NGD: 1966 Fender Jaguar

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NGD: 1966 Fender Jaguar

Post by bender »

This was lost in the Great Server Outage of 2018 so here it is again, now with more photos!

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I've been wanting a vintage offset for a while but had resigned myself to the fact that they are too expensive. I sold a few guitars over the last little while so I had a reasonable stash that I was going to use for a nice USA Jaguar or a custom built guitar, and then this popped up on trademe again. The asking price was too high for what it is- a 1966 Jaguar refinished in a non-factory colour (it's close to Fiesta Red, but no cigar) with a reproduction case and a seller who wasn't really that good at divulging the important information. Thanks to Slowy and Null_Pointer, I managed to track him down and got some clarification on as many things as I could (although he refused to take the neck off - meaning all I had to go on was his word) and then haggled him down to what I thought was a good price (largely due to the fact that it desperately needs a refret). The guitar was in Christchurch, but one of my friends down there happened to be coming up to Auckland for work, so he picked it up and delivered it to me yesterday! It had a non-original bridge pickup and Mustang bridge installed, but the originals were included in the case. The colour is really hard to capture in artificial light, but it's almost fire engine red. Not quite orangey enough for Fiesta red, but kinda close. I'm on the fence about the red/tort combination, but I have an aged mint guard on the way to give it a bit of a facelift.

Let the autopsy begin!
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Pots are dated 1966 so it looks like all the original electronics are intact, apart from the jack socket
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Original brass shielding is all intact
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Some kooky paint work here- looks like they left the shielding plate and wires in place when they sprayed it!
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This was annoying- original bridge pickup has had its wires hacked almost completely off. The black crap on the back is petrified rubber or foam.
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Obligatory Mastery bridge is the first mod:
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The good news:
Nice neck profile - seems similar to a Johnny Marr Jag I tried a week or so back
Original electronics (aside from jack socket)
Original hardware (aside from one strap button)
Sounds and feels great - has a lovely, resonant honk that really sizzles my bacon
Refinish is pretty good- ageing nicely with some polishing swirls and subtle checking
Trem is utterly amazeballs

The not so good news:
Neck pocket is looooooose- You can jam two picks in beside the neck.
It's heavy. Like Les Paul heavy.
Hacked bridge pickup
Frets are pretty much a figment of my imagination

The neck pocket was undisclosed so I'm pretty pissed about it. On the bright side, it doesn't seem to affect the resonance of the guitar, so it's not all bad. What it does mean is that I'll definitely be stripping it, gluing in a bit of extra wood to make the pocket nice and toit and then refinishing it in an authentic Fender colour some time in the future.

On balance, I'm pretty stoked with it. The price I paid and the fact that it feels and sounds great makes up for the shortcomings. It'll never be a valuable guitar, but a careful restoration will bump it up a bit while also giving it a bit of extra life.

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Re: NGD: 1966 Fender Jaguar

Post by Olderama »

Given its foibles it’s a piece of history
Nice one look forward to it’s re re incarnation:)
:mental:

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Re: NGD: 1966 Fender Jaguar

Post by Slowy »

Very cool Ben. And just molested enough that you can sort it to your liking without being precious about an historical artefact.
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Re: NGD: 1966 Fender Jaguar

Post by bender »

Slowy wrote:Very cool Ben. And just molested enough that you can sort it to your liking without being precious about an historical artefact.
This is exactly the appeal. My Gretsch suffers from being to close to original for me to feel comfortable messing with it. No such issue here!

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Re: NGD: 1966 Fender Jaguar

Post by Single coil »

What colour is it going? :D
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Re: NGD: 1966 Fender Jaguar

Post by bender »

Single coil wrote:What colour is it going? :D
Haven’t decided. It’s more of a medium to long term plan.

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Re: NGD: 1966 Fender Jaguar

Post by mrmofo »

large gap in a neck pocket is typical of an old fender imo
There are still some that think the neck PU is moved to accommodate the extra frets which only proves they cannot detect the difference in length of each.

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Re: NGD: 1966 Fender Jaguar

Post by jeremyb »

mrmofo wrote:large gap in a neck pocket is typical of an old fender imo
Yeah, they used to say it was to allow the wood to expand and contract with changes in temperature and moisture etc :mental:
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Re: NGD: 1966 Fender Jaguar

Post by Jay »

Cool as! Re the neck pocket... if it is resonant now then making it tight could make it less resonant. Why dont you try it first with a temporay shim jammed in to see how it affects resonance.? If it feels worse then you know that gluing in a new bit of wood is for cosmetic purposes only...
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Re: NGD: 1966 Fender Jaguar

Post by GrantB »

looks cool as. Weight - some of the best sounding les Paul’s I’ve played have been 5kgs
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Re: NGD: 1966 Fender Jaguar

Post by sunburster »

Neck pocket gap and heavy weight are typical for CBS-era (1966-1975) Jags. The pre-CBS (i.e. 1962-1965) ones are usually 7-8lbs, but the CBS-era ones can be as much as 14lbs, with many in the 10-12lb range. If I were going to buy one of these, the first thing I would ask would be the weight because guitars over 9lbs are a no go for me (bad back).

Neck pocket gap isn't a big deal IMO, as long as the guitar plays and sounds nice, as it seems this one does.

Sounds like the guitar needs a lot of work. Hope it's a fun and rewarding project, looking forward to seeing the end result. :thumbup:

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Re: NGD: 1966 Fender Jaguar

Post by StrummersOfThunder »

Looking forward to checking it out. Will be even better once it has frets im sure.
Neck gap, just aesthetic issue. At least you have somewhere to store a baguette for those longer sets.

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Re: NGD: 1966 Fender Jaguar

Post by mr_sooty »

Looks sick Ben! Sweet gat.

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Re: NGD: 1966 Fender Jaguar

Post by bender »

sunburster wrote:Neck pocket gap and heavy weight are typical for CBS-era (1966-1975) Jags. The pre-CBS (i.e. 1962-1965) ones are usually 7-8lbs, but the CBS-era ones can be as much as 14lbs, with many in the 10-12lb range. If I were going to buy one of these, the first thing I would ask would be the weight because guitars over 9lbs are a no go for me (bad back).

Neck pocket gap isn't a big deal IMO, as long as the guitar plays and sounds nice, as it seems this one does.

Sounds like the guitar needs a lot of work. Hope it's a fun and rewarding project, looking forward to seeing the end result. :thumbup:
It doesn’t actually *need* much more than a refret and pickup lead repair but I like the idea of a bit of a restoration project.

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Re: NGD: 1966 Fender Jaguar

Post by bender »

mr_sooty wrote:Looks sick Ben! Sweet gat.
Thanks! I’m pretty chuffed with it

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