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A friend of mine is modding a cheapo Strat copy at the moment. He told me about it today and we ended up talking about some mods we could potentially do to my Jagmaster if his Strat modding goes well. It won't be until I've bought myself a tube amp, but I'd like to know where I need to get the parts from and how much it's likely to cost.

The main thing I'd like to do is to put a killswitch in there. I'd like it to be just another toggle next to the pickup toggle, and preferably for them both to look the same. So would I have to buy two new toggles and replace the old one, or is it possible to buy toggles the same as the one currently on there? Also, how easy/difficult would the electronics for this be? We figured it would be pretty simple because all the switch has to do is connect and disconnect the circuit.

A second mod we're considering is to disconnect the tone knob, because I never use it. Am I right in thinking this will make the guitar louder because sound will only be going through the volume pot, rather than the volume and tone pots?

So yeah, where in the UK can I buy this stuff from and how much is it likely to cost?

(I think this belongs in the Projects Forum???)

Personally, I think your best option would be to turn that tone knob into another volume knob, so that you'd have a volume for each pickup, and a three way selector. As well as giving you access to all sorts of sounds available by mixing pickups at different volumes, you'd also be able to use the three way selector as a killswitch by turning the volume on one pickup completely down.

This is the way I have my Jagmaster wired and I love it. Best of all, you don't need to buy parts, just wire the ones you have up differently (although some people here might have advice about what pots you really ought to use in this setup. I used the stock ones, I think).

Here is an excellent page for all sorts of wiring diagrams:

http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/

And here is the one you want:

http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wi ... c=2h_2v_3w

Yeah, didn't think of the projects forum... I'm an idiot sometimes. Can someone maybe move it?

And yes, that does seem like a much more sensible way of doing it. Thanks for the links!

You know what you're doing, then?

It might be an idea to go out and buy some wire or something, so that you can do a neater job on it. From what I remember, mine is in terrible condition under the plate. I think I didn't have enough wire, so I ended up stripping a shielded wire and using the shielding from that as well as the core.

It works and all, but it's probably not the ideal way to do things.

Yeah I'll try and do a neater job than that seen as this is my main guitar. I wouldn't say I knew what I was doing, but this mate of mine knows enough about electronics to do something like that. This Strat of his seems to be going pretty well. I'm gonna get him to help with this project because I want it to go well, but I'm not gonna leave it entirely up to him because I want to learn to do it myself, so I can mod guitars on my own in the future.

BacchusPaul wrote:(I think this belongs in the Projects Forum???)

Personally, I think your best option would be to turn that tone knob into another volume knob, so that you'd have a volume for each pickup, and a three way selector. As well as giving you access to all sorts of sounds available by mixing pickups at different volumes, you'd also be able to use the three way selector as a killswitch by turning the volume on one pickup completely down.

This is the way I have my Jagmaster wired and I love it. Best of all, you don't need to buy parts, just wire the ones you have up differently (although some people here might have advice about what pots you really ought to use in this setup. I used the stock ones, I think).

So basically your are wiring your Jagmaster like a Squier Supersonic? Does removing the tone pot the equivalent of turning the tone pot to 10?

What kind of Jagmaster do you have?

taylornutt wrote: Does removing the tone pot the equivalent of turning the tone pot to 10?

Aye.

Mine is one of the Chinese first run Jagmasters, the 25.5" ones that everyone hates. I love it though. It's one of my favourite guitars.

No tone pot is like having tone up full always.

Freddy: If I were you, I'd get stuck in myself. Pots are cheap and fairly indestructible. Pickups less so, but you're unlikely to damage them unless you go poking the sides of them with a screwdriver or soldering iron or something. Besides, this mod just involves a bit of rewiring, so there's no need to touch anything or take it off the plate. You'd just turn it upside down and get to work.

Also: having a friend who is handy at this stuff is a bonus, but it's nearly an insurance policy too. I have a friend who is a very good luthier, which is handy, and always gave me the confidence to do my own work. I knew that if I made a mess of something, he could fix it for me (at a fee, of course, but not at normal shop fees).

BacchusPaul wrote:Mine is one of the Chinese first run Jagmasters, the 25.5" ones that everyone hates. I love it though. It's one of my favourite guitars.

