I decided to fit a 'mute' on my CIJ Jag like the vintage models have based on its cheap to do, i like the idea of it and how it was designed with 'surf' players in mind and i think they look snazzy.
The mute itself cost me $15 new, this comes without the plunger and spring so i made a cylinder shape plunger out of hard plastic and i had plenty of springs to choose from in a box of bits. The mute does'nt have the foam on it either so i used a piece of PC mouse pad.
The other things needed are:
14mm Bradpoint drill bit
2 x 3.55mm x 20mm countersunk self tapping screws
metal countersink
Drill
Drill stand
You can see that on any Jag scratchplate there is a pre-drilled hole where the mute spring/plunger is fitted. I used this to mark the centre of where i needed to drill:
Then i removed everything that would be in the way of the drill stand so that it would sit flat to the body thus drilling a 90 degrees hole, i set the depth plunge so the bore hole would be 36mm deep:
Once cleaned up i tried the homemade plunger to see if it fitted ok...
Then started to fit the mute. The mute was not countersunk for the self tappers so i did this with a metal countersink bit, if you dont the screwheads stand proud and you have to set your bridge higher.
CHROME-TASTIC!:
Fitted and happy but as i set it back up and try everything out i notice you have to have your bridge set higher to compensate for the mute, this may not suit everyone and players that like low action may have to shim the neck because of the higher bridge:
Conclusion:
If you have the skillz and tools this is an inexpensive mod that visually adds a bit of mojo to your CIJ Jag, in operation i noticed the mute throw the tuning a little (about a quarter note) but i'm putting that down to the material i used (mouse pad) something softer may be better. In comparison to palm muting it does sound totally different and free's your strumming hand away from the bridge.
All done. 😁
