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Jag-Stang Mods

The start of all my guitar mods was me happening upon a tiny circuit called "bazz fuss." It's like five components. I thought, "surely I can fit this into my guitar without any issues."

In the course of this project, I customized the fuzz, had to carve out space for the battery and another circuit, and really got to understand the guitar's wiring.

(click an image to uncrop and embiggen)

  • Shielding. Copper in the body, aluminum on the pickguard.
  • Pickguard in place with added kill switch.
  • Close-up of new tone circuit. Normal to cut treble, pull to cut bass.
  • Everything back together. New knobs with better grip on the sides to make pull-switches easier to use.
  • My secret weapon (don't tell). It's a mercury tilt switch from an old thermostat. Tilting the guitar up adds a Dan Armstrong Green Ringer (octave fuzz which sometimes sounds like a Ring Modulator) to the circuit. It's a little like Guitar Hero Star Power.
  • New wiring and sketch. There was supposed to be a tremolo circuit in there, but I yanked it because I couldn't stop it from clicking. I later learned that it's a common problem with tremolo circuits and I figured it out by the time I got to modding my Ric.
  • This clever little doodad is a thumbscrew so I can adjust the tension on my whammy bar on the fly. The default method is using a hex key and is just terrible.