Alright, here we go...
Off the bat I'll agree that it's an overall design just different enough to be quite unique, and I really hope something like this gets the mass-produced treatment. As hinted, had a great time chatting with singlepup over bowls of pho, and was happy to bring dat Jarman along. True fact, I was born just 5 minutes from the very place in old town San Gabriel...
All in all, mine kinda needs/needed work, though a little heavy manners seemed to knock some loose bits up back into shape. Some comments:
1. Screw-in trembar is a lovely thing, and although I don't mind Jag/Jazz
reverb handles resting just fine on the
input jack output jack and giving it a grab when needed, just enough tension while screwing it in is a nice plus, added to the fact that the handle sits higher (common on normal VM Jazzmasters I've played as well). However, mine came with a tremolo base(socket?) set so far off to the treble side that it scraped and caused the strings to stick. Some heavy wiggling a la Swervedriver took care of things alright after a few minutes of hearty abuse enough to not cause it to stick anymore, and since I've never disassembled a standard Fender-stamped ass'y to see if it's a matter of adjusting, I've just let it be for now and won't bother trying to do anything more. Dust galore, and I angled things just right to line up with the
taegeukki on the ceiling of my old bedroom...with shaft still rubbing slightly against the hole
2. TOM saddles had some lateral play in them and would loudly creak when I bent notes. At first I thought it was the nut (as Pat mentioned it's another shoddy job, to be sure), but then found myself able to move the A and D saddles with my fingers and had to give things a twist. Seem to be fine now, and the TOM with proper radius (YAY +bazillion!) works just as well as the venerable 3TS Jazzmaster with zero string jumping and a world of sustain, even with very light original strings...so much so that I'll likely string it up with 10s and wouldn't dream of a shim or buzzstop at this rate.
3. Neck is absolutely wonderful. A wee bit more front to back than the Jag, also being a slightly rounder C than my CIJ Jazzmasters.
4. Haven't messed about with the actual tones thru a proper amp, but so far with the Roland Cube at the SoCal house it was very well balanced and dare I say "tastefully weak" (especially the humbucker, even as it nearly kissed the strings out of the box), which in my book isn't such a bad thing if the upper end timbre makes up for the lack of oomph and sends you into teh janglezonez, which the out of phase switching is already doing a surprisingly decent job. Still, the TV Jones Magnatron I still have should be a great bridge chimer for what I have in mind, and my brain is telling me that an SD Duckbucker should accordingly be a good compliment in the neck, if I go that way. Will see, it's sitting disassembled on the guestroom bed at the Seoul house now after a ride in my suitcase across the Pacific.
