1990s/2022 Partscaster Jazzmaster Electric Guitar

Saturday was mad-busy in the shop between repairs and customers. My friend Todd put this together on "bench 3" while Ancel and I were working. Note the thing missing, though -- strap buttons! Oops.

He's owned the Warmoth Strat neck on it for decades, now, and has put lots of time into it. It was sitting alone and sad, though, so he bought bits to turn it into a guitar. The body is an American-made mahogany one shot in Olympic White. The pickups are Fralin "split coil" (humbucking) P90s. The pickguard is a custom WD affair in tortoise and setup for a simple 3-way, volume, tone, and jack layout. It has a Fender AVRI whammy, vintage-style knobs, an authentic (read: irritable) 3-way switch with the "long throw" arms, and my favorite addition -- a Mastery bridge. I'm so glad he sprung for it. They work.

I'd never heard Fralin split-coils before but I've lusted after them now and then when thinking of projects. I'll say it: they're for real. From the workshop, listening to Todd play out on the shop floor, it sounded an awful lot like a normal P90 guitar. When I was playing it wide and clean in front of the amp, though, I think it sounded like that but maybe with a bit of a bright, chirpy, minibucker sound mixed-in and a bit of the raunchiness more subdued. Driven, though, it sounded pretty-much like a normal P90. In either case, they sound like money. I've got them bookmarked in my brain for a future project, for sure.

Anyhow -- maple neck, oly body, tortoise guard? Can't complain!