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Tym NonRevJagBird

One of my favourite Tym Guitar mutants… introducing the Tym RevJagBird….thing!

Every now and then, I get an email from Tim from Tym’s that goes along the lines of “… wouldn’t it be cool if there was a guitar that was a Rickenbacker crossed with a Les Paul Jnr?” or some other ‘Island Of Dr. Moreau’ type mutant beast… I then sketch up this mythical beast in Illustrator and send it back to Tim. The NonRevJagBird was such a project. Initially the idea came from Mike of The Mean Streaks, who is a confirmed Jaguar nut, but had recently bought a Gibson Shop Non Reverse Firebird.  I sketched up what it might look like and sent the art off to Tim.

A few weeks later, Tim sent this work in progress photo… it was looking pretty damn sweet.
In Tim’s words: “This may just be the best looking guitar , behind a Mosrite, ever made…”

The Maton headstock looked fantastic on this design. I was busting to see how it would end up… It was worth the wait. Here’s Tim’s words on the project:

Well, Fender asked Gibson politely to stop making the non  reverse Firebird because they said it looked too much like  a Jaguar, so it seemed obvious. Make the two together and  see how close they were ? Pretty close it seems…

Fender Jaguar

Gibson Non Reverse Firebird

Their inbred offspring – The Tym NonRevJagBird

This guitar takes on the shape and scale length of the Gibson  NR Firebird, the controls, scratchplate and vibrato of the  Fender Jaguar but with three pick ups, like the Bass VI and  an old 60’s Maton headstock.

The body is made from a laminated  middle section of dark honduran mahogany with light bunya  wings to give the impression of the raised middle section  of Gibson Firebirds.

The very thin neck is made from maple with a un inlaid rosewood  fretboard and topped off with the half classical Maton headstock.  The whole thing is finished in vintage tobacco burst.

The pick ups standard Fender Jaguar as is all  the switching and control plates. The three mini switches  turn each pick up on or off giving any or all pick ups working  together. The top switch does the standard Jaguar rhythm circuit.

The vibrato is the famous Jaguar/Jazzmaster  set up with a tune-o-matic bridge.The Gibson scale length and mahogany centre gives the guitar  more deep, woody tones while keeping some of that Jaguar “jangle”  and having the middle pick up gives more mids to the bridge  or more treble to the neck pick up.

This guitar has been living in the front window of Tym’s Fortitude Valley store for ages… tormenting me every day as I walk past on my way to work. I’ve played it a few times and it’s a great guitar. The neck is Mosrite thin… like a fretboard with no neck behind it. The weight is really comfortable, sort of midweight-Telecaster.

The honduras mahogany strip looks fantastic running through the middle. This wood is now ultra-rare, so Tim didn’t want to cover it in paint.And that headstock… I’ve said before how much I love the old Maton designs and this is the reason why. So, so cool.

All in all, this was a successful blend of 2 cool looking guitars. If you like this, you should see Tim’s Mosrite Mark II/Epiphone Crestwood mashup. Awesome…