The Jaguar Tele so far...

Heft

Junior Member
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A while ago I realized that Mustang/Jaguar necks could be modified to fit strat neck pockets!
The advantage of a jaguar or mustang neck is that they have 24" scale length which makes bends and flashy playing a bit easier. I have a Warmoth Gibson conversion neck that I use for this purpose and 12' strings feel like 10.5's, I'm hopping I can get a lot of milage out of 11's on this guitar.
The main issue with making a mustang tele is was that there wasn't really a good option for a pre-routed bridge out there and the bridge pick up is in the area the bridge should be.
After some research and discovering it was something that was possible. I decided I would order a body and a neck and install my own bridge and make my own custom guitar. You may be thinking that a strat version of a mustang has been done before. -Fender did that in the lead series. So I did it with a thinline F-Hole tele body.

1980s-fender-lead-1-red-xl.jpg

Fender lead 1




The first part of this is that the bridge would sit where the bridge pick up was so I ordered the body with only neck and middle pick up, with the middle acting as the bridge PU and the neck as the neck. This gave me a classic 2 pick up telecaster style guitar.
I went with a Wilkinson Half Tele Bridge. This keeps some of the asthetics and the break angle I like of the Tele but gives me important lee way for installation when it comes to bridge placement. The tele bridge pick up is sitting in a pickup ring that looks chrome.
8bbc56ca022b435f11bb92d3c7365404--guitar-parts-pickup.jpg


When the parts came I was really worried at first. It looked like the mustang neck was too tall for the Wilkinson bridge. After some measurements it looks ok. I won't know for sure until I get a few brass nuts to string it up.
Ironically in ordering a thin line body I forgot to order it with a Strat neck pocket! So I have a pick guard on order to hide my shame. For a good 24 hours I was trying to figure out what to do with a thin-line body with no bridge pickup route until I realized I could throw on a pick guard.

Here it is so far

8Kpa3rD.jpg


More update to come!
 
A few things learned to date. The pickguard idea isn't working. I put a Humbucker sized pickup in the middle position and that doesn't function a F-Hole Tele Pickguard.
I could try and cut my own pickguard, but theres enough wrong with this that I think I'm just going to scrap the body and have warmoth make me a new one.


I like the wood choices.
I like the pickup configuration.
I like the neck profile and woods and finishes.
I like the wiring! I put a push/pull with a .001 and .47 on the tone and a push/pull with a treble bleed on the volume, and a 4 way switch (series/parallel)
About the only thing I would flat out change would be the bridge and maybe the rear strap location (It has some neck dive), also the poly finish.

QoETueY.jpg


Thinking over exactly what I wan't from warmoth and double checking my order. Will be ordering again in a day or two.

Here she be!
 
Finally finished this project.
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I think you get what you pay for. It's way better than the solid state amps I've seen at that cost but not a 1500 Marshal or Fender.
It's probably the best sub $500 amp @15w. Its not a $1500 amp.
 
Heft said:
I think you get what you pay for. It's way better than the solid state amps I've seen at that cost but not a 1500 Marshal or Fender.
It's probably the best sub $500 amp @15w. Its not a $1500 amp.

Thank you, that pretty much matches my thoughts. I got it cause I wanted something tube, but I didn't need a lot of power. Just something to practice and test guitar's with.......... :icon_thumright:
 
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