Building My Stage 3 Fender Jaguar: Adding a Bigsby, Caps, and a Diode Distortion Circuit

I’m a customization nut. If you look through my past blogs you’ll notice that merely owning something isn't nearly enough for me… I have to make it my own. I've written about customizing my sound rig, record player, motorcycle, and now? My guitar. Specifically my Black Fender Jaguar HH. I already had a Seymour Duncan P90 style Neck pickup and a Gibson Dirty Fingers (highest output passive humbucker made) installed and was delighted with the results, but that wasn't enough. So in this blog I’ll cover my Stage 3 mods which include:

Stock Jaguar HH

• Oil in Paper Capacitor in Top Controls
• Orange Drop Capacitor in Bottom Controls
• Passive on-board distortion circuit in bottom controls
• Shield guitar body using copper-tape
• Adding a Bigsby B5 Tremolo (utilizing a Vibramate)

Side Note: There is a TON of online arguments on whether “big money” capacitors are even worth the time/energy/money to install. I’m not going to get into that, but there are some amazing youtube videos that test the tone of different capacitors such as the one HERE.  Do yourself a favor and make up your mind up if they change the tone or not. It IS important to remember that the capacitor value has a much greater influence over tone than what type it is. Personally I’m a control freak and knowing that I was already opening up the cavity of my guitar, I had no problem spending the $6 per capacitor to ensure my own potentially placebo based happiness.

History:

Fender Jaguar Promo Image

The off-set waisted Jaguar was introduced by Fender in 1962 as the company was trying to steal customers from Gibson by giving the musician more control over their sound (some argue too much). The guitar (and its sister the Jazzmaster) did well in the surf-rock scene and bands such as The Beach Boys were seen playing it. However, it never took off in popularity and was promptly discontinued in 1975. This caused both Jaguars and Jazzmasters to plummet in value and by the late 80’s they were readily found at local pawn-shops for astoundingly cheap prices. It was at this time that musicians such as Kurt Cobain, John Frusciante, Thurston Moore and other 90’s mainstays began to use them, leading to a resurgence in their popularity which can still be seen today.

Personally, I grew up on Nirvana, thus I was enamored with the instrument from an early age. I vividly remember hanging out with my good friend Nick Dellaposta (From To No End) and pulling my first ’66 Jaguar off of a Guitar Center wall and plugging it in. Though the bridge/tremolo seemed to be a pain in the ass to deal with, this particular Jag had been outfitted with a Black Ice mod, which replaced the seldom-used mid-cut switch with a passive distortion circuit. The idea of having an on-board distortion has stuck with me for years, and last week I finally implemented it.

Basics: Switch Setup
First a bit about the controls of the stock-Jaguar. Keep in mind that all switches on the Jaguar are in the ON position when they are up and directed towards the player.

Top circuit
Switch A in the ON position activates only the top control circuit (just the neck pickup and the top Vol/Tone). In the OFF position, it activates the bottom system allowing you to only utilize the bottom control circuits (Switches B, C, & D as well as the bottom Vol/Tone).

Bottom circuit
As stated, when switch A is in the down position it activates the bottom controls. Switch B turns ON/OFF the Neck pickup and switch C turns ON/OFF the bridge pickup. Switch D in the ON position activates a capacitor (Caps as they're known cut certain frequencies) and acts as a mid-cut of sorts. The bottom knobs control Vol/Tone.

Getting Started: Shielding

Shielded

Since you’re already opening the cavity of your guitar, you've already done the hard part of shielding. Copper tape is the easiest thing on the planet to use, simply unstick the back of the tape and cover the entire cavity of the guitar as neatly as possible. Now you have to make sure that the metal tape touches the other which means getting around the adhesive on the back of the tape.

To do this simply take a needle and make small punctures in the tape wherever you have placed multiple layers of tape. In order for the shielding to be effective, you need the taped area to make connection to the ground. To accomplish this you can either solder a wire gently from it and to the ground (hard because the tape burns easily) or, since the back of your pickguard should already be shielded, just leave little pieces of tape overtop of the pickguard holes. When you screw it back in, this will branch the two points with a metallic connection. One word of warning, if you think paper-cuts suck, you've never experienced one as deep as caused by copper paper, be extremely careful because it hurts like a motherfucker.

Wiring: The Capacitors:

As for the capacitors they're pretty easy to figure out: Take apart your controls, unsolder the existing capacitor, and re-solder the new one in it’s place. As I previously stated, I added an oil-in-paper Russian capacitor in the top controls and a Orange Drop to the bottom. The only advice that I can give for this is to keep in mind that you’re dealing with very small cavities in the guitar so maximizing space is essential. The O-I-P nestles nicely in the area I show, but too much one way or the other may result in your not being able to place the controls back in the cavity. The bottom controls have a much bigger cavity, thus it is pretty forgiving with the massive area that the Orange Drop cap requires.


