Okay – I don’t actually own a Jazzmaster (at least not any more – I had a Squier Jazzmaster once and traded it for something else.) I liked it, pickups weren’t as succinct as I think I wanted…or something. I’ll get another one some day, once I scrape up enough cash.
Anyway, beyond that point, I have accumulated a bunch of Jazzmaster vibrato systems – hacked out of a few guitars, and one purchased Fender unit.
I had intended to stick the Fender unit into one of my guitars, I ran across it at Tone Shop Guitars for $20 or something like that. How could I pass that up? Well, turns out that the one in my guitar is a generic unit – without the string saver button. Which means that the guitar wasn’t routed with that little nub, so I’d have to figure out some other plan.
I did some (stress “some”) research, the Fender unit that I have has some oddball screw size and the collet doesn’t match, needs a special arm, etc, etc, etc. So as I’m still interested in the benefit of a genuine Fender unit, I started figuring out which items I could transfer between the generic units and the Fender one. Turns out – not much.
The one important part that I can transfer is the pivot plate – the one that seems to be a point of contention on most of the forums that I checked out. I highlight it here:
So as I ripped these tailpieces apart, I’m going to move the Fender pivot plate into my generic brand tailpiece. The Fender pivot plate is squared off, the generic is not, or not really. I took pictures and weighed for those of you who want visual proof (aka obsessives)
Fender pivot plate is on the left (1.1 oz) and the generic pivot plate is on the right (.8 oz)
Seems to work pretty well – consider it “UPGRADED” now. I even had to use the three screws off the Fender unit – the Fender pivot plate is threaded differently than the generic unit.
Ultimately not worth buying a Fender unit JUST for the pivot plate but since I had it handy it worked.