Nash Jazzmaster Tear-down and WHY NASH guitars SUCK!

[Sparky]

It's an Aftermarket parts guitar, half of the complaints are about the cheapness of aftermarket parts which a lot of other people have used, including people on here. Also if he did make this in 2003 most of those parts were the only thing available besides official and vintage Fender parts and maybe he can't use those?

I think the guitar does look sloppy but isn't that how it's assembled/painted to replicate? Did it buzz because of the trem route? Almost every single AVRI Jaguar and Jazzmaster I have played had noticeable buzz. People say well that's down to the set-up, so why does Fender not set them up properly to begin with?

That's not true! The complaints aren't with the parts - Allparts makes a killer neck! It's the quality behind putting them all together that's in question. Stuff like not blowing the sawdust out and not shielding. It's a scam when you can spend LESS money and buy a BETTER FENDER guitar! If only Fender could catch wind of this, they'd stop his blatant rip-offs for good.

And you've got to be shitting me if you think it's okay to use the wrong screws and a cheapo tort on a guitar priced so high. Absurd!

[jcyphe]

the same reason why a lot of guitars don't play well out of the box; that stuff takes time and more importantly, a machine can only do a so-so job. If a decent set-up takes an hour, they're not going to pay their tech $30 dollars or whatever he makes in that time, to do it properly. That would come straight out of the profit.

I'm not buying that.

[jcyphe]

That's not true! The complaints aren't with the parts - Allparts makes a killer neck! It's the quality behind putting them all together that's in question.

So he doesn't complain about the PG Material and aftermarket tremolo?

[SKC Willie]

the same reason why a lot of guitars don't play well out of the box; that stuff takes time and more importantly, a machine can only do a so-so job. If a decent set-up takes an hour, they're not going to pay their tech $30 dollars or whatever he makes in that time, to do it properly. That would come straight out of the profit.

I'm not buying that.

why not? Instead they give it to the store that sells them an expect them to set it up. Some of the guitars I play at guitar center as so far out of whack I wonder is any human ever layed eyes on it before it got shipped. They don't set up guitars well and why else would they not do it?

[jcyphe]

why not? Instead they give it to the store that sells them an expect them to set it up. Some of the guitars I play at guitar center as so far out of whack I wonder is any human ever layed eyes on it before it got shipped. They don't set up guitars well and why else would they not do it?

I'm not buying it because for the most part Fender Strats are not "out of whack" when you pick them up.

[SKC Willie]

you go to a different guitar store than I do.

[Ankhanu]

I do feel on a personal note that the writer may have some resentment for me or my company and if there is something we did to him, I am very sorry.

BN

Ah, don't make it personal, man. Bad form.

Unless the OP was doctoring photos or something, there's not a lot to be said about vendettas. The main problem I saw with this Jazzmaster was a lack of attention to detail and apparently quick work. That Mustang bridge in particular (if that's post-production, that helps your case ), the foam under the pickup, pickup screws, trem route and grounding were all pretty damn sloppy, not to mention the neck pocket and not cleaning up the burry body routes. None of that is personal, it's plain as day. Simply, it looks like no pride was taken in the assembly of this rather expensive guitar.

Allparts, Gotoh, etc., that's all fine... ya gotta source your parts somewhere. But something's gotta account for the price discrepancy between this product and buying the parts yourself and taking the time to assemble it, or buying the genuine product.

[mtotallywired]

I saw a recent posting on your site about a Nash Jazzmaster. I feel that the writer was rather over zealous in his desire to slam us.

The funny thing is that I totally agree with much of what he says, which is why we discontinued making Jazzmasters and Jaguars in 2006. In fact, I posted this page at that time to explain:

http://www.nashguitars.com/Jazzmaster.htm

Just to clarify a few other points. Hardware is Gotoh (who makes most hardware distributed and used in the US). This particular guitar is most likely pre 2003 and at that time when we were just growing our biz, we used several suppliers for necks and bodies, including Allparts. Since then we have all bodies and necks made in the USA to our specs. The Allparts necks are excellent and I still have several Allparts necks on guitars in my own collection. The guitar shown has also had some additional work done on it after it was made, including bridge posts (the weird taping), saddles and various wiring. I also disagree with the idea that these guitars need any shielding or extra grounding. These pickups will be noisy no matter what you do.

I do feel on a personal note that the writer may have some resentment for me or my company and if there is something we did to him, I am very sorry.

BN

Bill,

I have absolutely no vendetta against you whatsoever. I've happened across your guitars in small shops in NYC, and while those guitars (mostly teles) were nice, the relic'ing was always just a bit too over the top for my personal taste, and once I looked at the price tag, I immediately put the guitars back on the stand. There's no reason for me to have a grudge against you...I'm just a hobbyist tech, who's happened to work on more than a handful of different kinds of guitar builds for myself and other people, and it's just really apparent that this was simply "whipped up" with no regard for the details or using premium quality components, which in turn just completely makes the asking prices ridiculous. I picked this up from a client who was very very unhappy with the guitar, and upon first look, I thought the work would be routine. I had no idea the work it would entail to get this thing up to speed. If you're going to ask for custom shop/vintage level prices, you should at the very least give us that bit of elbow grease, and attention that shows there was some worthwhile thought put into it.

