Jazzmaster Trem on a Mustang

JerkMoans

Ok. One of my favourite playing guitars ever is my heavily modded jazzmaster. Amongst other reasons, the Mastery vibrato and bridge just work so, so well.

https://imgur.com/a/jVs1J

recently I acquired this Kurt Cobain Mustang which I love in most particulars, save the Adjustomatic bridge and trem which are frankly a bit pants.

so I got to wondering. Could a JM system be retro-fitted? Anyone ever tried it? I see there is a manufacturer called Jay Turser doing something similar but I'd kinda like to try on MY guitar...

https://imgur.com/a/xPO5U

underdog

No answer for you but my god that Cobain guitar is lovely.

Funkfingers

If you have the rout for a Jazzmaster/Jaguar vibrato tailpiece at the traditional distance from the bridge, it will expose the spring cavities for the Mustang unit. 

If you deliberately locate the Jazzmaster/Jaguar unit so that it disguises the original Mustang routs, you might not get the necessary string break angle between the bridge saddles and the string anchor plate.

JerkMoans

underdog said:

No answer for you but my god that Cobain guitar is lovely.

Hey thanks, man! It is a bit special, isn't it? Lucky late-night drunken Gumtree find...

JerkMoans

Funkfingers said:

If you have the rout for a Jazzmaster/Jaguar vibrato tailpiece at the traditional distance from the bridge, it will expose the spring cavities for the Mustang unit. 

If you deliberately locate the Jazzmaster/Jaguar unit so that it disguises the original Mustang routs, you might not get the necessary string break angle between the bridge saddles and the string anchor plate.

V helpful. Could you remove the Mustang assembly, glue in a chunk of wood and start from there, I wonder...

Funkfingers

The Mustang vibrato rout is, literally, two narrow channels for the tension springs. If you imagine the wood between these two cavities removed, the result is pretty much the correct size to accept a Kahler Flyer or Pro flat-mount vibrato. 

In the specific case of the Cobain model, a properly fixed Tune-O-Matic style bridge replaces the regular moving Fender bridge item. The saddle spacings are different. 

punchesjudy

Sorry I can't help with your question. Just wanted to say you should look out for a Ryan Jarman signature Squier. It's basically a Mustang / Jaguar mix and it's great. A Musuar , Muguar, the way the Jagstang should have been. Whatever you want to call it... 

Sesh

Have you seen the Harley Benton ms60 ow? Pretty much a Mustang with a jm/jag trem, albeit cheap and nasty.

JerkMoans

punchesjudy said:

Sorry I can't help with your question. Just wanted to say you should look out for a Ryan Jarman signature Squier. It's basically a Mustang / Jaguar mix and it's great. A Musuar , Muguar, the way the Jagstang should have been. Whatever you want to call it... 

wow. That's it! Someone else got there before me... thanks for the heads up!

JD50

I could be wrong but I'm sure the mustang body is not as thick as a jazzmaster so may be to shallow for the trem?

JD50

JD50 said:

I could be wrong but I'm sure the mustang body is not as thick as a jazzmaster so may be to shallow for the trem?

Hmm Google images says I'm wrong!

JerkMoans

JD50 said:

I could be wrong but I'm sure the mustang body is not as thick as a jazzmaster so may be to shallow for the trem?

That's one of the potential problems. I had a chat with a luthier about this last weekend and he thought it could be done. Once I've sold a bunch of shizzle I shall start haunting the Mastery web store  

paulnb57

Ive read something about this on a forum somewhere, if the body is thin (35mm as opposed to 45mm) then I think it is difficult to machine the spring slots deep enough.....I vaguelly remember the springs not being an issue, is there a peg that protrudes down that the spring attaches to from the trem? the length of that is the issue I think......edit, the sprimg tension screw is the issue, a quick google suggests the spring routs need to ge 30mm deep.....if the body is 35mm (it appears some are 33mm) it would leaf very little room for error...

bbill335

Bilinda from MBV did it first!

JerkMoans

bbill335 said:

Bilinda from MBV did it first!

So it is do-able. It's on.

JD50

That was a custom build by Philippe
http://www.dubreuille-guitar.com/

bbill335

JD50 said:

That was a custom build by Philippe
http://www.dubreuille-guitar.com/

Yeah a custom nody is the way to go. Honestly, a well-machined mustang trem unit works fine (a lot of the MIJ ones suck) and the stang vibrato is its own thing, different feel to the jag/jm. If the jag/jm trem with a short scale is what you want, I'd say get a jag.

JerkMoans

Or start with one of those Ryan Jarman jobs and mod the crap out of it

JD50

What about one of the new Fender Duo Sonics they released recently? They are all hard tail. Be worth checking them out.