2007 Squier Jagmaster, as it originally was when I bought it new in 2007, second brand new guitar I bought in my life

For a few months I'd been flirting around with this 2006 Squier Road Ready Jagmaster at the Everett Kennelly Keys Music. The guitar I intended to buy was around $250.00 and brand new, and played great, and stayed in tune. The guitar had sold the morning I came to the store, but instead a Butterscotch Squier Affinity Telecaster Special Edition was dropped off on the showroom floor. So I bought that for the same price as an original Telecaster in 1958 - $158.88 - and carried it home over my shoulder, and ate breakfast with it at IHOP before going home.

First off, the Jagmaster's sunburst body was stripped down to bare wood. The original sunburst finish was cracked, dented, and scratched, and covered in sticker goo from the Murderock era. I also already own a Sunburst guitar (Jaguar), so I decided to do a different color I did not have. I took a look at the $0.99 giant powders of paint powder I'd obtained from Michael's and decided to stain it green, regardless of shade. It turned out looking pretty cool.

After staining it green, I got my hands on some green transparent Krylon paint. I used that for the color coats that go under the clearcoat. I did not wet sand in between coats, I just sprayed it on. I then tried to rush clearcoat, not a good idea, got a few drips and runs, so I may have to sand those out, do one or two color coats again, and then a clearcoat over it. Most of the problem is on the back, in person it's not even noticeable unless you are playing it so who knows, I may just keep it that way.

The original pickguard got warped in the hot sun, and to add insult to injury, the attempts to graft in a Rhythm Circuit proved fruitless as the holes got bungled up by the warpage. So the original pickguard was discarded and replaced with a Jazzmaster HH pickguard with the rhythm circuit holes already placed.

Moving everything to the Jazzmaster pickguard was an easy process for the most part. The original Duncan Designed Pickups, original pots, jack, and switch were installed, as well as my Tri-Mode coil split mods and phase switch. All of this will be organized out a little more later on. Right now the test fit works. The tri-mode and phase switch were relocated BENEATH the tone control because the control spacing on a Jazzmaster is shorter than my modified Jag-Master (which used the original volume hole for the phase switch). The Poker Chip was also removed from the equation as well. the new pickguard is W/B/W, as I dont' have any guitars with that color either. The result is a very "fresh" color scheme, and very universal.

There will need to be some more routing, and some screw-extentions added underneath the pickguard to give it something to screw to. The Jazzmaster Pickguard is a little different from the Jagmaster. This was no surprise to me since the bodies are a little different, and the Jagmaster pickguard has a bigger "tail" where theh volume and tone go, and a smaller, more "balloney" section where the Rhythm circuit would go if the Jagmaster had a rhythm circuit. The idea will be to buy some dowels, cut them in half, and make screw mounts out of those Dowels to get the Jazzmaster pickguard to fit onto the guitar - possibly reinforced with a sideways screw as well as wood glue. Not a big deal TBH. This will give all of the Jazzmaster holes something to grip onto.

The neck was ordered in November 2022, and arrived in a record 2 weeks from China. This time I'm bringing it back to 24" scale. It's a 9" radius neck, 22 Frets, rosewood board, maple neck with orange tint, binding (my first bound neck), block inlays, and a CBS Fender style headstockk. The 24" scale heel has an overhang for the 22nd fret....so I know that it's going to work for sure. The idea here is it's STILL a Jagmaster, just something more like a "Fender" version, that would be a full featured guitar with separate rhythm and lead circuits, and a Floyd Rose vibrato.

The pickguard was setup for the original Jazzmaster floating bridge, so I cut a chunk out where the Floyd Rose goes. I had already had a Floyd on this guitar and left the holes unfilled so I could find the centerline and position the pickguard and cut it out correctly, so I already knenw where the strings would sit, and I gave a nice overlap so only the sides of the "gap" are visible - giving it a seamless appeparance. I will be starting off at least, with a gold, Import Floyd Rose vibrato, using shims to set the fretboard radius. I may try it WITHOUT a locking nut first, because I may need to find a 9.5" Radius locking nut if the radius spec I recall is right. The goal is this is a fast-playing Super-Offset that could sit in with the Toadies just as much as it could sit in with Van-Halen. So the action has to be low, fast, and the whammy needs to be setup to take some serious pushing and pulling.

For Xmas, I asked for parts for this thing and got it a little further going. Now the pickguard is fully mounted. A Licenced, chinese import Gold Floyd Rose with screw-in Locking nut was installed, as were some Wilkinson "EZLock" tuners of sorts (the one with 2 holes drilled through the pegs.

The tuners were my usual deal with Schaller styles - bolt them on, line them up, drill a pilot for the screw, and then screw them in. Went really smoothly. I did have to research how to use those holes, though I might be doing something DIFFERENT with them. See, I hate prickly bits on my headstocks, I like slotted shaft Klusons for that reason, but those are bloody expensive. So my idea is to cut the string FIRST - then guide it into the hole at the headstock so you don't get poked by the string that way - the tip stays in the hole.

The Locking Nut was a bit tricky. I put on a "Tron" documentary and went to work, tapping out the old nut (and saving it for future replacements on other guitars), then prying out the rosewood and using my Daiso Japanese chisels (after sharpening them) to trim the binding off. Then I used a large metal file to flatten the "shelf" for the locking nut, working in increments to make sure I got the nut flat, and at the right height, using my old red Kramer's setup as a guide. Once there, I staked it in with 2 Fender pickguard screws because they have coarser thread, and are smaller, and the import screws that came with were a little long, and a little weak IMHO.

The Floyd Rose trem itself was the easy part. I just reused the holes I had a Floyd previously attached to on the guitar. Pressed in the bushings, screwed in the action bolts - done. Then I put in the claw in back and 2 springs, and found the problem with these newer vibratos is that they use a more gradual "bevel" for the pivot, and this causes the Floyd to pop off when the strings are removed. I may end up swapping the pivot posts later if I don't like this after every restring. I also set the intonation at the saddles - and that's when during the initial stringing up with some Rock N' Roll slinkys I got, that I found out a small problem.

See, the Floyd Rose moves the bridge saddles too far back to work properly. There's a good 3/4 of a Centimeter between the front edge of the tremolo and where the bridge saddles make contact with the string. So when I measured, I had about a 24.5" scale or something like that going on - totally wrong, it's only 12" from nut to 12th fret. So, since this is a PERMANANT installation, I'm making plans to modify the neck slot or the neck itself to move it forward the right amount of space to intonate properly. That said, the action alone is amazing on this thing already, and very very low with minimal buzzing. I may still have some fret-leveling and recrowning to do, as well as some dressing, but otherwise, the neck is surprisingly good for a $65 Chinese e-bay special.

The guitar is now completed as of March 2023. Some changes were made, including cutting the neck slot deeper to get the FLoyd Rose to intonate properly, so now the front wall is rather thin. The wiring is also done, it had a few hiccups early on but we worked those out to be the diagonal and un-needed ground wire I added between the rhythm and lead circuits. The Headstock has a Fender sticker cut up to look like an old logo, with a Dymo label for the model#, and a special "custom" done on it to make it look more like a legit "Fender" (it technically is, it's still the same Squier body and pickups we started with). The Floyd Rose pivots were also swapped with a set meant for a different Floyd Rose unit because it kept popping off it's pivots when I was restringing it, and the high E saddle has a metal block I had to make myself because the original is lost in the carpet somewhere in my room. Everything is now working, and I"ve been playing it a lot. Stay tuned for the YouTube video/demo.