ShortScale.org

So, I bought that black-tort Squier CV Jag about a year ago, and then, after having finally cobbled together a black-tort Jazzmaster (my fiirst love that I was trying to cop with the Jag), the Jag has sat around being mostly underloved.

Then I kept seeing the surf green Vintage Modified Jags on Youtube, and realised I fucking loved the vibe; a lil' more blue than I thought surf green normally was, so I manage to track down and Spangle one for a song on eBay; missing trem arm, small ding on the bottom bout, looked to be pretty much unplayed.

It arrived yesterday, still with the plastic on the guard (somehow still yellowed), the crummy stock bridge and nut cut by a blindfolded knife-thrower:







Post-lemon oil fretboard, non-oiled wood behind the nut; poor thing was GASPING


The body hadn't actually discoloured at all, I guess they've always been this colour but I'd just never seen one in the flesh before.


One of two spare trem arms I had left over from Staytrem arm-and-collet-ing my JM and CV Jag, a spare 9.5" bridge, a fresh white guard and a thorough setup later and we're laughing all the way to the pleasingly pastel-coloured bank.

For all intents and purposes, it plays, sounds and feels much like the CV (same weight, neck profile, same overwound bridge pup and all). However, just being a complete sucker for the 'improved' aesthetics of something is always somehow, stupidly, gonna inspire you more. I was having a jolly good twang this evening, and found myself really enjoying the extra controls the Jag has over the JM.

[youtube][/youtube]
(my timing is trash here for some reason?? Long day.)

I'd found a set of CV Jag pickups I original got to sub-in the bridge unit for a neck unit on the CV (as I did on my JM, a more vintagey pairing), but having the different vibes here is more appealing now. Lucky, it's a very easy change on a Jag, so I might have a bash at some point later. I've already sanded off the 'Seymour Duncan' naming off them as it was just ruining everything.

Hooray, colours!


(nb: will likely be selling off the CV, so get your dibs in now if you're interested)

What do you want to ship the blue one here

I don’t have a blue Jag, you dingus

Very nice Jag! You made the right choice!

How much do you want for the red Jag, Doug?

Send here the left handed Doog from the video, I'll start the Beatles cover band. Wrap him in cellophane and put in a double box, I don't want him to be damaged in shipping.

Nice jag, loving the colour

BearBoy wrote:How much do you want for the red Jag, Doug?

about a tree fiddy

Stick me down for at least several.

At one point Surf Green(Seafoam Green in the case of Squire) guitars became so abundant that it lost almost all its appeal to me, but now some years later I really like how these VM Jags look

What do you want to ship the toastie machine here.

Looks nice. The stock nuts on these are terrible. It’s like they’re made outta play dough or rubber.

Very cool snag. I often find my finger over the “buy it!!!� Button, pretty much fur the same reason. That lovely colour!!!

You could do far worse, I love it! I can see why people don't bond with these with the factory "set-up"; it played like shit initially. Now with everything adjusted properly, it plays fantastically well, proper effortless, same deal with the CV.

Noirie. wrote:Looks nice. The stock nuts on these are terrible. It’s like they’re made outta play dough or rubber.

Don't know what you're talking about, mate; I couldn't even put the slightest dent in it with my thumbnail on either this (2012) or my 2017 JM.

I've also never have any nut issues (on my Squier VM Jaguar)

Unless we're supposed to be worrying about the aesthetics of the nut. In which case,

what

How does the necks compare profile wise? As I understand it the CV one is thinner and more of a D shape, while the the VM is thicker and a C

They're honestly VERY similar; the CV feels slightly deeper but has a slightly thinner nut width:





Measuring the neck depth/profile/whatever this way isn't at all accurate, since the string height set by the nut would be having an effect but I guess I've got them cut about the same?

That's interesting. Bound necks are usually wider on other guitars to accommodate the binding, and it's also the thicker one.

Do you use any special tools to file your nut slots?

Nah, just the most suitable file I already had (a kinda 'rounded V' thing) and some careful slowness. I might one day get a set of nut files, but I do this so rarely, it hardly seems worth it.

The CV is supposedly based on the '70s Jag, but I've no idea if that'd really extend to something like the neck dimensions on a Squier model; they REALLY do feel very similar, to the extent that perhaps a slightly thicker finish on the CV could be making the difference here.

Yeah, modern poly finish on guitars can be surprisingly thick. Sometimes when it's chipped you can see there's no less than 1 mm of it there. It can probably vary in thickness even on the same factory.

I also use an ordinary file and my job is usually sloppy as hell. I don't remember the last time I did it, so don't need a dedicated tool either.