ShortScale.org

Earth wrote:

Black Cat Bone wrote:
Just a note on an earlier comment: truss rod should, in my experience, be first resort way before shimming, providing that you are confident with adjusting the truss and bridge in tandem to get that certain 'balance'. If that fails hit the shims but generally unless the the neck heel depth is too small, or there's something funky with the neck pocket, or you are just missmatcing a body and neck, a shim is usually avoidable. Not sure if that's just me but experience has told me to work with what is inately a part of the guitar first even if it means a little more fiddling around with stuff.

There is something to be said for sustain from a greater break over nut and bridge and yes a shim can do this however bridge and truss can often, but not always, achieve this when sorted out. The reverse argument made by some is that you gain 'tone' and sustain by ensuring a tight wood-to-wood joint between body and neck. There is a trick where you undo the neck screws by a half turn, tune to pitch, tighten screws and re-tune to pitch. This pulls the neck and body tight together and I must admit I was impressed with the improvement in sustain at least unplugged. I've always been a bit peed off if I need to stick a bit of fag packet in my guitar to make it work properly.

Dots wrote: i disagree completely. i would shim way before i adjusted the truss rod since it's put there for a completely different reason.

I totally agree, adjusting the truss rod is to get the correct curvature of the neck, not to adjust the neck angle, thats for shimming. I see far to many people jump to adjust truss rods when they dont need it. If your neck curvature is fine but your neck angle and action isn't then adjusting the truss rod isn't the answer, adjusting the shim, hence neck angle, and bridge height is!

I've never had to adjust the truss rod on my Jag or mustang, even after putting odd gauge strings on em (from 56 on the top to 2x17's on the bottom). Granted, I did drop the tuning to a lower open tuning and its not EADGBE or lower equivilent but still, I've never had the need to adjust it.




BTW, The reason US jags are shimmed so much, aside froom neck variation, is because of the mute, this requires extra bridge height to fit it in so the neck angle needs adjusting. CIJ Jags are rarely shimmed more than one business card thick as they have no mute.

dots wrote:as for quality in american vs. japanese or other fenders. . . i think it's more complicated than just the name or the origin. it really depends on the model. for the most part, i think japanese instruments are more than decent, they're great, but i tend to have more electronics issues with non-american fenders. this could be totally preferential, but it is my experience that american guitars had better pickups and more solid pots. again, this is just my experience. i can say, however, that if you really have to ask whether veneers, particle board, or other reconstituted wood is on par with a block of real wood, ask yourself this: if a manufacturer is cutting corners in the materials that make up the body, why wouldn't they do it on the wiriing, pickups, and other hardware? "but does it really make a difference?" no. it doesn't. real materials are always inferior to the products people make to emulate them.

As far as CIJ vs US Jaguars and JM's are concerned, out of the box the US made guitar is far better in sound and aethsetics IMO/IME. About the only equality CIJ and US made Jags and JM's share is the neck and body (and tuners as both use Gotoh/AVRI Fender tuners although the older MIJ used chinese Ping tuners), both tend to be flawlessly made and finished. On CIJ Jags the chrome parts are no where near as nice as on the US counterpart. The US chrome is thicker, nicer looking and less significantly its a slightly different shape than the CIJ chrome plates. The pickups aren't as nice although I quite like CIJ jag pickups they don't sound 100% like the US ones. The Pickups claws on CIJ's are different from actual vintage/AVRI claws too.. The CIJ pots are El Cheapo that wont last as long as a better made pot like either Alpha or CTS, and the wire although pretty standards wire, isn't as nice to work with as the US cloth stuff but I highly doubt it effects anything sound wise. US Jags are shielded very well with copper/brass plates where as the CIJ uses paint which IME isn't quite as effective against interference.
The US jags come with nicer pickguards and actual celluloid pickguards at that if its tort. The CIJ knobs are the wrong size for Jags too. Ther CIJ Jags dont countersink the rhythm and hex plate screws and use the incorrect pickups mounting screws which is ugly IMO. As far as the tremolo is concerned there's not a lot of differences between the two aside from the US one looking nicer and having a better finish, it may operate slightly smoother than the CIJ one and the CIJ trem arm is the wrong size and slightly different in shape than the US one but over all they are both much the same IMO as far as useablity is concerned.

So, its just in my opinion and experience, overall in the stock condition the US Jags are much nicer guitars than the CIJ jags. That said, with some mods and a little work the CIJ Jags can be brought up to the US jags standard both in functionality and aesthetically quite easily. But, after the amount of mods required to do so its not much more expensive to just buy a used AV Jag and may be the better option for those less inclined to mod almost every single part of a CIJ Jag.

