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Noisy Cat · . Joined: 25 Aug 2011 Posts: 594 Location: London

I much prefer the feel of the 'vintage' frets on my Fender 65RI Mustang and Squier Super-Sonic

What are my options for getting vintage frets on my Jag & Jazz? Replacement necks? Would CIJ necks fit?

Or is it feasible to get my luthier to file the frets down to vintage height?

JordanD · Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2014 11:11 am Post subject:

I tried a CIJ Jag-Stang neck on my old VM mustang before I sold it and it didn't fit. I didn't like the size of the frets too much either.

NickD · Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2014 1:20 pm Post subject:

There is generally a 1mm or so dfifference between Japanese and US spec necks - as Jordan has found out. The Japanese are usually the larger - I'm having a conundrum about this on a couple of projects and I think I'm going to sand the neck heels to fit - the bodies are vintage spec.

I'm pretty sure the VM guitars are US spec - I have a 65 Musicmaster neck on my VM Jag with no issues.

Let me know if you decide to sell either neck, I might be interested, but I think your options are a replacement custom neck, or get your Luthier to work on them. FWIW, vintage/US spec seems to be around 54.5-55mm at the end of the heel, and the Japanese spec around 56-57mm.

George · . Joined: 03 Jul 2009 Posts: 20282 Location: UK

in the grand scheme of things a refret may cost about £150-£200. if you sold the neck on ebay, you'd probably get around £80-90, possibly more?

I think selling the neck and hanging around the classifieds for a bit for a vintage or MIJ neck would likely be cheaper overall, and better for resale

filing down could be an option i suppose, but i guess it all depends on if you care about resale. many people would read "frets filed down to vintage height" as a negative, i expect.

Fakir Mustache · . Joined: 25 Sep 2013 Posts: 3281

...and you might not like them even if vintage height, because they are still not vintage width if just the top is shaved.
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serfx · Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2014 7:36 am Post subject:

pull frets, buy replacement wire from stewmac for $5 (approx)
learn how to do a re-fret at the same time.

= solved.

I added in a step on a few of my necks to make them 7.25r as well... taht adds a quite a bit more to the time + effort, but fuck it, i have more of those then I do money.

spirograph · Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2014 2:26 am Post subject:

Noisy Cat · . Joined: 25 Aug 2011 Posts: 594 Location: London

Thanks everyone.

It's too much to hope for a USA neck to be on sale (at least for less than a fortune) here in the UK, so I'm gonna look for CIJ/MIJ guitars.

Johnny Noir · . Joined: 25 Aug 2011 Posts: 320 Location: Lille, France

you can find vintage musicmaster neck on ebay for 200$

serfx · Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2014 6:37 am Post subject: