RocknRollShakeUp
Active member
- Joined
- Jul 7, 2006
- Messages
- 766
Any Jazzmaster fans?
I’d love to see yours. Especially any thinline JM’s as that will likely be my next project. I’m collecting color/pickguard ideas for future use. It will be a thinline partscaster if I could find a good thinline body.
I have two CS Jazzmasters that I adore, tone, playability and ergonomics. The Shell Pink Wildwood 10 is 7.93lbs, and the Vintage White Closet Classic is 8.03 lbs.
The Closet Classic has the traditional/typical low neck angle and it does tend to need the heavier gauge strings to cure bridge rattling/buzzing. Even if the bridge saddles or other parts don’t rattle much, if the break angle across the saddles is not high enough you will have the low E, maybe others, buzz in the saddle. I shimmed it with a 0.5deg Stew Mac shim and no buzzes whatsoever with a Staytrem bridge (not available anymore but you can look at the Johnny Marr bridge and the American JM Pro bridge, or a Mastery bridge…I think the latest AVRI bridge may be good to go too), and with Thomastik flat wound strings, which I’ve tried both 12gauge and 10 gauge, again with no buzzing whatsoever. I have put 10-50 round wound strings on it, from a 10 gauge NYXL top and a 11-50 NYXL balanced tension bottom, and the low E buzzed in the saddle <gasp>. But after I properly stretched the string including across the saddle, and the string stabilized, no buzz, and I think I’ve found my perfect JM string gauge set up.
The Wildwood 10 JM has the RSD bridge, which is pretty impressive. Extremely solid and stable, and I think it gives the guitar great sustain and punchy twang, and yet the guitar retains JM shimmer and jangle. This guitar has a neck pocket that gives the same neck angle, or thereabouts, like the Closet Classic WITH the shim in. This guitar has no buzzes/rattles strung up with 10-50 round wounds, and if the relief is pretty flat allowing you to raise the bridge higher, even 10-46 is totally doable. But again I love the feel and tonality of the 10-50 set.
So Jazzmasters can have issues but most are totally resolved by keeping a nice flat neck relief, and/or adding a shim. The payoff is huge in my opinion however if they are dialed in right.
Forgive the sloppy pedal board but I’m in the middle of rebuilding it.
As a bonus, for Greg Koch fans, here he is playing the Shell Pink one before I bought it, right after he plays an awesome Strat.
https://www.facebook.com/wildwoodgu...6491790012/?q=wildwood guitars&epa=SEARCH_BOX
I’d love to see yours. Especially any thinline JM’s as that will likely be my next project. I’m collecting color/pickguard ideas for future use. It will be a thinline partscaster if I could find a good thinline body.
I have two CS Jazzmasters that I adore, tone, playability and ergonomics. The Shell Pink Wildwood 10 is 7.93lbs, and the Vintage White Closet Classic is 8.03 lbs.
The Closet Classic has the traditional/typical low neck angle and it does tend to need the heavier gauge strings to cure bridge rattling/buzzing. Even if the bridge saddles or other parts don’t rattle much, if the break angle across the saddles is not high enough you will have the low E, maybe others, buzz in the saddle. I shimmed it with a 0.5deg Stew Mac shim and no buzzes whatsoever with a Staytrem bridge (not available anymore but you can look at the Johnny Marr bridge and the American JM Pro bridge, or a Mastery bridge…I think the latest AVRI bridge may be good to go too), and with Thomastik flat wound strings, which I’ve tried both 12gauge and 10 gauge, again with no buzzing whatsoever. I have put 10-50 round wound strings on it, from a 10 gauge NYXL top and a 11-50 NYXL balanced tension bottom, and the low E buzzed in the saddle <gasp>. But after I properly stretched the string including across the saddle, and the string stabilized, no buzz, and I think I’ve found my perfect JM string gauge set up.
The Wildwood 10 JM has the RSD bridge, which is pretty impressive. Extremely solid and stable, and I think it gives the guitar great sustain and punchy twang, and yet the guitar retains JM shimmer and jangle. This guitar has a neck pocket that gives the same neck angle, or thereabouts, like the Closet Classic WITH the shim in. This guitar has no buzzes/rattles strung up with 10-50 round wounds, and if the relief is pretty flat allowing you to raise the bridge higher, even 10-46 is totally doable. But again I love the feel and tonality of the 10-50 set.
So Jazzmasters can have issues but most are totally resolved by keeping a nice flat neck relief, and/or adding a shim. The payoff is huge in my opinion however if they are dialed in right.
Forgive the sloppy pedal board but I’m in the middle of rebuilding it.
As a bonus, for Greg Koch fans, here he is playing the Shell Pink one before I bought it, right after he plays an awesome Strat.
https://www.facebook.com/wildwoodgu...6491790012/?q=wildwood guitars&epa=SEARCH_BOX