Swinger restoration:

[jcyphe]

I don't have any problem with him re-finishing his guitar, it's his so who cares. But we like to keep the forums organized and tight not have bunch of threads for the same subject/guitar. That's all I was saying.

[theshadowofseattle]

I, for one, love to see old Fenders gutted and improved. Fuck the whole offsetguitars mentality. Good on you for getting it.

[wanderingjew]

I, for one, love to see old Fenders gutted and improved. Fuck the whole offsetguitars mentality. Good on you for getting it.

Thank you.

On another note: I'm now waiting for the reranch IBM to come in. I'll get it in a few days. Right now I'm diving into the templates of the body, neck, and pick guard. I have the body scanned and turned into a black & white outline. I'll start on drawing it off of that outline in AutoCAD tomorrow.

I have a question: Can someone give me the best template they've ever seen? What would everyone like to see in a template? What format, and what shouldn't I do?

[NickS]

TBH, the Bass V routs aren't necessary - and I've seen one Swinger without them; I guess the body hadn't got to the routing stage before

[Pacafeliz]

TBH, the Bass V routs aren't necessary - and I've seen one Swinger without them; I guess the body hadn't got to the routing stage before

yeah, they also used some "normal" musicmaster bodies for the swinger!

[Mages]

I think the idea of making a swinger replica so accurate as to include the Bass V route is kind of amusing/cool though.

[cooter]

Yeah, I think I'd want the Bass V routes just because it's a part of the Swingers whole quirky history.

[Phil O'Keefe]

TBH, the Bass V routs aren't necessary - and I've seen one Swinger without them; I guess the body hadn't got to the routing stage before

yeah, they also used some "normal" musicmaster bodies for the swinger!

I've heard that here and there before, but it doesn't appear to be true. According to my sources, ALL the Swingers were from Bass V bodies. Yes, some of the Swingers lack the Bass V's distinctive 2+3 pickup routing holes, but as you said, that was because some of the Bass V bodies hadn't been routed for the pickup before being set aside.

When the PDF of the Swinger body becomes available, you'll be able to confirm for yourself why the "some are cut up Musicmaster bodies" theory doesn't work - the Swinger's dimensions are a bit larger than a Musicmaster in a few areas. Besides, the whole idea behind the Swinger (aka Musiclander / Arrow) was to get rid of leftover / surplus parts of things that hadn't sold well; and since Musicmasters were still in production when Fender built the 300 or so Swingers they made, it wouldn't have made sense to use Musicmaster bodies. All "real" Swingers have 22.5" scale necks, and almost all have neck stamp dates from 1966 / 67. All used leftover Bass V bodies...

I've never been a big fan of them; mainly due to the tiny necks, although they do look kind of cool. As a historical oddity in the history of Fender, and with so few of them in existence, they certainly have a cult following and certain amount of vintage appeal. Their rarity is probably one of the reasons why a lot of us weren't happy to see you stripping and refinishing it, but again, it's your guitar and you can do what you want with it. At least you're not carving it up and putting a humbucker or something into it, and you're using good quality lacquer for the refinish... and it IS nice of you to have gone to the trouble of doing the template and PDF.

[broncobuster80]

Yeah and I want that template

[moore65]

That would be a cool template to have, especially since few people own a Swinger.