Pauline is beautiful, bold, and most importantly, a great player. I started with the JM concept. I've always considered Jazzmasters to be a potentially great player, but it's a design that often suffers from execution, in my opinion. The body design is elegant and very well balanced, but usually weighs too much to be really comfortable. The vibrato tailpiece, while very flexible and uniquely toney, contributes greatly to tuning instability.
I started with a lightweight solid poplar body. The body was then dyed, and oil finished to a deep, glossy shine. The finish resists fingerprints and water. Clean and shine with a dry, soft cloth.
Her neck is really something special. Another great neck from the highly talented Bob Turner. The neck shaft is made from US harvested and aged cherry, and the fretboard is Mexican tigerwood. This is an extremely hard and oily wood, perfect for fretboards.
I finished the neck with the same oil finish as the body. Very slick and comfortable, and only gets better with play. You'll never want to play a varnished neck again! I fretted it with Fender Standard (medium jumbo) fretwire.
The fretboard radius is 12". The back profile is a soft "D" shape. Very shreddy. .78" thick at the 1st fret, .88" at the 12th. Nut width is 1.69", 2.03" at the 12th fret.
The pickups are by EMG. I put an H4 passive humbucker in the bridge position, and an H4A in the neck position. These pickups are both very close to silent, but also have a high output. EMG has designed these pickups to offer high output at low impedance by increasing the induction.
Their impedance is about 8K, but the output is comparable in level to a Duncan Invader. Great pickups for loud and clean or through a pedalboard. Sounds great on tube amps as well.
The H4 has ceramic magnets, while the H4A has alnico magnets. This gives you loads of tonal flexibility.
The pickup selector is up top, with two individual coil taps below it. Use these switches for single coil tones. Down below are the volume and tone controls, as well as the output jack.
Instead of the traditional bridge and tailpiece assembly, I decided to go with a 2 point floating tremolo instead. This gives you a similar up and down range, but it's a little lighter. It also has great tuning stability, as opposed to the vibrato tailpiece on the traditional JM.
I used a Wilkinson VS-25 bridge. Excellent quality and action.
The nut is a bone nut, carefully slotted for maximum string slide. The tuners are Fender "F" (70's) tuners. These have a Kluson mechanisms, and the slotted posts hold on to your strings just as tightly as any locking tuners.
I managed to get her to weigh in at 7lbs 7oz. She's comfortable, balanced, and able to rock all night and stay in tune!
:)