Jazzmasters With Rusty 'Plates, Whatever Next?

Hours of Fun With Rusty Scratchplates

Well, playing my lovely Jazzmaster yesterday, I couldn't help feel that I had hardly done right by the old thing, by, err, in general terms - generally knackering up the scratchplate when I put it on.

Don't get me wrong, I rather love it so, and I'm never one for pristine, as you may have noticed.

And the guitar itself, it sounds and plays brilliantly, so there is nothing drastic to mither about, but the 'plate was an American sized one rather than Japanese, and I ham-fistedly altered it a wee bit to "fit".

You wouldn't really know unless I pointed it out and/or you have two-working-eyes, but it niggles

It is Jooky, but Jooky for the wrong reason, if that makes sense.

Chaos without a point is anarchy, after all.

And anarchy without a scratch 'n' sniff manual is likely to be a little obtuse and only really succeed in designing a T Shirt.

Though as every revolution needs a T Shirt and let's face it a poster boy, and I'm including Maggie Thatcher in that, which is a worry, maybe that is where I am going wrong.

It is hard to say, but then I'm quite close to Wales.

Not that I'm that worried, but practicallistically, the little dially-bits at the top for the Rhythm circuit don't quite run as smooth and easy as I'd like, which is annoying as I am offish the last man in England who still uses them other than as a kill switch.

I may not be entirely correct in mentioning that.

And I did put a bit of a gougy scratch down the front of the 'plate, which is OK, but you know.

And I sort of nibbled one of the pickup holes a wee bit.

Which I don't really mind, but, well, you know that too.

Anyway, getting a nice red torty shell one to fit is a bit hit and miss, so I'm playing the long game on that.

And more to the point it is all a bit of an excuse to meddle, as the newly Mojo'd pickups make me want to play it all the time and if anything it looks too good in a lot of ways. Almost (gulp) pristine, which for twenty years old (guitars ageing like dogs, of course, 7 at a time) is almost insulting.

But I will get around to getting a new scratchplate when one pops up on ebay, I expect.

In the meantime, I have instead got a plain white one, which I was half tempted to put on in a kinda I-can't-afford-a-Johnny-Marr-Jaguar kind of way.

But then I thought, I have got a dribble of iron paint left and a gallon of home brew acid, so why not rust it, and use that until I can find a proper red one.

(I also saw a pair of old school Jazzmaster knobs on Ebay but they got to 26 quid with a week to go, so suddenly I became even more attached to my nicely time stained ones, all over again.)

So there we be, that is the plan. I could have put the original brown torty one back on, which would have been like admitting defeat rather, but then I used it as a template for my routing of the JM pup hole on The BDSM One, and rather wrecked it in the process. So that became academically silly, really.

And I prefer the red one to it, even with gouges and the odd nibbled bit and if I'm being honest, this is all because I want to see what it looks like with a rusty scratchplate and the rest is windows-dressed, as I'm sure you are fully aware.

Never simple around here.

It is just thrown together, you know.

So anyway, I roughed up the white scratchplate a bit and eeked out what iron paint I had left. I then went for a couple of acid attacks, and then once the bubbly-toxic-fumed-biz was done, grabbed the kids from the underground shelter, and basically lacquered the beejeezus out of it.

And now I've put it on my wee guitar and feel at peace with myself.

That's it there in them there fotos. With the rusty scrachplate, that looks a lot like the tortoise shell one I took off.

What do you think?

Should I try it in copper or bronze instead?

As for the rest of real life around here, the plan today was to go wood shopping, but now I'm waiting for a courier to whisk The Dust My Broom One away.

So that'll be another day of fun, then.

And yes, another 50 metres of gaffa tape.

I guess I'll just have to test my Jazzymaster isn't tonally distressed by the rust.

Very important consideration, that.

You can't be too care-filled, it has to be said.

La la laaa