My plan is to build a replica of this:
It's the custom guitar built for John Squire in 1990 by Stuart Palmer. I've liked this guitar since I first saw a picture of John playing it at Spike Island. I even had a picture of him playing it during the One Love video on one of my folders at school.
At the time I thought it was just a normal Jaguar but realised some time ago that there was more to it.
Bit more research and I figured out that it is a custom body shape with a mixture of Jaguar and Strat hardware which I thought was built on to a Jazz bass body. Earlier this year though, when I bought my Country Gent, I ended up chatting with Stuart Palmer about it and he explained that it was actually a hybrid of a Jag and a Strat body, an idea that John came up with.
Anyway, after a fair bit of question asking on here and searching the web I've started the process.
After a tip off from
@Tim on here I found some plans in pdf that I could base the body off. An architect friend of mine printed them out for me this week and I've just been cutting and shutting them to make the paper template. And here it is:
First took the printed plans and trimmed out the bits needed (the main body plan is actually a Jazzmaster but will be fine for me) and with some use of French curves I've now got a paper body outline:
And with the two bits stuck together:
I've got a Jaguar that I am going to take the neck and some fittings from and also a Strat and from these two I have taken a load of measurements in order to get the trem in the right place for the shorter scale length of the Jag. My plan at the moment is to go with a Wudtone vintage trem and a pair of
@theguitarweasel's finest humbuckers.
We'll see how things pan out
Comments
From what I've read the original is somewhere between chuffing and flipping heavy, so choose the woods wisely.
I thought it had a Strat/Jazzmaster neck on the original - full scale length, not the Jag's shorter scale? I could be wrong though!
Yeah, I've read that about the weight too. I think that alder should be fairly sensible really but very welcome to advice on that. I suppose that having a strat trem whilst leaving the Jag trem there too will add to the weight but shouldn't be too bad.
Excited but also a little apprehensive about getting stuck into the proper wood though. Going to be a little nerve wracking.