A Jazzmaster inspired by the ULTRA Series

[Verne Bunsen]

Success!! This thing was a beast, I don't ever want to take the pickguard off ever again, haha! Even with as much time and care as I put in to it, it still resembles a bowl of spaghetti. Alas!

I used heat shrink on every terminal of that 4PDT slider, because I just can't imagine it not having shorts if I didn't. I didn't want to go too long because I wanted to maintain as low a profile as possible to minimize headaches when it came time to stuff the guts back in to the body.

Here is the whole upper circuit. That's a lot of wires...

Even though I had taken measurements and was pretty confident that it would all fit, relief washed over me in an awesome wave when it actually did.

It is back together with the donor neck for now and everything functions just as intended. Woohoo! I really like the new configuration, it is so much more intuitive and useable. Totally worth the effort that went in to figuring out how to make it work, sourcing the correct components and wiring up the new monster harness. To recap, the S1 switch in the lower tone pot reverses the phase of the bridge pickup. "UP" is normal, "DOWN" is reverse. With the upper slider "DOWN", the 250k lower volume and tone pots are active and the toggle functions normally. With the slider "UP", the pickups are linked in series and the upper 1Meg volume and 500k tone pots are active. The pickup selector does not function. For a guy who is used to a traditional Jazzmaster control scheme, it is very intuitive. The slider activates a different sound and switches control to the upper circuit. While I just played with it enough to make sure everything was functioning properly, I have to say I am pretty smitten with the pickups in series, out-of-phase, with the tone rolled off a bit. It's pretty tasty...

 

[stratamania]

Good progress...

Just to clarify, when the upper controls are active for series/out of phase I assume the S1 switch is still in the circuit for out of phase and would be whether the lower or upper controls are active?

 

[Verne Bunsen]

Good progress...

Just to clarify, when the upper controls are active for series/out of phase I assume the S1 switch is still in the circuit for out of phase and would be whether the lower or upper controls are active?

That’s correct: the out-of-phase function on the S1 and the series/parallel function on the slider are fully independent. The leads from the bridge pickup go directly to the S1 switch where the phase is set and the outputs of the S1 switch then go to the slider switch. With the slider “DOWN”, pressing the S1 will switch between in-phase and out-of-phase in the middle toggle position. With the slider “UP”, it is automatically both pickups in series and pressing the S1 will switch between in-phase and out-of-phase while in series. I hope that answers what you were asking!

 

[stratamania]

Yes thanks VB that was what I was wondering.

 

[Logrinn]

Very cool Verne!
Looks great. Very tidy wiring. Bravo!
Sounds like a very smart wiring scheme.

 

[rgand]

That's very usable wiring. I like it a lot. Good job, there.

 

[Rick]

Looking good.

 

[Verne Bunsen]

Thanks guys. Re-doing that wiring is a thing that I have been both looking forward to and dreading. I am very happy with the results and very happy to have it done!

 

[BigSteve22]

Nice progress Vern! Looking good.  :icon_thumright:

 

[Verne Bunsen]

Thanks BigSteve!

 

[Verne Bunsen]

Well, this thread hasn't had an update in quite a while. Things are happening! As discussed in this thread:

https://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=33099.0

The "proper" neck for this guitar is in! This picture is borrowed from that thread:

The neck has tuners installed and the frets have been addressed. I haven't got it installed yet, but I pulled the old neck today in preparation. While the neck was off, I tended to the last lingering body chore: strap button installation. I wasn't sure if I should go chrome or black. I asked dad and he said, obviously I should put chrome on the upper horn and black on the rear. Obviously!

I hope to have time tomorrow to get it installed, cut the nut and get her all dialed. More as it develops  :icon_thumright:

 

[Verne Bunsen]

The FOREVER neck is installed and it is a thing of beauty!

I absolutely love this neck. It feels great, the Birdseye is just gorgeous, and it nails the aesthetic I was after with this guitar. This is my favorite guitar now. It's fun to look at and holy moly is it fun to play. Tuners are Gotoh lockers, and she is strung up with Thomastik-Infeld Power Bright 10-50s. I had to install a string tree because the B and high E were buzzing behind the nut and I couldn't get it stopped. I didn't want to take the nut slots any deeper in the process of trying to clean them up, so I dug a Mastery string tree out of my treasure bin. I think it looks pretty good myself. I initially installed the neck with a .25 degree shim and everything set up beautifully, but the tone was thin and strings rang horrendously behind the bridge. Yes, it is a Jazzmaster and some of that is part of the charm, but enough is too much. She needed some more break angle and now she has it and those issues are resolved. Of course, after raising the string height I no longer had enough padding under the pickups to get them back up to the proper level so I had to pull the neck (rather than cutting off a brand new set of TIs...), pull the pickups, bolster them up, put everything back together, etc etc. But after all that, man she cooks. I'll get some sound clips posted soon.

 

[Verne Bunsen]

I have finally managed to lay down some sound clips of this guitar. It has an S1 switch in the Tone pot that changes the phase relationship of the pickups (in-phase / out-of-phase), and the upper slider combines the pickups in series. So a total of 6 pickup options:

Bridge
Neck
Both - Parallel - In Phase
Both - Parallel - Out of Phase
Both - Series - In Phase
Both - Series - Out of Phase

So, there are 12 clips here, a clean and a dirty for each.

Thanks for listening, enjoy!

[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/vb-tunes/sets/candy-turquoise-jazzmaster[/soundcloud]

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

Would love to see the bridge offering for this to include a recessed tunomatic bridge with the traditional Jazzmaster tremolo tailpiece.  This would allow one to use a tunomatic bridge with roller saddles.  Combined with opting for a 1 11/16” nut width to use the LSR roller nut and locking tuners, the tuning stability would be quite transformational.

 

[Verne Bunsen]

Would love to see the bridge offering for this to include a recessed tunomatic bridge with the traditional Jazzmaster tremolo tailpiece.  This would allow one to use a tunomatic bridge with roller saddles.  Combined with opting for a 1 11/16” nut width to use the LSR roller nut and locking tuners, the tuning stability would be quite transformational.

It would be a good option. For what it's worth, this is my second Jazzmaster with the combination of Mastery bridge and vibrato, Tusq nut and locking tuners, and I don't have any tuning issues to speak of with either of them.

 

[drod1985]

I have really struggled to capture the color in a picture and have not really come close. Compared to that picture, the actual color is lighter and with a subtle aqua-marine-ish hue that gives it the turquoise flavor as opposed to straight blue. And, being a candy finish, it does have a luster to it. Of the pictures I've taken, I think this one is closest:

Not the most artistic picture I've ever taken, but by chance it is the closest representation of the color. It is a bit light compared to the actual color, but close. I hope that helps some, suffice to say that it is absolutely gorgeous.....

-VB-, your guitar looks incredible!

I'm considering a Candy Turquoise Jazzmaster build as well. I'm really caught off guard by how different the finish looks in all the pictures I've seen. In the sunlight it looks so extremely blue, in less light there's more green. Have you gotten any other photos or video that you feel show the color accurately?