I recently revamped this Nash Jazzmaster Replica for a client. It had several outstanding problems, and lack of attention to detail in terms of fit and finish, as well as the components used. Nash Guitars (by Bill Nash) is a notable name within the "relic" community and one of the few boutique builders who are legally able to get away with producing 1:1 clones of Fender trademarked guitars.
The following is a tear-down of the components and inherent problems found in this specific Bill Nash clone build.
This is the guitar before I pulled it apart. My client complained of buzzes along the neck and bridge, an unusable tremolo, an unsightly printed tortoise shell pickguard, and noisy electronics. He wanted the guitar brought back in all of it's glory and so begins the breaking down of this Jazzmaster.
De-stringing the guitar was the first step of course. Here's a close-up of the cheap import Allparts tremolo unit used. For a guitar sold for thousands, you'd expect better. The surprises continue...
Another close-up, this time of the tortoise shell pickguard. This is an example of bad printed laminate, when you look close you can see the pixels and the dotted print, which are of a print quality inferior to your average newspaper. Very disappointing indeed.
Panning even closer in, the lack of attention to detail becomes even more apparent. Rather than using proper Jazzmaster pickup height screws, Nash appears to have used some run of the mill hardware store screws, unnecessarily enlarging the mounting holes in the pickup covers, and making the adjustment of height very tight and difficult.
This post is not meant to be an outright bashing on Nash guitars, but it was very appalling to find a work this amateurish. Notice the bridge, some type of mustang bridge hybrid that had been dipped in etching solution, or some other abrasive chemical to age the parts. The saddles and screws used to mount them aren't even uniform, and appears to be the makings of a bootleg bridge put together from extras in a parts bin.
Here's a counter productive technique: taping up the bridge posts. Some type of cheap, mailing tape has been used, in hopes of fixing the bridge down, which in turn actually decreases tuning stability contrary to amateur belief. This creates slipping on the saddles, rather than helping the bridge rock back and forth as it was designed. Additionally, this technique does away with some of brilliant subtleties associated with a properly setup jazzmaster/mustang bridge.
More appalling discoveries. You'd think a boutique builder would at least TRY to make efforts to make a vintage correct and quality build. Here you find decent Seymour Duncan "Vintage" Jazzmaster pickups. While they do the job, it must be noted that they are also the cheapest of Duncan's line. Additionally, look at the foam used??? What is that?? It looks like someone just ripped a chunk off of some insulation foam, with no care in making it look neat, or even raise the pickup evenly. No wonder the height was so hard to adjust! tsk tsk tsk...
Pickguard off. No shielding whatsoever! Anyone who knows anything about anything, regarding Jazzmasters, or single-coil guitars for that matter, knows that for a job to be well done, the body needs to be shielded, and all electronics must be grounded to that shielding. Also, I'm only going to assume, that the reason the inside of the body's paint is broken away, and unfinished is because it keeps in tune with the "relic" theme.
Another close up of the body routes. Dirty and unfinished prior to spraying. It takes but 10 minutes to clean those unsightly shreds off with some sandpaper! Nash guitars found it to be not worth their time. Please note, even the cheapest squier and epiphone guitars have clean routes. Seems like Nash just got this from allparts, took it out of the box and started spraying.
Probably the best part of this guitar, is it's neck, which is not surprisingly allparts. I've used allparts necks on builds and they are fantastic. No wonder my client decided to keep this guitar over his other jazzmasters. While the neck "wear" is incredibly fake, and overdone, it does feel nice, and does a decent emulation of the way vintage wear feels. Still, for guitars that have heftier price tags than genuine Fender Vintage Reissues, you'd think Nash guitars would calculate the sum of the parts used into their asking price. Also look at the fake 'L' serial plate.
A close look at the neck pocket: an unsubstantial veneer shim. This is a poor attempt to get a proper neck angle, and too thin to be at all effective. Vintage fenders used thicker plastic shims which were placed in the inner most part of the neck pocket (towards the pickups). they did not overlap the neck mounting holes as they are featured here. American vintage reissue offsets also use more significant shims, in the form of three stacked pieces of cardboard, also placed in the innermost part of the pocket. I also discover that another piece of veneer was glued into the side of the neck pocket to correct a poor neck fit. This looks more like an amateur parts build than one made by a respected builder.
This turned out to be the most disappointing and problematic aspect of getting this guitar to be fully functional. This sloppy job of a tremolo route was done, I assume, in hopes that the tremolo's movable plate would not catch on the edges. However, you can see that the routing bit used wasn't even deep enough to complete the job. I don't generally offer routing as a service at this time, so hand filing this thing was a huge obstacle. In this state, any tremolo installed, especially the AVRI one my client wanted, was severely catching the edges, making it completely unusable, and also unstable. PLUS, what was that spring doing in there???
I used the trem route from an AVRI Jazzmaster for reference, making a tracing and then overlaying it on the Nash guitar. As my client wanted to replace the cheap trem with a US reissue one, this was the best way to go. See how the edges come up so much closer to the mounting holes? And also how the back edge is flat/square at the edges rather than rounded?
Using files and high grit sandpaper, I reshaped the route. Turned out to take WAY longer than I had anticipated. But I don't stop until the job's done, and done well
I also rewired the ground from the lead control cavity, to not include the pesky cloth covering that it originally had, which was also getting in the way of the tremolo's free movement.
I also added a necessary grounding wire to the bridge thimble. Why this was absent from it to begin with...I don't know. As a rule of thumb, I think builders should know the nuances and details of a particular model, before deciding they are going to make and sell them.
My client wanted to go for the Johnny Marr "white-on-white" look, so after fixing all of Nash's mistakes, I installed a Mint Green AVRI pickguard, which required filling some of the allparts guards mounting holes. It definitely is a vast improvement over the ugly printed allparts tort. I also replaced the junk parts bridge, with a proper American Vintage Reissue Jazzmaster bridge.
And here it is all finished! (Please excuse the clarity of the pics. a proper camera was not available at the time the work was done.
Work done:
Hardware Replacement/installation: AVRI Mint Green Pickguard, AVRI Jazzmaster bridge, AVRI Tremolo and added more substantial custom cut foam pieces for better and more balanced pickup height adjustability.
Setup: .011 gauge "Bullet" strings, Tremolo/Spring Tension, Truss rod Adjustment, Bridge/Saddle Height/Radius, 3 cardboard shims in the neck pocket, Graphite on saddles & nut slots, Polished & Buffed.
Electronics: Fixed faulty wiring & grounding. Contact cleaned potentiometers and switches.
Routing/Reshaping: Filed/Sanded Tremolo Route to accept American Vintage Reissue Jazzmaster Tremolo Unit.
From the customer:
"Dude, been playing the new and improved jazzmaster all morning - it feels really terrific. Could not be happier with your work. Thanks again!" - Patrick
