Fender Jaguar. As of yet unnamed. The Swarm isn’t really right. And neither is “Buggy.” Suggestions are welcome. Read the story of this guitar’s journey below.
This guitar began as a pretty run-of-the-mill Fender HH Jaguar Special. I purchased it used in 2019, and came to me with mismatched humbuckers, a janky and poorly-wired push-pull switch for splitting the coils, and a thick plastic black poly finish. My first attempt at an overhaul was in 2020, and was a disaster. I’d scarred up the wood while removing the poly and didn’t know enough to re-sand it. I did route a cavity for a behind-the-bridge pickup and a proper vibrato.
This photo is from the Reverb listing where I bought the guitar.
This photo is from the Reverb listing when I bought the guitar.
After stripping off the black paint. Lots of scars here.
I routed the spots for the vibrato and behind-the-bridge pickup.
Things in place. The pickups are Seymour-Duncan P-rails. Bridge is Mastery.
The first attempt. Terrible terrible paint job. This got completely stripped and I taught myself about wood-filler.
My plan was to paint it black and cover it with my drawings of insects with a paint-pen. The paint is spray-can black lacquer gloss. The paint-pen insects are easily visible over this, but what I didn’t know was that when I finished the body with gloss clear-coat lacquer, I would almost completely lose the bugs.
Before the insects.
Before the clear-coat. I was thrilled at this point.
Before the clear-coat. I was thrilled at this point.
Before the clear-coat. I was thrilled at this point.
I wasn’t patient enough to strip it yet again, so I went ahead and completed the guitar. Seymour Duncan P-rails with Triple Shot rings, Mastery Bridge (and eventually Mastery Vibrato as well), and a Curtis Novak Lipstick pickup behind the bridge. I wired it so that instead of the traditional (and confusing) Jaguar switches, I used a 3-way blade switch to just go between choose the bridge, neck, or both humbuckers. The upper controls turn the behind-the-bridge on and off, with volume and tone for that.
wiring it up.
Looks pretty good, sounds pretty good too. Kind of.
Even though I lost the bugs in the clear-coat, I finished the guitar. Looks real nice if you don't get too close.
almost there. Note the faint ghost of the bugs.
The SD P-rails are interesting pickups. They have a switching system that allows them to be standard humbuckers, Hot-rails single coils, or P-90s, with phase switching for the humbuckers. This is amazing, but in the end, while every sound this thing produces is fine, none of them made the hair on my head stand on end. Nothing was exciting. The P-90s had little snarl, the humbuckers were a shadow of a good PAF or the Wide-ranging HBs on my Telecaster Deluxe, and I don’t really know what the Rails are supposed to be but they were about like the pickups in the pink Squier Strat my kid used to play. Uninspiring, and after six months of almost never playing this guitar, I started making other plans.
Late 2021, I bought a set of Goldfoil Humbuckers from Curtis Novak with the intention of swapping them into this guitar. In Spring of 2022 I began this Le Monstre Electrique project, and decided the Jaguar would be one of my first test-cases. After completing a bass guitar and two ukuleles, I pulled the Jag apart, sold the P-Rails, and got to work.
Getting that black lacquer off the guitar. This is a messy job.
Sanded and stripped. But some hidden problems...
Interesting to see that the body has a laminate top. All alder, but a thin slab on top of a three-piece core.
Looks good right? Not so fast. I used a lacquer sanding sealer when I originally painted it black and the water-based stain wouldn't take in several places. Look just below the output jack.
I ended up sanding it down with 120-grit to get past the sanding sealer.
I learned a lot in sanding the hell out of this guitar body.
At this stage I actually considered leaving it alone. Kind of a cool look.
The stain is a Minwax water-base. Charcoal-grey.
The headstock didn't want to be colored. I won that battle.
Me being me, I don’t just leave things nice and wholesome. This guitar was going to have bugs on it. Rather than a paint-pen, I went with acrylics and collage this time. On the back is my “electric monster” mascot.
The guitar was clear-coated with Crystalac Brite-tone, which is a water-based lacquer that I like way better than nitro lacquer. First, it won’t kill me and is much easier to deal with, as far as the spray equipment and clean-up. Second, it dries harder and just as clear. It’s really lovely. I sprayed eight coats over three days, let it cure for three weeks, wet-sanded with 600-1000-1200, then StewMac polish and swirl-remover.
Turns out the wet-sanding was a mistake. I took off bits of the raised edges of the collage, and the moisture got into the mix and I lost some details. Crystalac recommended that next time I only dry-sand, so I’m making some new test collages to try out with the finish.
Here’s the finished guitar. I’m still getting it set-up, having some fret-buzz issues. I actually think it needs new frets. Sigh. Never-ending project. But it sure sounds good… Audio to come.
