Vintage Jag restoration, esp. pickup cavities...

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A good friend of mine has a '62 Jaguar which he's in the process of renovating. When he got it, it had been repainted in a rather unattractive midnight blue and had humbuckers fitted, along with some weird switching options. It stayed like that for years, but after I got my reissue Jag and he tried that, it made him want to take his back to the original spec.

Having found an area where the top coat had chipped away, he discovered a beautifully aged Lake Placid Blue underneath. He thought it was so gorgeous that he immediately disassembled the guitar and began the long process of carefully sanding off the top coat.

The one thing that concerns him is the pickup cavities. He still has the original pickups and would like to refit them. The enlarged (I hesitate to use the word routed) pickup cavities have not been done well, with the neck cavity being very close to the neck pocket and has been deepened. Here's a pic of what he's up against:


The question is, what is the best plan of action to restore the pickup cavities to the original spec? I suspect that he'd like to go with the best simple option available, as neither him or I are great with power tools!

Suggestions gratefully received.
My wife asked me to stop singing Wonderwall.
I said maybe.....
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Comments

  • ICBMICBM Frets: 71957
    The only proper way to do it is to rout the damaged cavities to a clean shape, glue in matching wood, and re-rout the original cavities correctly. If that's beyond your ability or tool level, give it to a professional luthier to do - it's too valuable a guitar to do a half-arsed job on.

    If that's going to be too expensive, I would do a temporary job by simply gluing in some small blocks of wood to where the pickup mounting screws go, and leaving the rest of it alone - it will be covered by the pickguard and won't stop a proper restoration being done later.

    Don't worry about the thin end wall of the neck pocket, it won't matter - even the tiny bit of support from the corners will be enough to hold the neck in place, since it clearly has been for a couple of decades!

    "Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski

    "Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson

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  • FunkfingersFunkfingers Frets: 14323
    ICBM said:
    Don't worry about the thin end wall of the neck pocket, it won't matter - even the tiny bit of support from the corners will be enough to hold the neck in place, since it clearly has been for a couple of decades!
    The thin remnant of neck pocket “wall” on that Jaguar is more than you’d get on an American PRS EG II.

    The end of the EG II neck IS the edge of the neck pickup cavity. The neck is secure in the pocket and the screws fasten the body to the neck tongue well. The reputation that these necks have for excessive flexibility is because the tongue is too shallow relative to the full thickness of the neck. 
    Be seeing you.
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  • gringopiggringopig Frets: 2648
    edited July 2020
    .
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  • FunkfingersFunkfingers Frets: 14323
    gringopig said:
    The tremolo cavity rout looks a bit odd
    Two of the vibrato tailpiece cavity corners look very angular for something cut with a router bit.

    Both pickup cavities have been deepened to accommodate the height adjustment lugs of humbuckers. These will need refilling in order to grip the height adjustment screws of Jaguar single coil pickups.
    Be seeing you.
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  • I'm pretty sure he's owned it since the early- mid 90s, but I'll ask him if he knows any more of its provenance. 
    My wife asked me to stop singing Wonderwall.
    I said maybe.....
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  • rexterrexter Frets: 369
    edited February 2019 tFB Trader
    It's probably legit - vintage examples are particularly haphazard - especially in that area. The vibrato mechanism binding on the back of the cavity wall is a common issue with jags and jms and also the corners of these routs were/ are chiselled out by hand to be square (a router bit leaves round corners which contribute to the binding issue).

    Almost every vintage one through my hands has been different in that area. 

    Here's a 1966 Jag midway through a refin which was never structurally molested - have a look at  the same area - you can see it's been extended, either in the factory (most likely) or by one of its owners to stop the mechanism binding.

    The technology back in the 60s was a far cry from today's CNC machines!


    Custom colours, vintage restorations, high end guitar finishing
    www.rexterguitars.co.uk
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  • JD50JD50 Frets: 651
    Why bother filling in the cavities when they will be covered anyway?
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  • rexterrexter Frets: 369
    edited February 2019 tFB Trader
    Going through old pictures for a slideshow at the moment and found another of the same guitar - same wonky trem rout!

    also I have some templates made from this body (without wonky trem rout!) cross referenced with a '64 if you want any assistance rerouting those pickup cavities  :)


    Custom colours, vintage restorations, high end guitar finishing
    www.rexterguitars.co.uk
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