Again, don't apologize to me. I can forward you my customers e-mail address and you can apologize to him, because he most likely paid quite a pretty penny for a guitar that ended up costing him even more than it should've. With the money he paid for your partsmaster + the parts/labor to get it to the point of being acceptable, he may as well have just bought an American Vintage Reissue brand new...

No bad blood from me personally, man...seriously.

Eddie

[Billy3000]

I would be interested to know if the owner of this guitar is the original owner. If he's not then it is possible, I suppose that some moron before him replaced the screws with the wrong ones and the foam with crappy foam, opened up the trem and left some screws in it and maybe even did some piss poor re-wiring job for some reason. But if the owner is the original owner then it would definitely seem as though this is how it was shipped from the factory and in that case, this is just poor workmanship, and Nash can't blame it on anything else. Just because it's a relic isn't an excuse for incorrect screws which make it harder to adjust pickups. The frillies on the inside of the routes from the poor routing job (even though the body wasn't made by them) should have been cleaned up before painting, that doesn't take long and on any guitar in that price range it should have been cleaned up. I can understand a guitar not being set up perfectly from the factory, some attention to that detail at least is necessary, but I've found in most cases and with most brands that it really depends on the shop that you go to, how well the guitar is set up. I've played Taylor acoustics at Guitar center that sound, feel and play like absolute garbage and then I've gone in to my favorite boutique stores and played the same models and they've sounded, felt and played awesome. It definitely seems in most cases that it's the individual shop that will perform a good setup on a guitar before putting it out on display or just taking it out of the box and hanging it up like Guitar Center does. Also, about on the topic of the setup on this guitar... If it hasn't been made since 2006, and this model is possibly a 2003, then we can't really blame the way that the guitar was setup and buzzing now in 2011 on the factory when this model hasn't been available in 5 years. It's definitely quite possible that if the guitar hasn't been set up in that long that it will have some buzz, and that's up to the owner to take care of, don't blame the maker for that.

Basically what I'm saying is, Yes there definitely appears to be some very poor workmanship from Nash on this guitar, but at the same time every single problem listed here can't be blamed on them.

[mtotallywired]

I would be interested to know if the owner of this guitar is the original owner. If he's not then it is possible, I suppose that some moron before him replaced the screws with the wrong ones and the foam with crappy foam, opened up the trem and left some screws in it and maybe even did some piss poor re-wiring job for some reason. But if the owner is the original owner then it would definitely seem as though this is how it was shipped from the factory and in that case, this is just poor workmanship, and Nash can't blame it on anything else. Just because it's a relic isn't an excuse for incorrect screws which make it harder to adjust pickups. The frillies on the inside of the routes from the poor routing job (even though the body wasn't made by them) should have been cleaned up before painting, that doesn't take long and on any guitar in that price range it should have been cleaned up. I can understand a guitar not being set up perfectly from the factory, some attention to that detail at least is necessary, but I've found in most cases and with most brands that it really depends on the shop that you go to, how well the guitar is set up. I've played Taylor acoustics at Guitar center that sound, feel and play like absolute garbage and then I've gone in to my favorite boutique stores and played the same models and they've sounded, felt and played awesome. It definitely seems in most cases that it's the individual shop that will perform a good setup on a guitar before putting it out on display or just taking it out of the box and hanging it up like Guitar Center does. Also, about on the topic of the setup on this guitar... If it hasn't been made since 2006, and this model is possibly a 2003, then we can't really blame the way that the guitar was setup and buzzing now in 2011 on the factory when this model hasn't been available in 5 years. It's definitely quite possible that if the guitar hasn't been set up in that long that it will have some buzz, and that's up to the owner to take care of, don't blame the maker for that.

Basically what I'm saying is, Yes there definitely appears to be some very poor workmanship from Nash on this guitar, but at the same time every single problem listed here can't be blamed on them.

The setup I expected. It's what I was commissioned to do. That and swap out a pickguard and tremolo for him. I assumed it'd be a pretty simple and routine go around, so that's definitely not the argument here. What I wonder, whether or not the previous owner is original or not, bridge and taping aside...Nash didn't deny any of the other photo evidence of the incredibly shoddy work done. The wiring was definitely stock and had not been messed with. That said, what person in their right mind would replace perfectly good stock parts (had they been there to begin with) with crappy ones? He didn't deny the foam for example, or the pickup screws, or the tremolo route, or the neck pocket patch up, or the incredibly unfinished and burry innards...its all there. And even his commenting on how the body didn't need shielding at all??? then why did fender go through the trouble of machining brass control buckets? or pickup/cavity/pickguard shields? one owner or two, I'm convinced this is about 99% on Nash to own up to.

[Dave]

Almost certainly there's a light middle ground here and maybe some questions as to what happened after it left BN and it's fair enough if they stopped making them because they felt they couldn't do the models justice. Reading that explanation he linked to does rather irk me that it's couched in terms of the models themselves being deeply flawed..... I can think of at least four internet forums with many many thousands of members who'd likely disagree with that.

