ShortScale.org

Hey guys

My name's Tone; longtime lurker, first tme poster.

I've been playing my custom Jagstang for a while now; an alpine white body with a custom red tort guard, loaded with Seymours, the phase switches removed and oldschool white top hat dials. Threw in an extra string tree and straplocks and she was close to perfect for my live sound.

Anyway as our tunes have evolved, so has my sound and my taste in guitars. I'll always have a soft spot for my Jagstangs, and i play nothing but shortscales except for my DG335, but it's time to finally marry the fav aspects of other beasts to create my ultimate rig.

So this is the plan;

- Fender Mascis purple sparkle body
- Jagstang neck
- remove 'boost' switch from rhtyhm circuit
- keep volume dials from rhythm circuit to act as permanent volume dials
- rewire original tone/master knobs to act as Individual tone knobs for neck/bridge
- swap out yuckie p90's for warm humbuckers

So essentially the wiring config will be standard Gibson LP, albeit vol and tone sets are grouped together.

Now to the questions:

- how much work will the neck joint need to sit nicely in the pocket of the Mascis, or vice versa?
- is there a colour code for that purple sparkle ?
- what recommendations do you guys have in terms of a humbucker to fit the p90 cavities, playing mainly loud dirty distortion (melvins, nirvana, jesus lizard etc)
- who can you recommend to build an anodized gold pickguard without the rhythm circuit switch cavity?

Congrats if youve read this far. Thanks for any help inadvance, and i'll post pics up of my Jagstangs as soon as i take some pics.

Cheers
Tone

Scale of the Jagstang neck will not work with the Jazzmaster body. You'd have to relocate the bridge.

Damn i was hoping that would not be the case.

But where there's a will there's a way!!

Might have to find a luthier that can work some magic on the Mascis neck- though it won't be a shortscale i'm hoping to plane down to that perfect thin feel of the Jagstang neck; the OG neck of the Mascis feels like a baseball bat! I could handle the standard scale and i dont mind the jumbo frets; if only i could find a super thin neck a la my jagstang to replace her with. Any suggestions of a regular scale neck that will feel Jagstang-ish without the need for bridge surgery?

Thsnks for your help mate, appreciated.

I thought the new Jagmasters were conversion necks?

Still not gonna be the same as the Jag-Stang neck this guy wants.

But for real dude, I would just get a warmoth Jag body routed for two buckers, have it sprayed purple sparkle by a car shop, then put the Jag-Stang neck on it. Done.

Damn, read it wrong, then. My bad.

nick thats almost too simple!! cheers.

i dig the body contour of the jazzmaster, the neck of the jagstang, and the warmoth routing option seems perfect

throw on some mini grovers, lose the trem, a set of SD custom customs, a TOM bridge, JUMBO FRETS, maybe even a string through body setup and BAM,,

the only tricky bit will be finding a gold anodized scratchie custom made without the switchholes, and sourcing those volume dials i love on the mascis...

couple of Q's:

1. has anyone A-B'd the original Jagstang neck with a warmoth? i am in love with the stock jagstang neck and would hate the warmoth neck to be even slightly different than the OG fender neck

2. would i need to theoretically inform warmoth that i plan on fitting a shortscale neck so that they drill for correct bridge pole placement?

3. which would i need to order as a madified piece? the jazz body or the jagstang neck- in order to sit flush.

4. does anyone have a colour code for the Mascis Purple sparkle Fender uses?

thanks for the great info guys

1. has anyone A-B'd the original Jagstang neck with a warmoth? i am in love with the stock jagstang neck and would hate the warmoth neck to be even slightly different than the OG fender neck

I haven't A/B'd them but can say for sure that they don't feel the same at all.
I don't think that Warmoth actually even make Stang necks, just a general 24" "Mustang/Jaguar" one (though real Jag and Stang necks are very different) with different profiles and fingerboard specs available. And they don't offer the old-school 50s/60s/70s Fenders' 7.25" radius on 24" necks, which is pretty huge in terms of altering the feel/playability of a neck to most players.
The JS neck is either a copy of an A-width '60s Mustang neck converted to metric, or a Japan-only A-width Mustang RI neck that they figured would be close enough to Cobain's copied '60s neck used on the JS prototypes. It has vintage fingerboard radius and a very miniscule-yet-rounded (i.e. scaled down overall but not as slim as possible) profile with a very narrow nut. It's way too specific a neck to expect a Warmoth 24" 10-16" compound radius "Mustang/Jaguar" neck to be identical to, or even ballpark similar IMO. I bet it feels more like a modern Strat neck than the JS one, regardless of scale.

You could probably source an OG JS neck for cheaper than a Warmoth comission with the full finish/fret/fingerboard options you want.
Failing that you could get an AllParts Jaguar neck, which is pretty similar to the MIJ '62 Jaguars and also a very nice profile for small hands though not the same as the JS (wider at nut, bit slimmer in the middle of the back of the profile, etc...).