BTW, there's over 20 differences between US and CIJ made Jags, its all little things, tiny details, but it all adds up to money if you are trying to correct them/upgrade your guitar. I have a CIJ Jag and I love it, but its been US-ified/heavily upgraded.

I wont be buying CIJ Jags or JM's again, with all the mods I do to them its just not worth it to me when I can just get a used AV for a little more. I'd happily buy CIJ Mustangs and Teles though, no problem....there's less to mod on them to US-ify/upgrade them. On some CIJ Teles and Strats they already come with US Fender pickups installed so this is a bonus IMO, it makes me wonder why the Jags and JM's never had the US made pickups.....



All IMO/IME of course.

• Fender markets the American Vintage Jaguar as being manufactured through,
  
  "careful selection of materials and strict adherence to the original methods of fabrication".
  
  However, these differences have been identified:
• Body base coat. Frank Gambino has written in to tell us:
  
  "the USA Fender reissues have a urethane base coat. However, the color coat is nitro. I am certain because I have stripped one of these guitars(2003) with acetone, and tested two others(2004-2005) in small areas under the pick guard. The top coat and color coat remove very easily, as you would expect with nitro. The base coat, however, must be sanded off (i.e. acetone does not affect the base coat). I know this is true for ice blue metallic and ocean turquoise anyway"
  
  The neck is nitro though.
• Decal. The reissue decal is also gold. But the vintage '62 gold part of the decal had a speckled, raised, glitter-like appearance. The US reissue has the uniform non-raised gold logo. The lettering for the des. and pat. numbers is also smaller on the reissue.
• Machine heads. Official Kluson machine heads are different in appearance now to what they were in the 60's. Fender use the most faithful replicas of the old style tuners, which happen to be the Gotoh ones. Consequently, they do not bear the brand name "Kluson Deluxe" on the back of the gear housing.
• Neck plate/other plates. The neck plate is too thin. The vintage 60's metal plates have a rough appearance round the edge, as if they have been cut without the edge actually being polished as the US reissue plates have been.
• Switches. The main switch on the upper horn control plate on vintage Jaguars was different to the switches on the diamond shaped control plate. This is not the case on the reissue, on which all the switches are the same.
• Pickups. The reissue pickup pole pieces are beveled. Vintage pole pieces were completely flat. The reissue bridge pickup also has raised pole pieces. The shielding claws seem to have the short fingers at the treble side on every AV jaguar that I've seen.
• Pots. Reissue has CTS pots (which are fairish replicas of the ones on '64 or '65 Jaguars and onwards). 1962 Jaguar had Stackpole pots, which are different in appearance.
• Knobs. The set screw which holds the knob in place has a flathead fitting on the Vintage Jaguars. But it is an allen key fitting on the Reissue.
• Mute. As with the other plates, the metal has a rough edge on the vintage mute. It also looks less well shaped than the reissue.
• Bridge/saddles. Vintage bridge has longer posts, which means the height adjustment screws do not need to be extended out of the bottom of the posts very far. The bridge height adjustment screws are either nickel plated or stainless steel. On the the reissue those same screws are just plain steel painted black. On all the US reissue bridges, the saddles are nearly the same size thread (only a slight difference between the 11 thread treble saddles and 9 thread bass saddles). On the '62 Jaguars the barrel threads often varied in 3 sizes sometimes. The posts of the vintage bridge have welds over the rivets where they are affixed to the rest of the assey, the Reissue doesn't.
• Tremolo arm. The reissue tremolo arm is a slightly different shape/length. Also, The way the reissue trem arm goes in the collet is a bit of a redesign from the vintage trem arms, which were wedged into the collet and stayed in the same place. The reissue arm has a small lip round the bottom with which it suddenly clips in and doesn't come out, unless some force is used. Secondly, when clipped in it swings freely, effectively like a stratocaster trem arm. This is probably what it is supposed to do. But if you wanted to make the reissue more like the vintage trem arm setup, you could visit:
  
  http://home.comcast.net/~rmessick2/Home.htm
• 12th fret dot position. Dots on the Reissue are closer together than the '62 Jaguar.

dots wrote:it's something i wanted to do once the board was upgraded because there are more options with how announcements and stickies work that way.

