Archive for the ‘project guitar’ Category
Here’s is a very unique Fender Jaguar for you to check out. Jason sent us the story and details about his custom Jag. See his story and photos of the guitar below. If you have a cool story about your custom alternative guitar you’ld like to share with our readers you can contact us here. Update: Added some more photos from Jason including “The Big Cat’s Lair” with Justine De Sade of local punk band The Bombasts.
Custom Catwoman Jaguar
These are the ones! What d’ya mean your Jag isn’t like this? I thought they all came with Michelle Pfeiffer on them!
I started collecting Beach Boys records in the early 80’s and was thus very keen to buy a Jag when the Jap version first came on the market in 1987. I purchased my Olympic white version in Oct 87 at a shop in Cwmbran, Wales (land of Queen Catherine Zeta Jones) and noted that the intonation and tuning weren’t spot on. Luckily a fellah who used to work at Andy’s guitar shop, London had recently moved into our Welsh valley and charged me a small price for setting the Cat up nicely (I still have the cash receipt for the job).
Over the next 12 years I played dozens of gigs – many of them in the open air on streets- with the Jag and used her on hundreds of hours of 4-track recording. I was only a bass-player-made-good when I bought the Jag and over the next few years taught myself to play my own version of lead guitar.
In 1990 I had bought a Jim Dunlop Cry Baby pedal and found that it enhanced the cat-like qualities of the Jag, helping me to progress from the standard early Beach Boys and 80’s style chorus effect tones to wildly screaming fuzz with wah-pedal-to-the-metal sounds used in conjunction with the whammy bar. Kurt Cobain was probably still getting dimes off the tooth fairy when all this was happening so it amuses me greatly when he’s held up as some sort of great innovator by choosing the Jaguar as his weapon of choice.
In 1998 I did a Christmas show at work, kicking off with a storming version of U2’s “New Year’s Day” during which my Cry Baby pedal finally died. For some reason I had stuck a little Catwoman sticker onto the Jag for the performance and over the next year gradually came up with the idea of painting the whole guitar.
In December 1999 I undertook the paint job using a large poster of Michelle Pfeiffer for the front image and a DC comics story book of the Batman Returns film for the back. I used little tins of model airplane gloss paint for the job (having a background in scale modelling) and the work was done, through a stinking bout of flu, in about a month. A while later I painted the legend “She is like a cat in the dark, and then she is the darkness” which is from Steve Nicks’ song “Rhiannon”, interestingly about a Welsh witch. The paint went rock hard when it set and has lasted almost ten years without any blemishes.
“Catwoman”, as we can now properly call her, still functions perfectly and I’ve used her in the last week on a wild recording of The Temptations “Psychedelic Shack”. The pickup covers have yellowed with age and I’ve had to glue the plastic whammy bar tip knob back together after it had cracked and fallen off. I recently submitted a comment on the Jag Stang site regarding the usual bridge saddle problems, my hacksaw cut into the high E string saddle being the only major modification I’ve made to the Cat.
My other guitars are a 2000 Big Apple Strat, )painted with Halle Berry as “Storm) a 1997 Ibanez Blazer strat copy, a 1989 Marlin Sidewinder (painted with Elvis), a 1979 Hondo Strat copy and a 1992 Gibson ES135 semi acoustic, along with 3 or 4 basses. My Jag was not supplied with a string dampener and has a J-shaped whammy bar as opposed to the S-shaped ones I’ve seen on many Jags.
The Jaguar as a model is a special guitar, an acquired taste for the connoisseur. My own Catwoman jag is, as the old Cadillac adverts said, unique in the whole world.
Happy trails, partners! THE BIG CAT
Forum member Garagetone recently posted up some info and photos about a Jazzstang project he is working on. You can see a few select photos and quotes from his thread in the post below.
To see even more photos and information see the full forum thread HERE.
After I crafted a bunch of “standard” bodies, I decided to merge the guitars from my two favorite bands. Kurdt’s Jag Stang, with Thurston’s Jazzmaster. – Garagetone
Nice work Garagetone!
Jazzstang Design
Jazzstang Build Body Blank
Jazzstang Build - body routed and shaped
Jazzstang Build - hardware mounting
Jazzstang Build - hardware mounting
Jazzstang Build - painted
Jazzstang Build - with neck
EDIT: Updated with demo video.
Check out more from Garagetone on his Myspace Page.
One of the most generous and helpful forum members, Fran, has shared his journey of creating a Mosrite Ventures Johnny Ramone Tribute.
His opening quote:
For some time i wanted a Mosrite, due to Johnny Ramone of course but could never afford one. So i decided to build one.
My last project (JS) was a struggle at times so i tried to set my plans out on this one so things ran smoothly. Hmm.
The forum thread: [click me]
Below is a video of Fran demoing his finished creation and also just a few photos along the process. Make sure you check out the full forum thread for more info and detailed photos on his project.
We love featuring the project guitars of our forum members and regular visitors. Here is another great project guitar from forum regular CROSS. A regency red jazzmaster project. Below are details and photos of CROSS’ project.
Here is the forum post if you want to jump in on the original project discussion. [url]
CROSS wrote: The body is alder. I bought the timber off Ebay from America.
The template is from guitarbuildngtemplates.com. These templates are not ‘Fender-accurate’, I think they are copied from Warmoth. The shape itself is fine, but the neck and body cavities needed a bit of adjusting.
It fits the US jazzmaster pickguard which I bought from Dazbootman. Just w/b/w. I may upgrade to brown tortoishell.
The neck is from allparts. It’s an amazing neck. 7 1/4″ radius. I stained it, sprayed it with gloss auto acrylic. The decal is from decaljoe. I would have liked to have built my own neck with the correct Jazzmaster design , but I don’t have the time.
I finished the body with Auto acrylic. I have used this colour before with the Musicmaster project I made a while ago. It polished up nicely. It’s very fragile paint, but keeps the shine.
AVRI pickups with cream/aged covers.
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We bring you another fantastic jagstang project in this post. Comprised of a Warmoth made jagstang body and neck AJ put together a really nice guitar here.
Some of the specs from AJ’s “Gold Top” jag-stang are:
- Warmoth jagstang body
- Warmoth 24″ neck
- compound neck radius – from 10″ to 16″ radius
- Gibson style frets
- Bridge pickup – Seymour Duncan: Duncan Custom SH-5
- Neck pickup – Seymour Duncan JB Jr. SJBJ-1
- Tuners – Schaller locking
- Bridge – Warmoth; which is much more adjustable than the stock Jagstang / Mustang bridges
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This photo includes an original (c 1974) Mustang neck that AJ intended to use, but he found the Warmoth neck much better for playability.
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AJ’s guitar is a part of the Warmoth gallery.
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Do you have a project jag-stang or modified jag-stang you’re proud of? Send us the photos and the specs and we may post it here! [Contact us here.]
Forum member iCEByTes has put together a gorgeous custom jag-stang project guitar.
For all the details on his project and all the folks who contributed to it visit this forum post. [url] You could also post any questions to the creator there.
Some of the specs on the guitar are:
- neck: 24″ C shape (copy of jag-stang neck)
- body: ash (copy of jag-stang body ash), with straight humbucker and contours
- pickups: Seymour Duncan Lipstick SLS-n and Seymour Duncan JB
Below are a few photos of the project jagstang.
If you have a custom jag-stang, jaguar, or mustang project guitar send us your photos! We’ll put up a post to show off your project.
