NGD!

[jkokura]

New Guitar Day! In multiple ways actually. It's both new to me, and I assembled it so it's brand new and nobody else has played it.

It's made up of a variety of componants:

Body - Warmoth Chambered Alder with an Alder top, finished in Fiesta Red. Wow is it ever resonant, and not heavy at all! It's routed for universal, so it'll take any type of pickup set I'd like. I did two coats of the StewMac conductive paint in the cavity, instead of tape or foil, which really looks sharp. Also of note, the bridge is set for a floyd rose set of pins, which is interesting because the rout is like a standard strat rout, not the recessed floyd style which has become popular.

Neck - Also from Warmoth, it's their vintage modern type with a slim C taper and a 10-16" radius (10" at the nut, and 16" starts at the 12th fret and goes to the end. Pau-Ferro for the board, and a CBS headstock shape - not my favorite. Love this neck, except for the headstock, but I can live with it.

Bridge - This is a Schaller Vintage Roller Trem. It's meant to look, and feel like a classic two point strat type trem, but it's spaced for Floyed Rose posts. I bought this trem for another guitar of mine, to replace the clunky, ineffective Floyd Rose bridge on it, but found I couldn't intonate the guitar properly and had to switch back. However, on this strat I'm making it work. I'm about as close to maxed out as I can be, but I'm able to intonate closely enough that I'm happy. It's a beautiful, heavy bridge, which translates to lots of sustain. I have it setup to float, and when in use I'm finding that, even with new strings, I don't got out of tune, even with heavy bends! Brilliant!

Tuners - Probably a big part of the staying in tune is these Gotoh Vintage Locking tuners. Smart design, they use a quarter or a pick to 'unlock' rather than the Sperzel style I'm familiar with which have a disc on the back you have to turn. A great feature of these Gotoh tuners is that they're indiscernible from a standard 'vintage' set of tuners. They have that classic Kluson look, but they're locking. They're quite stiff right now, and I expect the action to loosen up as I use them more, but I'm not envisioning them really being used as heavily as a standard non-locking set.

Pickguard(s) - Because the body came setup for floyd pins on the bridge, I couldn't use a standard Strat guard. It turned out though, that Warmoth produces pickguards for this setup, so I ordered a pair of guards from them! I got this WBWPearloid one setup for single coils, and I got a WBW one for a pair of humbuckers that are still in the mail. Also, I hate the two tone system Leo setup. I much prefer a master tone/volume, so that's what I went with on both pickguards.

Electronics - On this pickguard I've set it up with a set of (what I believe is) Mexican strat pickups. They're pretty good to my ears, nothing superlative, but certainly very useable. I got them on another body that I modded and played around with. I no longer have much of that setup, but I did have these pickups. I hate hum, so they likely won't stay. It's a 5 position, so at least positions 2 and 4 are good for me. The pickups going in the other guard will be a set of Tom Anderson (my favourite pickup guy) Humbuckers, and will feature a 3 way switch. I may do coil tapping with the tone pot on that one, but I have to find the pot for doing that. The singles have a .047uf Mallory, no treble bleed, with 250K pot. The Humbuckers will likely have a set of 500Ks, no treble bleed, and a .022uF Mallory.

Anyway, enough on all that. Here's some pics. No sound yet, but on future demos you'll certainly be hearing it.





Glamour Shot:



Conductive Painted cavity:



Hope you've enjoyed!

Jacob

[GermanCdn]

Very nice, congrats.  I got a new baby coming later this week, you will like.

[GermanCdn]

Also, two other things:

1) Since you didn't put the second tone in, why not through a DPDT in the spot and make it a 7 setting strat

2) I've got a set of Vintage Noiseless I'd be more than happy to part with if you're interested.

[jkokura]

1) Since you didn't put the second tone in, why not through a DPDT in the spot and make it a 7 setting strat

Well, I could, but I think if I were to do it on this particular setup I'd add it as a push/pull pot on the tone.

The main reason I didn't was because I have my Larivee Super Strat type that is setup like that. I have the ability to add the bridge to the neck or to the neck/middle spots for those extra setups. Add in a series parallel switch for the bridge bucker, and I've got 11 different sounds available. Cool stuff, but more than anyone really needs. So, if I need any of those sounds, I'm reaching for that guitar, not this one.

