Camp Travis Build

darcym

if anyone of you follow my posts or actually know me, you'll know I spend %90 of my time with a strat, I'll use other things for specific jobs, but I play strats, I'm confident with them.

I see lots of people talking about Jaguars, Mustangs and various other odd ball Fenders, some of them look great, some of them sound great in the recordings I've heard, but every time I try one, I hate them, I sound terrible with them and I feel uncomfortable playing them.

@travisthedog put together a Jaguar that looked great and he's done nothing but raves about in every mention I've seen of it. There have also been a few other members get Jaguars with slight differences and they speak very positive of them I decided to do that, take away everything I I hated about the Jaguar and try to make something that I would use and play - there is a risk here, I may just make a strat in a jaguar body, but if thats what it is, so be it.

I've pulled away the trem unit - can't deal with that, it sounds terrible to me, feels uncomfortable to me and looks shocking. The obvious answer is to put a strat bridge on it, however I'm trying to make something thats not a strat, so I've put a through body hard tail on it with a Gibson style bridge. I have a Fender precision bass that I converted to through body bridge and the difference was amazing, my telecaster is through body and sounds great, so this seems like something worth trying, plus I actually think it looks great.

The controls - wow, I know everyone loves how versatile the jaguar controls are, not me, too much to do, too much to knock and mess up, I wanted something simple, so 1 volume, 1 tone, it's either wide open, or it's not, and I've gone for a Les Paul style 3 way selector, so hopefully non-strat enough

The jack socket, annoying jack sticking out of a weak scratch plate, no thanks, so I have gone for a strat style jack socket here, they work and look good and don't have a cable sticking out of a bit of plastic. I toyed with the idea of a 335 style jack in the body to keep the look of the jaguar with the jack sticking out, but this is a risk I just don't need, so lets get rid of it.

Neck - I've left %100 jaguar, headstock I've had the headstock made a little smaller so it's till the same jaguar shape but smaller so at a glance it looks like a strat, but it's not, I hate the 70's big headstocks and the Jaguar sits a little too close to that for me, so this seems a reasonable compromise. Had an earvana nut put on to try something different, people speak highly of them. 

I have a few blank questions for myself at the moment around pickups and machine heads, but other than that, thats the idea, if I don't get on with this, I'll never look at Jaguars/Mustangs again and just stop wasting my time.

In honour of what @Travisthedog has been posting and a family member of mine, this is guitar has been coloured in line with a charity and a donation made to make myself feel better about spending money on a guitar I don't need but want to try to get the monkey off my back once and for all.

I give you "The Camp Travis"

darcym

(scratch plate is tortoiseshell - not took the plastic off yet - so it looks a bit black in the photo)

Travisthedog

I bloody love it Matt, I mean absolutely love it. Shell pink I assume ??!!

I can't wait to see how the bridge/trem assembly works out

Have you deceide on pickups as I can't recommend Mojo's "P90 in disguise" Jazzmaster bridge pup enough - Someone has one for sale on here for bugger all too

Thanks for the nod as well buddy. I'm up your way to see @jookychap very soon, if your about I'll bring mine round for your perusal - and a cup of tea of course.

Lew

Looks great but I'm confused. Who made it?

darcym

Warmoth, but had to do it over the phone/email as parts of it are non-standard.

robinbowes

Mmm, like it. I'm with you on headstocks. Not sure about the pink. And would the selector be better to the left of the controls, rather than under the pickups?

R>

dchwhite

That's REALLY nice. Yours is actually just the bridge and Jack socket away from something I've had in my head for about four years now - very much approve

darcym

robinbowes said:

Mmm, like it. I'm with you on headstocks. Not sure about the pink. And would the selector be better to the left of the controls, rather than under the pickups?

R>

the pickup selector was a real argument in my head, I either wanted it where a les paul one would be, or where it is now, as it works well for me on the Washburn N4 - I took a gamble. Wouldn't have found it easy to use behind the controls.

Travisthedog

I put my pup selector there and then set it up so it that it only moves side to side and not up and down. Then I threadlocked the bugger in