I have really been developing a small collection of different Jazzmasters and my appreciation for them has been growing by the day. I wanted to take my first outing of putting one together. It is kind of an assembly project versus build because I am taking prefabricated components or modules and assembling them.

I am already formulating my next Jazzmaster or Partsmaster build and in that build instead of buying a premade wiring harness I will build my own.

The first step in the project was to drill the holes in the body for the tremolo. When you drop the tremolo into the routed slot it is pretty close to being aligned. I placed the bridge into its position and then installed the low e and high e strings. This helped me do the final alignment of the bridge. Once I was certain where it should sit, I taped down with blue tape.

To drill the initial hole for each location I used a vix/or also commonly called a self-centering bit.

These drill bits have a tapered sleeved nose that automatically centers when placed into a
tapered holes of the tremolo. When I push down on the drill, the bit tip protrudes through the nose, drilling a perfectly centered hole each time. The bit is guided and cannot bend, so it enters precisely in the center of the hole so I have perfectly drilled holes in my tremolo.

Next, I needed to set the pickups correctly in place. I used the pickguard as my alignment jig. Then I drilled the eight holes for the screws. The pickups rest on top of foam. Sometimes the new pickups will come with the needed foam. I cheated and purchased a bag of pre-cut foam with a sticky side that is cut specifically to place p90 and Jazzmaster pickups.

I then wired the pickups to the wiring harness and placed grounds that were attached to places in the control cavity and also one to the bridge post thimble and one to the tremolo.







This was not an inexpensive project. I was not trying to build something on the cheap so hopefully this will reduce the comments on how I could have just bought guitar model X and saved money.


I will go over the finances out of the gate for the different parts:

• Genuine Fender Pickguard for American Vintage Jazzmaster Guitar - MINT GREEN $37.96
• Fender Vintera || 50s RI Jazzmaster BRIDGE + WHAMMY BAR Vintage Guitar Chrome $115.49
• 920D Custom Jazzmaster Vintage Wiring Harness $195.29
• MJT Official Custom Vintage Aged Nitro Guitar Body Mark Jenny VTJ 3lbs 13oz $372.20
• Fender Pure Vintage '65 Jazzmaster Pickups $162.73
• Fender Roasted Jazzmaster Neck- Maple & Pau Ferro - Block Inlays 099-2203-920 $489.33
• Total: $1373.00


The most work that I had to perform was prepping the body for installing the bridge post thimbles. I did not have a drill bit in the correct size and will cover what I did. I finally found online that if the holes are undersized like what I have found the MJT bridge holes to be you need to open them up so it is a snug fit to tap your thimbles into place. It makes total sense that MJT sends out the bodies with smaller holes than what you need. I found that three different bridges I had in my shop had different measurements for the size of the exterior of the thimble. Online I read this is actually common. Mine when measured with calipers came in at .351 inch. I took a little bit smaller dowl rod and taped 240 grit sandpaper around it. I would then lightly sand inside of the two holes with me testing trying to insert my thimbles. It took me about an hour to get mine to the point where I could insert my thimbles in halfway by hand. Then using a brass punch and rubber mallet I tapped them in the rest of the way.

A few issues I ran into when doing final assembly.

The pickguard holes for the bridge did not perfectly align. I ended up taking my Dremel tool and cutting a small amount away until they did. The cool think is the bridge when installed would hide this.

The next issue I found was I installed two different necks and got the same results. The MJT body needed a 1-degree shim for me to be able to properly setup string height. Otherwise, the bridge would bottom out completely and the strings would be way too high for me to comfortable play. As I said I installed two necks of different sources and had exactly the same issue.

I ended up installing the neck I purchased for the project and leaving the shim in place. Once I did this, I was able to adjust my string height perfectly and still have a little play in the height of the bridge.

Also, since this was a brand-new neck, I needed to use my nut slot files so I could install 10 to 46 size strings. I basically just widened each slot so the new string would be able to fit.