"It's a hobby for me, but I'm never alone if there's a guitar there."
― Alex O'Loughlin
My MOD Shop custom Candy Apple Red Fender Jazzmaster arrived last week. Sadly, the included tremolo arm was a pop-in type and sleeve is threaded. That's actually a Stratocaster arm in the above image ― it works OK, but the correct one is on the way. Why a Jazzmaster? I've long admired many dream pop, psychedelic, and shoegaze bands and musicians like Kevin Shields, Belinda Butcher, Thom Yorke, and Jace Lasek. I stumbled upon an excellent video tutorial that piqued my interest in the guitar, so I went for it. The balanced offset body was designed for sitting while playing (that's me). It also has wide single-coil pickups and a beautiful floating tremolo bridge. That's twenty guitars. There's no denying Guitar Acquisition Syndrome ― interventions will neither be entertained nor respected.
In fact ...
A brief photographic tour of the Jazzmaster ...
That's the tremolo (above) and the bridge (below).
Another angle of the bridge:
Fender added solid rosewood necks again. On the one hand I wanted the logo to be plainly visible for my first (and probably only) Jazzmaster, but the headstock looked too cool to pass up on.
I haven't been able to wail on it yet on account of an annoying cut on the tip of my left index finger that's still healing ― or perhaps should I let it bleed?
A beautiful guitar!
In other guitar news, my coworker Casey decided to sell his Arctic Pearl HSS Ultra Stratocaster. It's in mint condition, but he gave me a really good price on it. Actually, I already have the same guitar model, but I bought Casey's to convert the chrome hardware to gold and replace plastic parts to give it more of a Mary Kaye look.
Here's the headstock with the gold locking tuners sans string tree/guide:
The tremolo prior to getting the new saddles:
And a plain gold neck plate:
Here are all the chrome components I replaced:
And the nearly finished project:
I'll keep it an HSS (Humbucker, Single Coil, Single Coil), but I'm thinking about putting Seymour Duncan JB TB-4 pickups on it. The guitar is 100% Fender parts, but I did change the strings to D'Addario. If I replace the pickups I'll go pure white to match the pick guard instead of vintage color.
All images © 2022 Mike McDowell