Reader Guitar of the Month: Frankenstein Jazzcaster

I chalked the breakage up to the attack my right hand was making with the strings—most of my other guitars have arm and rib contours, while the Tele does not. I went back to my guitar guy and asked about sanding down the body, Jeff Beck-style. At the cost he estimated, I could instead afford to buy a custom Warmoth body. So that's what I did. I chose the "Jazzcaster" body (Jazzmaster shape/weight, but cut for Tele neck pocket and guts) and chose yellow, my favorite color.

I later had the guys at Chicago Fret Works install a Rio Grande Bastard P-90-style pickup in the neck position, along with a "super switch" between the volume and tone knobs. This allows me to activate the neck pickup at any time, giving me the all-important ability to choose the bridge-and-neck combination that I couldn't otherwise with a 5-way selector and three pickups. I also installed new white-knob, 15:1 gear ratio tuners.

It's taken a bit of a beating these last couple years with my band, Stomatopod, but I love this guitar. It's the perfect combination of Telecaster (bridge and string height from the body), Jazzmaster (shape and balance), and Stratocaster (the middle pickup gives me oodles of sonic diversity).

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