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In between waiting for paint to arrive for George's Bratocaster project I started a little project of my own.

It's gonna be a Swinger with a mid-mounted 1970s DiMarzio humbucker.

Jimmy Page can be seen playing a modified Swinger (with a humbucker in the middle position) on the front of a Led Zeppelin live 8-track

I've got a Jagmaster neck, I'm planning on hacking the headstock to suit.
I think it's a little bit too small, what do you think?
Almost right...?

It does look a bit small. The big Fender headstock looks so good that personally I'd leave it the original shape. You are not going for a reproduction. My .02pf.

do it.

do it, i think itll look and sound great when your done, the body is already lookin good

it looks good.

I always though the starcaster headstock would look cool on a swinger.

Do it! Swinger ain't a Swinger without a pointy headstock.
The original "Starcaster by Fender" Strat headstock was pointy, I wish I'd picked one up.

Also - has anyone actually got a picture of this legendary Zeppelin 8-track?

Get another neck to chop up?

Cut it, glue another piece of maple on it, and cut it again. Voila. It sounds iffy, but necks use glue.

DGNR8 wrote:Cut it, glue another piece of maple on it, and cut it again. Voila. It sounds iffy, but necks use glue.

I thought about doing that, but I don't actually have any suitable maple knocking around.
The headstock is pretty wide, so I don't think it's too far off being right anyway.
Maybe someone with a real Swinger could take a couple of pics and measurements?

String through holes drilled and a little paint shot.



BTW, it's NOT BLOODY ORANGE!
Fucking flash!

Is that the same as paint as the Brat? If so, fucking stoked about it. It looks great with the orangey hue but the more shots I see of it the more confused I get by it. Grass is greener?

George wrote:Is that the same as paint as the Brat? If so, fucking stoked about it. It looks great with the orangey hue but the more shots I see of it the more confused I get by it. Grass is greener?

Yeah, same paint.
I'm struggling to get a decent likeness in any pics.

For other readers, here are some other pics to show how the different colours this paint shows up....







Seems to go from a pink hue, to orange, to flat our rich red. MAGIC PAINT!

AddamInsane wrote:

DGNR8 wrote:Cut it, glue another piece of maple on it, and cut it again. Voila. It sounds iffy, but necks use glue.

I thought about doing that, but I don't actually have any suitable maple knocking around.
The headstock is pretty wide, so I don't think it's too far off being right anyway.
Maybe someone with a real Swinger could take a couple of pics and measurements?

I thought cooterfinger did templates from my tracings? Sorry I didn't see this last night.


[edit] Only the body template is posted. Given the original was cut down from, what, Musicmaster? 22.75" necks I don't think extra wood should be needed.

Big pics, so no img tags
http://bestnetworx.com/uploader/files/371/IMG_3777.JPG
http://bestnetworx.com/uploader/files/371/IMG_3775.JPG

Actually, Nicks tracing didn't line up well with the mini strat headstock so I had to scale this pic
to fit.

I've never seen one of these. That's really cool. Good luck on your endeavor. What pickups go in those?

A real swinger would have a musicmaster (mustang, duosonic bronco too)
Mine will get a strat pickup in the neck and an old dimarzio in the middle

AddamInsane wrote:A real swinger would have a musicmaster (mustang, duosonic bronco too)
Mine will get a strat pickup in the neck and an old dimarzio in the middle

Humbucker? I think it'd look ridiculously cool with a cream superdistortion.

Humbucker, yes,
Cream, yes (well discoloured to brown now)
But not Superdistortion.
It's got a DCR of 8.11k and was already fitted to my Bronco when it's previous owner bought it in 1978.
I made a new pickguard for the Bronco to put it back to stock.