I’ve never been much of a collector, but do enjoy making guitars. I wanted to update the first body style I made, plus try to make the bridge and tremolo myself.
I really like the design and look of the RSD Jazzmaster bridge, but decided to make the saddles out of stainless steel instead of brass. Due to the scroll shape of the bridge and skewed saddle slots, I printed some 1:1 images to paste over the flatwork to assist with the layout. The bridge itself is 3/16″ stock, and found some half-round .5″ rod for the saddles.
10-32 SS machine screws attach the bridge deck to the posts (SS rod bored and tapped to match). The machine screws were also bored through and tapped for the bridge leveling screws, 6-32 Allen screws. There is barely enough room to tap the internal leveling thread in the post screw without damaging the Allen key drive.
The intonation slots and bridge post holes were machined while the stock was still square. The half-round stock was sized on the lathe, then tapped for the 8-32 screws that are thread-locked into the low-profile binding barrels (aka Chicago screws) on the bottom of the bridge. The sleeve of the binding barrels ride in the intonation slots. I think the custom shop version uses left-hand screws so they can be tightened and loosened from above normally, I just have to remember righty-loosey when adjusting the intonation.
For assembly, the post holes in the bridge are also tapped 10-32 so the bridge deck is captured between the post screws and post sleeves.
The toughest part was cold-forming the tremolo tailpiece. I drilled the string holes first, then bent the plate using a vise with a series of incremental bending jigs made out of rock maple.
I forgot to take a photo of it, but the pivot plate is made from the same 0.075″ stainless plate, with a 15 degree bend along it’s width. Once the bend is done, the edge was trued up on the mill and then honed to make sure there is full contact between the pivot and the tailpiece, not really a knife edge, but a nice edge that makes continuous contact with the tailpeice.
Not shown, but the tailpiece also has to have a registration groove in the bend for the pivot to engage, otherwise it will drift up and down when the tremolo is used and the guitar will never stay in tune. (Factory versions have a sharp bend that serves this purpose, but I was only able to bend a radius.) It’s easier to mill this groove after the bend is made, just be sure to install the pivot point first and scribe a line where it contacts the tailpiece, then set the tailpiece in the vise so an end mill will just nick a 1/32″ deep score mark just below the scribe line.
Drilling and slotting the balance of hardware was straightforward. Having a factory made version of the tremolo obviously helped a lot with dimensions and layout. I did buy a factory made spring, but the rest of the hardware was shop made.
For the tremolo arm collet, I used a piece of 3/8-16 all thread, bored it for the 1/8″ diameter arm, turned down both ends, then cross slit on end to allow to adjust the tension on the arm’s swing. The collet threads into the tailpiece plate and the nut provide tension on the collet and tightens against the tremolo plate
The guitar and neck were made with the same methods as the first Jazznado. On this version though the body is made of poplar, and the control cavities are on the bottom instead of the top. Also I heavily beveled from and back contours, somewhat like a Gibson SG. I’m using some PAF-style humbuckers from Tonerider, wired to push pull master tone and volume pots for Series/Parallel and Phase switching mods. The neck is a one-piece quarter-sawn rock maple neck.
To file the saddles, I strung the guitar and fitted a block of wood on the strigs with a proper string spacing. This allowed me to mark the string slots with some blue marker and a knife. To start each slot I took a few swipes with a fine hacksaw blade, then used Hosco files to file the slots to depth. Since the saddle stock is flat, the neck radius is shaped by filing the slots to varying depths. Too keep the slots inline with the neck and pickups I had the pickups installed but protected with some clear Lexan, and moved each string aside while filing.
I pigmented the lacquer with Transtint pigments. Some Lemon Yellow and Blue to make a green base, then some Honey Amber to warm it up. Towards the final coasts, I added some Black to the mix to make a muted burst. Transtint can be somewhat grainy if the color isn’t built up gradually, I used 12 thin color coats and 12 thin top coats total.
I left it to cure for 4 weeks, then level sanded through 2000 grit, then buffed with auto compound and polish.