I wanted to keep this as 'strat' like as I could. Although the Tom Anderson HBs will make it very non-strat like...

2) I've got a set of Vintage Noiseless I'd be more than happy to part with if you're interested.

Hmm... I might take you on that offer... For now, I'm waiting for those buckers to arrive.

Jacob

[jubal81]

(Whistle) Snazzy!

Great work, bud.

[croquet hoop]

Great choice of parts, and the final result looks super nice (love that glamour shot). I have a Warmoth chambered Strat body as well, but I still need to finish a neck to hear how it sounds (it's swamp ash/flame maple). Got the same tuners too (the staggered version)

It's not hard to reshape the headstock if you do not like the CBS shape, you don't even have to use the same lacquer after it has been cut if you do it with care. What finish did you chose for the neck, by the way, nitro (satin) or poly (gloss)?

[jkokura]

I'm not %100 certain of the finish, though I expect it to be poly. I did not buy either neck or the body straight from Warmoth. The neck I got from a guy I had bought another neck from (for my tele build) which is why I was only able to get the CBS style. He had it for sale, and I needed a strat neck, and it was a great deal, and I really wanted to get it from him after I was so impressed by the tele neck he sold me.

The body came from eBay. It popped up, and I had just taken the bridge off my Larivee and was wondering what I was going to do with a strat bridge for Floyd Bridge pins... I googled Warmoth body on eBay, this thing showed up, I bid on it in the dying seconds and won it for a good deal. Much less expensive on both parts than buying straight from Warmoth.

All told, I spent more than a used Mexi Strat, less than a used American, and I believe I got a used Deluxe or better in quality and parts. Perhaps even New Deluxe in quality vs. price.

Oh, and I won't reshape the headstock. There's no need. I don't prefer it, but if I really wanted to, I can just wait for a good deal on a similar neck with a different headstock shape and trade for or buy that one. I'm not that into DIY...

Jacob

[angrykoko]

That looks really great.
Love the red and really love the pickguard, I may have to pick one up for my strat.

I keep hearing Austin Powers in my head when look at the chair though

Seriously though, it looks great.. something about it is reminding me of my youth... I cant remember but I think I had a red strat style guitar back in my early 20's, some great times back then.

[gtr2]

Nice guitar and chair!

Josh

[gordo]

What a cool looking guitar.  Rethink the peghead.  I have a 71 strat that I butchered the neck on by replacing frets and sanding the finish off.  The neck is so beat that it likely won't hold up to another refret so I'm nursing it along.  It has the big peg head and although I've replaced the neck with a generic Fender and a really high end after market (both with pre-CBS pegheads) there's something to the added mass of the big peghead that the replacements couldn't hold a match to.  So I'm back to the shitty original neck.  It has an old set of Seymour Duncan pickups that Seymour wound for me when he was still a two man shop and his ad was a text box in the back pages of a GP mag.  Likely one of the first quarter pounders and a pair of vintage wound middle and neck.  The guitar is a piece of crap and plays as bad, but I've never found another strat that sounds as good.

It's like dating...the ugly ones know what they gotta do....  So you're way ahead of the game...

[ch1naski]

Want.

It's chambered AND universal routed?  It's pretty airy, no wonder it's resonant. Must sound dreamy even unplugged (which is a good sign for how good it'll sound amplified).


Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 4

[steveperiod]

i know you don't like it as much, but damn i love a cbs headstock on a strat. great looking project all the way around.

[jkokura]

It's chambered AND universal routed?  It's pretty airy, no wonder it's resonant. Must sound dreamy even unplugged (which is a good sign for how good it'll sound amplified).

Yeah, it plays loudly without being plugged in. Plus it's much lighter than pretty much all of my guitars, so it's super easy on my shoulder. I figure I'll end up using it whenever I'm playing any long gigs.

I've decided that I'm going to coil tap the Tom Anderson buckers when they get here. I like the single coil tones I'm getting out of this thing, so I'll have to find a 500K with a DPDT switch...

Anyone have a 24mm CTS pot with a push-pull switch on it they'll sell me?

Jacob

[raulduke]

Really nice guitar.

For P'ups I bought a set of Bare Knuckle Mules for my LP and they sing, but I think they may be quite expensive over in the US.

Either way I highly recommend trying them.