ShortScale.org

My Sunburst Blacktop Jazzmaster arrived today.
It plays GREAT. I dig the neck. It's big and chunky. Big frets.





Tuners feel solid. Trem is smooth.
I really like the sound of the bridge humbucker! This surprised me.
That said, I ordered a Duncan P-Rails 1 and Triple Shot pickup ring to put in there
The humbucker and ring to NOT attach to the pickguard. They are screwed right into the wood of the body.






The neck Jazzmaster pickup is NOT great. I have an AVRI pickup I might put in tonight.
The previous owner monkeyed with the electronics a bit, which may be playing into the not great sound of the JM pickup.
There are 2 knobs on the guitar, and they are BOTH for Tone. 1 for each pickup.
That's right....NO volume control. WTF?
So I'm going to right that wrong immediately. Plug it back in to see how it sounds before I start swapping pups.

The knob in the "volume" position is a double-stacked pot. One of the pots is 1M-ohm (the one closest to the knob).
the other half of the pot does not register on my meter. There are 2 caps on this control, one on each half.
I don't have a clue what the guy was trying to do with this setup but it's gotta go.

The proper tone control is a 250M-ohm pot and has an Orange Drop cap on it. This is currently wired to the bridge pickup.






The bridge is interesting. It is single-slotted like the Mustang saddles, but has height adjustment screws.
It sits in the mounting bosses and rocks just a touch.

I contacted the previous owner and he confirmed that is indeed a TBX tone control the installed for the JM neck pickup.

I really like the way the BT looks with white pickup covers rather than black. Looks good

Finally got my BT Jazzmaster modded up last night with my new Seymour Duncan P-Rails and Triple Shot ring and also an AVRI Jazzmaster neck pickup. I mounted it upside down on purpose so the switches would be out of my way when playing. The P-Rails sounds GREAT. I love all the variety I've got with this guitar now. The single-coil rail mode along with the JM neck pickup sounds fantastic.

I had to open it back up and reverse the wiring of the neck pickup so it didn't sound out of phase with the bridge pickup when in the middle switch position.

I also installed a classic Fender "F" neck plate completely for vanity's sake.

Looks cool.

Gorgeous, sir, and GREAT to hear re: the P-Rails/Triple Shot setup. After reading this thread a few weeks back I copy-catted you and ordered the same setup to replace the stock bridge pickup. It's getting setup with those and other mods over the weekend, super-stoked! Thank you for the idea, I'd never heard of the P-Rails otherwise.

Thanks!

I'm really digging this guitar. I haven't played any of my others since this one arrived.

stilwel wrote:

Nice collection you have there... you should make demo video of the JM