best spitfire pickguard choice for warmoth jazzmaster?

[no doz]

i've got a warmoth jazzmaster body and i'd like to purchase a pickguard for it from spitfire. i'm well aware of the body routing differences between warmoth and fender and i plan to adjust the pickup routs on my warmoth body accordingly. was wondering if anyone on here has experience with putting a spitfire or other fender spec pickguard onto their warmoth JM

as far as i can tell the available options are either an AVRI style guard or an MIJ/CIJ style guard. i printed out a template for the AVRI guard and it seems to work well enough. i could not locate a template for the MIJ guard. would greatly appreciate suggestions or recommendations if any of you have done this before. thanks!!

 

[stratamania]

Welcome to the forum.

It seems to me that you also have a problem with where the bridge post holes line up and the position of those are critical to be able to intonate the instrument. My view is it is better to fit an accessory to the body you have rather than the other way around...however...

...From what I understand Spitfire make vintage tortoiseshell pickguards. I checked the FAQ of there website and the best suggestion I have is to take advantage of them making you a custom guard. The easiest and cheapest way to do this would be to order a Warmoth pickguard and then if you are able to make a template from it and send it to Spitfire to make a pickguard from the template. Or they can make a template from a pickguard at a cost of $100. If you went in the direction of having Spitfire make the template you could perhaps have the Warmoth pickguard sent directly to them to use as a pattern.

Or perhaps contact Spitfire first as who knows they may already have done something similar for a previous customer and have a suitable template for a Warmoth Jazzmaster body.

 

[no doz]

thanks for the reply + advice, appreciate it!

having spitfire cut a warmoth spec one for me is definitely a good option / my fallback plan. i actually already have a warmoth pickguard that i could send to them, but i'd love to have a more traditional style one that surrounds the bridge posts ideally

as far as the bridge post holes go, i measured scale length and it seems that they've been positioned correctly by warmoth. i've read that the MIJ pickguard holes are positioned just sliiightly lower than the AVRI ones despite the guitars having an identical scale length, but i cannot confirm. as long as i can get the bridge posts to clear, i don't mind a slight visual skew north, as it'll be mostly covered by the bridge anyway. there's always the old dowel + sandpaper trick too

 

[stratamania]

I suppose you could ask Spitfire to incorporate the extra part of the pickguard with the bridge holes in adapted from the Warmoth guard. As I understand it Warmoth misses that out to incorporate different bridge options that folks might want to use.

 

[ForgotYa]

I’m wondering how this worked out?

Warmoth bodies are supposed to be Fender compatible? Yes I understand the part covering the bridge post holes being different and the pickup routes in different spots, which they shouldn’t be. However shouldn’t the rest lineup?

If I bought a Fender AVRI guard it should work with perhaps just different screw holes in the body?…and changing the pickup route.

My luthier has my warmoth body I got from the showcase. I can’t recall do they have the pick guard screw holes started?

There’s a newer maker of really nice tort that isn’t cheap, but much cheaper than the ridiculous Spitfire. Check the offsetguitar forum as I forget the name.

Thanks for the help.

 

[stratamania]

I’m wondering how this worked out?

Warmoth bodies are supposed to be Fender compatible? Yes I understand the part covering the bridge post holes being different and the pickup routes in different spots, which they shouldn’t be. However shouldn’t the rest lineup?

If I bought a Fender AVRI guard it should work with perhaps just different screw holes in the body?…and changing the pickup route.

My luthier has my warmoth body I got from the showcase. I can’t recall do they have the pick guard screw holes started?

There’s a newer maker of really nice tort that isn’t cheap, but much cheaper than the ridiculous Spitfire. Check the offsetguitar forum as I forget the name.

Thanks for the help.

Its a couple of months since this thread was started. Perhaps there may be an update but that is not certain.

To your question...

Pickguard screws are not pre drilled, but the areas of difference will be not just where screw holes go.

Warmoth's Jazzmaster® Replacement Body retains the vintage perimeter shape, but adds modern pickup and bridge routing options. As a result, the Warmoth Jazzmaster® pickguard is the only pickguard that will fit this body.

Ref: https://warmoth.com/index.php/jazzmaster-body-builder

Warmoth bodies are compatible in the sense of the 2-3/16" (56mm) neck pocket fits any neck with vintage/original USA Strat® spec neck heel. Not all Fenders comply with that so there is no absolute overall spec so no it is highly unlikely a AVRI pickguard will fit at all.

Have a look here also at Known Incompatibilities towards the bottom of the page.

https://warmoth.com/guitar-neck-fit