and that's pretty much everything a white guitar should be. Thats much nicer red tort than most I've seen lately. You're right about the covers too.
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Post by James »

I just checked and the trem has near perfect 2 semitone travel in either direction. Awesome.
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Post by James »

markleton wrote:I really love the white/tortoiseshell colour scheme. T'was a steal indeed and you got it cheaper than I got a 70s copy including delivery! Score.
I had to pay a return train fare and spend most of the day travelling to get it (out of the way train station in a tiny town means lots of changes). Still, I'm not going to complain about the price.
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Post by BobArsecake »

Whooaa!!! That's bloody beautiful! :D :D :D
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Post by DGNR8 »

NEVAR LET IT GO! It's a beaut. That is killer. It reminds me of Aug's 64, which was the 3/4 neck. I was born in Dec 63 so I have owned a few myself. The only 63 left is the Rick.
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Post by Mo Law-ka »

!!! such a beautiful guitar. !!!
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Post by stewart »

that is officially the best bargain ever. here's the hurbosonic scratcher for comparison (it's a wee bit blurry, sorry).

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Post by James »

Cheers. It looks pretty close but the mustang one is perhaps a touch darker. Difficult to say though. Comparison at doogfest 3?
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Post by Mike »

It's on. I'll be bringing a shortscale or two also
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Post by Hurb »

next month?

seriously though, we should do that holiday cottage thing we talked about for the next big meetup.