Fender Blacktop Modification

[poorhillbilly]

Hey I'm new to this forum, I have tried other forums and noone seems to care about shortscales as much as here. I bought a Blacktop Jaguar not long ago at giveaway price Aus of $640. I was a bit unsure and had thought i had bought a fake or a Squier, but then realised its part of the Blacktop range. Being new to Fender guitars (I had thought that it could be too good for my ability) I was completely blown away by the quality of it, its top of the line. They use Kluson tuners, alder, maple, Seymour and Duncan style pickups, Gotoh bridge and tailpiece. Its incredible value. Awesome Shape, Awesome Size, Awesome Colour, The whole aspect to it being simplified doesn't affect my judgement of it, because i'm not used to the old jaguar switches (that should be saved for the 'Special's). its just a regular guitar with a pickup selector and tone vol control. And did I mention that i can't keep my eyes off it and can't stop playing it? Its like i'm in a dream world.




I just didn't like the Black skirted Amp knobs, so i took them off and in the process ripped out my tone pot. no biggy. i got mustang knobs for aus$7 (three shades of black including pickguard, knobs and body) Though might get chrome domes unsure for now.

I got a Wilkinson Wigsby for aus$60




And a Wilkinson Locking Rolling Bridge for aus$20




All I have to do is get the local Guitar tech to help me rout a cavity smaller than a tim tam in my guitar and mount the stuff.

I'm already eyeing up some chrome Sperzel 6 inl lockers for aus$50 that i may purchase in the near future.

The HH pickups are some of the best pickups i've ever played.

A friend of mine collects Fenders, owning thousands of aus$ worth of equipment, and he says his favourites are the Mexicans.

As you can see my Guitar has only cost me aus$727 plus tech quotes. So thats $800 saved over buying a Vintage American Reissue. No more to be said than that!! ps. and all that chrome is ****ing madness. like its been assembled piece by piece from Roswell UFO scrap and it could potentially shoot laser beams.

[StevePirates]

Once you have it all together, you'll have to post a photo or twelve. Looks like a great guitar. Not too familiar with Wilkinson, is that an AUS manufacturer? "Wigsby" is a very cute name.

[ekwatts]

Wilkinson parts are named after Trevor Wilkinson, a British guy. It's all made in China as far as I'm aware, but most of it is good stuff. Much of it can be found unbranded for cheaper prices, though. GFS carries some unbranded Wilkinson gear for good prices.

I use a locking roller bridge on my Jaguar too, although it was a CIJ reissue so I had to drill the holes wider. I'm sure somebody else on here tried to retrofit the same bridge on a Mexican CP Jag but it didn't actually fit. So beware.

[ekwatts]

As for the Wigsby, I've no idea whether it's any good or not as I've only seen them on Shine guitars, which tend to be complete garbage.

You'll need to rout the body to accomodate the gribbly bits:

[poorhillbilly]

The guitar should be ready this week. I will post a before and after. I have already lined up the parts. looked damn! good. the curves oh the curves

The Wigsby, its actually smaller in real life, and the two springs are tiny. The thing that was buggin me was te tailpiece on the jaguar, the holes were wider than the Wigsby. I told the tech I couldn't care how it comes out, as long as its on there, he said he would definitly see what he could do to fill these holes lol.

as for the bridge, it need higher bushings. It did come with bushings so I'll see how it turns out. I do trust the tech. hes an authorised Maton Fender Tech known around town >>http://www.dobsonguitars.com.au/

for Wilkinson gear. definitly awesome. It must be all newish. noone knows what it is. great stuff.

http://www.dupreguitars.com/guitars/fuz ... laster.htm

Tom du Pre has used some on his Fuzzblaster I.




but missing the guitar already, its been gone since thursday. love its ring from the bridge. the shape. the size. Its less than a metre in length! glad i'm on the right forum

[Joey]

Welcome

[poorhillbilly]

thankyou!

[dezb1]

is it just me or does that look off?

[ekwatts]

It might be the angle of the camera to the guitar and the angle of the butt of the Jaguar body. But yeah, a bit.

[poorhillbilly]

nice observation there debz1. alba! viva la ecosse! Its tricky the shape of the Jazzmaster in that picture, it has the difference in height at the bottom, curves up, the wigsby being quite long it kinda has to sit on the back perched off a little bit.

when we lined mine up, seemed like we had a bit more space to work with.

here are some pics of of the wigsby on other models

[taylornutt]

is it just me or does that look off?

Where's the input jack?

[poorhillbilly]

fuck knows. it looks like he's relocated the tone know to where the input jack used to be, and shuffled the vol knob down to the tone space, and the got rid of the original vol knob circuitry.

it could be on the side out of view though.

and hes also relocated the strap locks to a bizarre place.

Instant SY goodness for a cheap price - v v nice:

Basswood Body
1 Piece Maple Neck
Rosewood Fretboard 12� Radius
21 Medium Jumbo frets 25.5� NUT: 1-11/16�
3 Switch Bass-Cut, Mid-Cut und Phase-Reverse
3 Switch on/off Humbucker
Volume + Tone
Vintage-Style Hardware
Vintage TremoloAlden/Wilkinson Roller bridge
Black finish

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0266202905

definitly impressed by this, the bridge it looks great

anyone got much to say about sperzel lockers? i like them the best out of a variety of brands.

[hotrodperlmutter]

► Show Spoiler

is it just me or does that look off?

Where's the input jack?

my guess is on the lower bout, a la telemaster.

[cur]

With some paint, that could be a good looking guitar.

Welcome to the board. Off topic, but my 360 gamertag used to be hobo hillbilly until my son jacked my account for his own.

[Ankhanu]

Where's the input jack?

[poorhillbilly]

With some paint, that could be a good looking guitar.

Welcome to the board. Off topic, but my 360 gamertag used to be hobo hillbilly until my son jacked my account for his own.

Thankyou. yeah interesting finish on that one but I think it needs some paint. The blacktop Jaguar is perfect, I could have purchased the blacktop Jazzmaster, but its not as short as the jag, and the blacktop colour options are the black or naturalle finish. i like the black. The problems i have with the jazzes are the knobs are too high up, you want them out of the way so you dont whack your fingers, and i like the chrome covers on the jag. both jazzes had floating tremelo systems but unsure whether wigsby would have covered them.

Tom du pre actually advised not to use the Wilkinson Wigsby or Locking rolling bridge. because it supposedly went out of tune alot and drilling the cavity etc. I went ahead anyway.

as for the name, I wanted something a bit ironic to what I am, and somehow had Kurt Cobain in mind. haha

Before:



After:

► Show Spoiler

As you can see bit of work done. New graph tech nut, thicker strings 10s, Bridge had to be mounted higher, tailpiece removed, holes covered with washers, cavity cut to mount Wigsby, new tone pot, knobs on, could go with the chrome domes still,

$220 quote. so essentially a $927 here guitar!

The Wigsby is a wild thing, you can adjust the tension of the springs without removing it.

One thing i noticed that it weighs considerably heavier than it did before (kgs!) and sounds completely different. more richer tones. sounds amazing actually.

ps. sorry about picture quality, some turned out okay.

[Gabriel]

Looks very cool. Better than I was expecting actually.



P.s. don't go with chrome knobs

[poorhillbilly]

yeah sorry i'll see if i can get some better pictures up later

[serfx]

i dig it.

[robroe]