[George]

I don't think he offered a good rebuttal against mtotallywired's criticisms at all, and doesn't address any of the issues. He doesn't say anything about "not being able to do them justice"; his approach is "these guitars are shit, no one can do them justice so they discredit us". FYI, those that haven't read it - here's his statement on the Jazzys and Jags. Bullshit:

Regarding: Discontinuing Jazzmasters and Jaguars 10/01/06

I am now discontinuing Jazzmasters and Jaguars. If you have any currently on order, rest assured those orders will be filled. Please be aware that there may some substitutions on colors as these last batch go out as I am down to a dozen or so bodies that are all painted and since I will not be reordering bodies from my supplier I will use the on-hand stock.

The first reason for discontinuing them is that (IMHO) the original design of both of these have such flaws that even when we do everything we can to make them as stable and user friendly as possible, they are still not up to my standards. My feeling is that you should be able to row a boat, pound nails or kill a moose with it and still have a guitar that will stay in tune and not expose weaknesses. The freedom in playing a guitar that you do not have to think about, worry about or treat like anything short of "Your Bitch" to use a current colloquialism, is what I am trying my best to provide the player. When I ship a Jag/Jazz, I feel that I am not doing that - and not due to any lack of trying on my part. I have never had one come back for a refund and luckily most folks that buy them are not going to use them as their only guitar, so we have been OK. They are just a darn duck-billed-platypus. Even Leo had a few ideas that were questionable.

The second reason is that because I end up spending lots of extra time tweaking them to maximize their playability, sound, feel and stability, I would really need to raise my prices to have them share the same basic cost/price ratio as a strat or a tele. The other issue is that because the pickguard, body and neck makers cannot seem to agree on EXACT specs, even the basic assembly slows, so we can get out calipers, Dremels, routers and sometimes a big-ass-hammer to get it to all go together. The thought of raising prices to make this these hot house flowers the highest ticket item in the line does not make sense.

Feel free to email me should you have any questions or concerns.

Thanks - BN

[Ankhanu]

Regarding: Discontinuing Jazzmasters and Jaguars 10/01/06

... My feeling is that you should be able to row a boat, pound nails or kill a moose with it and still have a guitar that will stay in tune and not expose weaknesses. The freedom in playing a guitar that you do not have to think about, worry about or treat like anything short of "Your Bitch" to use a current colloquialism, is what I am trying my best to provide the player.

...

... so we can get out calipers, Dremels, routers and sometimes a big-ass-hammer to get it to all go together. ...

In short, he only wants to build Telecasters; Strats don't fall into his criteria at all

And dear gods, I really hope the hammer comment is tongue-in-cheek. Calipers and a Dremel (or, ya know a proper router) would seem like proper and standard assembly equipment for any guitar builder worth their salt, even if they're working with pre-fab materials. Really, no one should bemoan having to do simple precision woodwork wwhen building guitars for sale

[Joey]

What was the exact cost of a Nash Jazzmaster?

[mtotallywired]

I don't think he offered a good rebuttal against mtotallywired's criticisms at all, and doesn't address any of the issues. He doesn't say anything about "not being able to do them justice"; his approach is "these guitars are shit, no one can do them justice so they discredit us". FYI, those that haven't read it - here's his statement on the Jazzys and Jags. Bullshit:

Regarding: Discontinuing Jazzmasters and Jaguars 10/01/06

I am now discontinuing Jazzmasters and Jaguars. If you have any currently on order, rest assured those orders will be filled. Please be aware that there may some substitutions on colors as these last batch go out as I am down to a dozen or so bodies that are all painted and since I will not be reordering bodies from my supplier I will use the on-hand stock.

The first reason for discontinuing them is that (IMHO) the original design of both of these have such flaws that even when we do everything we can to make them as stable and user friendly as possible, they are still not up to my standards. My feeling is that you should be able to row a boat, pound nails or kill a moose with it and still have a guitar that will stay in tune and not expose weaknesses. The freedom in playing a guitar that you do not have to think about, worry about or treat like anything short of "Your Bitch" to use a current colloquialism, is what I am trying my best to provide the player. When I ship a Jag/Jazz, I feel that I am not doing that - and not due to any lack of trying on my part. I have never had one come back for a refund and luckily most folks that buy them are not going to use them as their only guitar, so we have been OK. They are just a darn duck-billed-platypus. Even Leo had a few ideas that were questionable.

The second reason is that because I end up spending lots of extra time tweaking them to maximize their playability, sound, feel and stability, I would really need to raise my prices to have them share the same basic cost/price ratio as a strat or a tele. The other issue is that because the pickguard, body and neck makers cannot seem to agree on EXACT specs, even the basic assembly slows, so we can get out calipers, Dremels, routers and sometimes a big-ass-hammer to get it to all go together. The thought of raising prices to make this these hot house flowers the highest ticket item in the line does not make sense.

Feel free to email me should you have any questions or concerns.

Thanks - BN

now that is just plain ludicrous. the only thing "questionable" I see here is the fact that nash went on to sell quite a number of these, despite not ever even having a grasp on how to correctly make or put one together, despite the parts being already pre-made! for shame...