so the Double Jet is temporarily on hold. turns out that the switches on the harness are too short to reach through the fairly thick top. fortunately there's an adapter nut available to save the day, but that of course has to be ordered. i also need to get a proper reamer as different to a round file; making the hole for the tone switch has been an absolute bear because my WalMart drill only handles bits up to 3/8" and i need 1/2" holes. i decided to use the B6 after all when i realized that it will give me a livable string break over the bar bridge and an easier reach to the handle, and also mostly cover up the holes and weird pressed lines in the top left over from the B50. so i have to finish the drilling, fit the pickups, do the wiring, then hook up the pickups to the harness, and finally reinstall the pickups.
and now there's the Jazzmaster.
as far as i can tell it's a 2018 Squier Classic Vibe Jazzmaster with some aftermarket cosmetic modifications, which i got as part of the deal where i traded in the Rickenbacker for the Guild Aristocrat. The original CAR CVJMs had all white plastics, which were changed here to tortoise guard/black plastics. i spent the better part of two days going over it and tweaking the million little things you have to do with a $300 used guitar. setting up the bridge was an adventure. Fender bridges are usually a terrible pain to adjust, but this went to new heights. the previous owner had subbed in the Mustang bridge, but it was still an endless process getting the string height optimized between bottoming out on the front edge of the bridge plate and bottoming out on the end of the saddle length adjustment screw, pitched up so the string wil clear the bridge. i'm not here to say it was fun.
when i took the bridge off to figure out the height adjustment i found the bridge posts had been wrapped in electrical tape, presumably to immobilize the bridge. don't do this. when i removed it the resonance improved by 180%, from feeling like a relatively dead, heavy Strat to being alive. in terms of other functional issues, the controls needed help. everything got a good spray-out with contact cleaner. the volume knob was wonky, but that just needed the nut tightened. the tone roller knob was scraping on the pickguard which is fairly warped--i suspect it's an aftermarket guard that doesn't precisely fit the Squier screw pattern--and had tilted the control bracket to where the roller rubbed. it needed a spacer, and what do we do when we need a spacer? that's right, surgical tubing! a little ring between the bracket and the pickguard, and we're sorted.
i decided to swap out the black plastics for aged white. i think the black doesn't really work with the finish or the tortoise pickguard, whose color washes out against all that black. i trawled through the parts box and found Strat knobs, a tremolo arm knob, and a toggle switch cap that more or less match, and just ordered pickup covers to suit. the one other thing i want to do is a wiring mod i found online which allows you to use the rhythm circuit for all 3 pickup switch positions. i've found that the rhythm circuit is fuzz's long-lost BFF, and think that weird mid-cut would be great with the huge treble pickup sound. i don't see the percentage in doing value-added mods at this time...i don't really need the tremolo lock, so there's no point in changing the tailpiece, the pickups are fine and dandy, and though the wiring is typical East Asian factory junk the pots are 1M mini Alphas and the switches are good. i don't think there's that much capacitance in a JM circuit to gain anything from redoing the cable runs other than marginally.