A few years ago, I completed Electric XII project. I thought it would be fun to make a Fender Maverick/Custom replica.
In the late 60’s, Fender was trying to use up piles of Electric XII bodies and necks. As with the later Swinger/Musiclander/Arrow model, Virgilio “Babe” Simoni was given the task of chopping up those bodies to make a new six-string model.The route for the big string ferrule was plugged and a Mustang bridge & trem was added. The back were finished in black to hide the body plug.
The Electric XII headstocks on the first run were actually shortened and capped with maple on the front and back to hide the extra tuner holes and seam. Fender tooled up for special necks on later versions.
I started with a USA Custom Guitars Jaguar body and made a body routing template by hand based on photos and a drawing of an original body. A surprisingly large amount of wood had to come off the body. Again I used a Best Guitar Parts Electric XII hockey stick neck with binding and block inlays, drilled for just 6 tuners. After the routing, re-shaping, stripping and initial fitting, I sent the neck and body off to Matt at MJT Custom Aged Guitar Finishes for a light-relic 3-tone Sunburst top/Black back body finish.
I used one of the Electric XII “stinger” control plates Marc at Rutters Guitars made for me. I used a stock Fender Mustang bridge and tremolo, a NOS string tree and switch paddle from Angela Instruments and half a set of right and left-handed 70’s reissue Fender tuners.
Curtis Novak wound the pickups (fat wound bridge; stock neck). I used 500K pots (Linear Taper Volume; Audio Taper Tone) and a Russian .033 PIO cap. The pickup selector is a 4-pole/4way rotary available from Allparts (EP-4371-000). The original switch was a 2-pole/4-way, so you only need to use the lower half (see wiring diagram below).
I had an Electric XII pickguard template from the 60’s, but (as it always seems to happen), I had to make a few modifications to get the fit right.
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