+1. My Candy Apple Red Jagmaster is a 25.5" Chinese model from 2002. My first guitar project and it's also one of my favorites. The Lindy Fralin Texas Special Jazzmaster pickups are awesome and kinda goes well with the longer scale. Poor Mans Jazzmaster

godamn i love that jagmaster. its just so b'dass.

robert(original) wrote:godamn i love that jagmaster. its just so b'dass.

Thanks, Robert. Got the body and neck off eBay. The pickguard was a custom built one by pickguardian.com and I left the original 500k pots in. I also installed Gotoh locking tuners and put 4 springs in to lock down the tremolo. I need to file down one fret and the switch is noisy when I touch it. Anyone know what kind of file I would use on the fret end?

I plan to demo all my guitars on YouTube soon. I have a slideshow movie about the build, but I need to do a sound demo.


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ok, you need to fret level?
here is your trick.
take off all the strings.
lax the neck so that it is straight.
paint the frets with a sharpie(it doesn't matter what color, don't ask me!)
get a file that is more than 3 inches long(its not hard)
proceede to file the frets flat,BUT, be sure that your pressure is even along the frets.
onces you have removed all of the sharpie marks you must then get some 600-1000 grit paper and sand that shit smooth, you don't need a proper crowning tool, just some time and fine grit paper.
once you have completed that, clean, and tape off the fretboard, and use 2000 paper to truly polish the frets.
once again, pay attention to your pressure.
essentially you will have a better stock setup and an amatuer fret level and polish. all problems will be nixed. just ask a few other members.
i think i have done about 3 "how to" threads on this so far.

BacchusPaul wrote:Mine is one of the Chinese first run Jagmasters, the 25.5" ones that everyone hates. I love it though. It's one of my favourite guitars.

No tone pot is like having tone up full always.

Freddy: If I were you, I'd get stuck in myself. Pots are cheap and fairly indestructible. Pickups less so, but you're unlikely to damage them unless you go poking the sides of them with a screwdriver or soldering iron or something. Besides, this mod just involves a bit of rewiring, so there's no need to touch anything or take it off the plate. You'd just turn it upside down and get to work.

Also: having a friend who is handy at this stuff is a bonus, but it's nearly an insurance policy too. I have a friend who is a very good luthier, which is handy, and always gave me the confidence to do my own work. I knew that if I made a mess of something, he could fix it for me (at a fee, of course, but not at normal shop fees).

So you think I could basically borrow a soldering iron and just get on with it? It would be a lot more satisfying to do it myself, I'm just nervous...

Yeah, definitely. In fact, I'd buy an iron if I were you. It's something you're going to use if you play guitar. There's plenty of videos on Youtube teaching you how to solder. If you need help with wiring diagrams or anything ask on here and someone will put you right.

I've got a soldering iron I can borrow for this, but if it goes well I'll definitely be buying one. One thing I did wonder about this diagram you posted before, was will it definitely make a seperate volume for each pickup, not just two master volumes?

EDIT: And I'm guessing this is how the guitar is currently wired? I'm planning on printing both out to make it easier to see what needs to be moved where.

Yup, that's the diagram you want and that other one is how it's currently wired. Printing them both out is a good idea. Take the time to have a good look at the way your guitar is wired, see what everything is and where it has to go, and then get cracking. As long as you take your time and check everything twice you can't really go wrong, and if you do you can always undo what you've done.

Hey this sounds like a great project.

A few questions for Paul:

It sounds like you use your existing 3-way?

Do you just do all your tone adjustments with the amp or a pedal?

I assume this will work for my 97 Jagmaster. I don't plan to change the pickups but the tone control seems pretty useless and might be a good thing to change without altering the appearance of the guitar.

Thanks,

Duane

To be honest, I only really use the Jagmaster for balls out rock, so I always have heavy overdrive on the amp, and there's really only one tone I'll be going for. I might use a clean tone too, but I'll switch to that at the amp. Everything else I do with volume controls and my hands.

I suppose if you really wanted to, you could wire up two concentric pots (two pots stacked one on top of the other, so that it only takes up the space of one). You could then have tone and volume for each pickup, but this would be a bit more involved as a mod. Bear in mind that when I modded my guitar I was drunk and at a rehearsal/jam with a couple of other metal guitarists, so simplicity was really what I was going for.

Cool, thanks. I don't find the tone control too useful so this may be the way to go.

D

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This is the BEFORE video. I know I keep referring to the neck pickup as the bridge pickup, it is because I am STOOPID.