Fender Jaguar, The differences between US American Vintage Re-Issue and Crafted In Japan:


3 control plates: US, highly polished chrome plated steel with counter sunk screw holes.
CIJ, duller looking stainless steel non-counter sunk screw holes. Slightly different shapes than the US counterparts.

.
Pickguards: US, authentic celluloid.
CIJ, vinyl / plastic. Stick on shielding. Different screw locations, also slightly different shape than the US pickguards,
no cut away for truss rod adjustment.

Plastics: US, aged white.
CIJ, snow white.(actually more vintage correct than US plastics) Pickup covers are a little thinner than the US ones.

Tremolos: US, highly polished chrome.
CIJ,stainless steel,duller than US,bigger hole for collet, different collet, different shaped trem arm, trem arm does not lock into collet,
different string spacing on the knife plate, spring is different, "Trem-Loc" button is different shape, "Fender" logo isn't stamped as deep
as the US ones and the font may very slightly The overall tremolo has a different feel to it.

Necks: US, side markers half on the rosewood half on the maple
CIJ, side markers on the maple.
CIJ, dots further apart on 12 fret.
Decal is different, CIJ has no patend numbers.
CIJ, has serial number on neck.
US, has serial number stamped on the chrome neck plate.

Neck plate:CIJ thinner than the US ones.

Bodies:US, it has been noted by some that the edge is slightly rounder than some CIJ edges.
Other wise they are identical except for some Japan models where the tremolo routing is slightly smaller and will not accommodate
a US tremolo without modification..
CIJ uses alder on transparent and solid colors like the US but MIJ solid colors are basswood and transparent colors are
alder.

Tuners: US and CIJ but not MIJ are both Gotoh/Fender AV tuners, made in Japan. MIJ use Ping tuners, made in China.

Bridge:US, saddle thread like grooves are bigger than CIJ saddles, overall they are very similar in appearance and operation.

Screws:US nickel screws,all countersunk.
CIJ bigger screw heads not countersunk, stainless steel.
Pickup screw heads on US pickups look the same as the pickguard screws, on CIJ's they have a smaller head.
CIJ tremolo screws are smaller than US tremolo screws.

DPDT Switches (x4): US, switchcraft.
CIJ, unknown brand.

Rhythm circuit bracket: A different metal than CIJ, unsure what exactly.

Potentiometers:US, CTS 1MA (x3, one of which is a mini 1MA) plus one 50kA mini pot for rhythm circuit.All four are solid shaft.
CIJ mini 1MA (x3,plus 1mini) plus one 50kA of an unknown brand. Split shaft, rhythm circuit pots are solid shaft.

Knobs:US, heavy duty plastic of some sort, I dont know which. set screw flat head or allen key.
CIJ smaller Mustang sized push on knobs of a very light weight plastic.

Roller knobs:US,light weight aluminum.
CIJ heavy steel.

Wire: US traditional cloth covered.
CIJ modern plastic covered.

Shielding:US brass or copper shielding plates in all routes.Plus aluminum pickguard shield.
CIJ, black conductive shielding paint in all routes.( some believe it to be somewhat less effective) It has been reported, and I have seen a couple of examples personally, that some older MIJ Jaguars had almost vintage correct copper/brass shielding plates.

Pickups:US, true to the originals. Cloth covered leads.
CIJ, nice pickups but somewhat thinner and slightly brighter than the US ones. Plastic covered leads.

Pickup claws: US, true to originals.
CIJ, shinier,has a nicer finsh than the US ones but the "teeth" are a slightly different shape.often orientated the
wrong way with the shorter "teeth" on the treble side.

Finish:US Bodies, poly with a coat of nitrocellulose lacquer over top. Color or clear? I have no idea, I just know its got poly
underneath somewhere and nitro over top.
CIJ Bodies and necks, poly.
US necks, nitrocellulose.

Capacitors,US unsure but originals where ceramic disk caps, 10nF on the lead and rhythm tone conrols.
CIJ, unsure, 10nF. Bass cut switch uses 3.3nF.

Resistor:US 56k 1/4 watt, unsure if its carbon composition but the originals were.
CIJ 56k 1/4 watt carbon film.

dots wrote: clearly, if setting up a jag with stock hardware was impossible, there wouldn't even be a discussion. okay, it's harder. quit acting like it's impossible or torturous. there's just work involved, and die-hards are gonna say the work arounds are unnecessary and indicative of laziness and/or inexperience. since they've owned the guitar longer and have setup their guitars properly without all the do-dads, they're entitled.

Earth wrote: !

There's nothing defective with these guitars.

Earth wrote:The tremolo "flops around" does it?