Wiring: Diode Distortion
Since I personally never, ever use the mid-cut switch (Switch D from earlier) so I wanted to turn this into a distortion circuit when activated. This can be one of two ways, either buy a “Black Ice” brick for $20, or make your equivalent circuit own using schottky diodes. Seeing as how diodes are INCREDIBLY CHEAP to buy, I went this route.

To make this circuit, connect two diodes together making sure that the black-color strips at the bottom touch the uncolored top of the other connect them together. To assure that these didn't make unwanted connections, I bought shrink wrap and covered them in it before wiring them together.

Remove the existing capacitor and discard it. Now that
you have an unused switch and your diode circuit, the rest is simple. The middle connection of the switches is effectively always on, so solder one end to where the capacitor was before. This will now activate the circuit when turned on. Next, solder the other end of the circuit to a ground (the one on the side is the easiest to get to).  It’s that easy.

Note: When activated, just a bit of volume is lost to the process. However with how strong my two pickups are it is relatively unnoticeable on my guitar.

Hardware:

Installing the Bigsby (via the Vibramate)
The Vibramate is one of the best little contraptions on the planet. It allows you to install a full Bigsby B5 without drawing any holes into your guitar. It’s a horseshoe looking little intermediary made of aircraft grade aluminum that sits between the tremolo and your guitar. Basically you just remove the tailpiece and replace it with the device with the two bolts supplied. This has four pre-drilled and threaded holes that allow you to insert the supplied 4 bolts holding it directly to the Vibramate. Past that, the rest is pretty self explanatory. The spring supplied sits quite obviously between the arm and the body of it and just sits there with pressure, there are a few supplied O-rings that allow you to slightly raise the arm of the tremolo if necessary.

Tailpiece Change

One thing to keep in mind with the Bigsby is that when it is applied you are putting a great deal of pressure on the nut and the tune-o-matic bridge. The tension on these is responsible for most of the concerns with the bridge not returning to the correct tuning afterwards. The easiest way to remedy this is to install a Graphite nut in its place and change out the bridge. Now there are two major options for the bridge, you can replace it with a roller bridge, which allows the strings to stretch over-top of a roller pin rather than sticking on a hard surface. The other option is using Graph-tech Stringsaver saddles, which is the way I’ve went.

Stringsavers for Tune-O-Matic

Stringsaver saddles are made of a Teflon like material that allows the string to more easily glide over the edge. I've been using Graph-tech Stringsaver Saddles for years and can vouch for them. I once broke one by over-tightening a screw on a Stratocaster, called them up and they replaced it for free. Good people.



Analysis:

Strung

I love the distortion option, its aggressive with zero sustain, but is very reminiscent of an original Big Muff Distortion (which makes sense because it's diode based as well). Plus it's WAY more useful than the mid-cut that existed before. It's fun to just flip a switch and have a dirty aggressive sound, but it's far from a proper overdriven sound. Going forward, I'm going to experiment with adding this to my bass as I think that would be a fun option.

I adore the look of the Bigsby, but in all honestly it's a bit more of an aestheic choice for me, but one I'm excited about and it does seem that if you don't overuse the tremolo, it does a fine job staying in tune. I can't really tell a huge difference with the Orange Drop capacitor, but the O-I-P does seem to make a huge difference when it's used with the tone dial on 5 or more.

Regrets:

Finished Product

The one thing I do regret and will soon remedy is not purchasing the Vibramate Spoiler. I've always read that Bigsby's are a pain in the ass and although I feel that is an over-simplification, the main issue seems to be with how hard it is to string. At the base of the Bigsby are little pins that you put the eye of the string into and it’s held by pressure.

This requires you to bend the string at a 90 degree angle towards the end. As you change the string you need to keep constant pressure on it which is a pain in the absolute ass. The Vibramate Spoiler mounts to the bottom and gives you easy access to change the strings. It too is held on by pressure, but it’s much easier to deal with than the stock Bigsby. Past that? I'm absolutely in love with this new configuration.

So that's my experience with my Stage 3 Fender Jaguar, I adore every change I've made and it's a far more useful and beautiful tool now.

Finished the Blacked-out Stage One Iron 883, Laughlin Here I Come...

This is an unusual sort of blog post for me, but on the off-chance it helps someone out with customizing their bike, I suppose I'll go into some detail about what it is I have done to my 2011 Harley Davidson Iron 883. I've included links to the specific parts themselves, do not make the mistake of buying directly from the link, shop around.

I bought the bike about 4 months ago, not only is it my first Harley, its also my first motorcycle. Hell, to be honest I bought the damned thing before I even knew how to ride or had my license (I've been told I jump into things head first). I hadn't been riding it a week before I knew I was ready to customize it. Here's what I've done so far:

AIR INTAKE: The first thing I did was install a Screamin Eagle Stage One Air Cleaner. This was simple enough, pull of the backplate, throw on some Locktite, and bolt back together. There was a noticeable improvement, but it wasn't really much. Disappointed with how little power I got from that I started collecting information on the internet and seeing what others were doing to their 883's. I gathered that I was going to need a new exhaust system, and fuel manager at the very least.

EXHAUST: After exhaustive research (see what I did there... huh? Huh?) I settled on Black Rush Performance slip-on mufflers. I really would have preferred the Vance and Hines model, but they don't come in black, and my overall goal was to rid the bike of chrome. So I wrapped the pipes in black and installed the slip-ons. The first thing I noticed is that the term "slip-on" is a little misleading, I had to beat the shit outta the existing mufflers to get them to detach, but once they did the new ones slipped on like a glove. I gotta say, the Rush mufflers sound badass, I really can't say enough positive about them.

FUEL MANAGEMENT: After reading reviews I settled on the Dobeck TFI 1251 This is what made all the difference. Some people say you HAVE to change your fuel system if you change your exhaust and intake, some say you don't. I have NO idea which is correct, but I will say, for about $200, don't find out if it will damage your bike. This is THE upgrade that took my performance from stock to balls out.

HANDLEBARS: I wasn't a fan of the way the stock drag bars had me bent over, and I wanted a little more height. Enter Harley Davidson Mini-apes. Mini-apes give a nice rise so that you're sitting upright, but not too much to where you are uncomfortably reaching. In order to perform this install, you have to make sure that you have a brake-line, clutch-cable, and the wiring to reach about another 6 inches. The clutch-cable was fine, however... nothing else was. Installing a new brake-line is a bitch, but was an absolute necessity (however there are no shortage of sites to help you with that so I won't tackle it here).

As for the wiring, I read that if you lift your gas tank on Iron 883's that there is an excess of wire that you can unravel to make the stock wire-harness work. WRONG. This was NOT the case on my 2011 Iron 883. So I was faced with a dilemma: either buy the wire harness extender that Harley sells which is literally a plug-and-play extension, or hand wire about a dozen wire extensions by hand, tape them, and wrap them. This sounds like an easy call, but it was going to take a week to deliver the harness and I'm impatient as all hell, so I took the latter road and hand wired that mother. Honestly, if you've done wiring before, and you write a good wire diagram, its time consuming, but easy as hell, crack a few beers and dedicate 2 1/2 hours.

Also, while this is all disassembled is an excellent opportunity to put on new handlebar grips. I chose the Black Diamond Grips, but to each there own.

BLACKING OUT: As I said before, my intention is to remove all chrome from the bike. Unfortunately, the forks are chrome, so I was faced with either painting them (and painting chrome is a bitch of a chore at the very least), buying new forks (way too much $$$), or blacking them out myself. I've read that they make leather wrap around covers for them pretty cheap, but as I have a windshield that mounts to my forks, this was not an option. Enter hose-tape. Hose tape is weather resistant, cleans up with chemicals, and is built to last quite a while with even gas pumping around it. It also adds an aggressive "rat-rod" look to the already stripped down 883.

Many people opt to "smoke out" the lights with the Harley kit, but honestly, the bikes already black as night, I really don't mind people seeing a few bright red and yellow lights at while I'm riding around town after midnight.

SMALL BITS: With the handle bars now raised, you can't see a thing out of your mirrors. But don't fret. I simply loosened my turning signal, re-tightened it in a position closer to the forks, unbolt the mirrors, and flip them. It makes the bike look sleeker, and you can actually see things behind you. I also added some saddlebags my buddy gave me, a add-on Harley backseat, and am in the process of painting a sissy-bar I bought on Ebay.

This is all just stuff I've done, but I have had COMPLETE success with it, and love the aggressive look, sound, and performance that has came from it. Eventually I will make the upgrade to the Stage Two. The Stage Two is when you strip the engine, bore out the cylinders, install new pistons, and it upgrades your engine from 883cc to a 1200cc. These kits can run you anywhere from $400-700 on Ebay, and from my research, is the BEST upgrade option available.

Here is a link to a Ultra-mega size HD pic.

Laughlin, here I come.