NGD, first in a long time

[Willybomb]

Was looking for a strat with a floyd when I found this thing on eBay.  It's a squier that the dude had dropped a floyd in.  By co-incidence, it turned out he was in my parent's town (interstate).  I gave them the money, they picked it up for me, and I finally got it in my hands yesterday.

No idea what the pickups are in it (I should measure the resistance at some stage), but I don't think the HB is stock as it's a different colour to the singles, slightly.  I was thinking about putting a reverse maple fretboard neck on it, but I'm digging the look so far.  A change of strings to 9-46 and a quick action adjustment and I'm pretty happy.  Might shim the neck slightly to get the action a mite lower.  Hate the volume knob placement though, as the pot spins too easy when I knock it.  I'll probably drop a tonezone or super distortion in (although I have some ibanez and peavey HBs around that measure around 15k) as I like hot pickups.  It has a cool set of strap locks on it - they screw into a base unit and the strap can still rotate.

Overall, not a bad buy.  Not too badly ripped off.  Seems like a solid guitar.

[mjg]

Nice.  My kid has a similar model, and yep, that volume knob.  I've considered taping it down, he always bumps it when playing!  Maybe you could fit it with a locking knob?

[jimilee]

I just saw a video, 5 mods you can do to your strat I think, they suggested getting some foam like you get in the box when you buy pick ups, and cut it circular to size, put it on the pot and then push the knob down on it. I've never had a problem myself, but now I know why the video exists. I love the fat head on that thing.

[galaxiex]

Cool! 

I like Strats but ya.... that volume knob. 

On mine I made a new pick guard (saved the original)
and re-wired for a master vol and tone in the original 2 tone locations.
No more bumping the vol when palm muting.

[bluescage]

Looks like a nice guitar!

[Willybomb]

I've spent the afternoon working on it.  The intonation is now much better but the action is going to suffer slightly from there being a radius mismatch between the neck (9.5in) and floyd, but not that much.  If I get too anal about it I can shim the saddles.

For some reason the pickup switch has the selections reversed, ie, humbucker towards the neck.  I'll fix that when I replace the pickups.  The HB measures 9k while the middle and neck measure 3k and 4k, and are pretty dull.

[jimilee]

Did you shim the neck?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[impycat1]

Was looking for a strat with a floyd when I found this thing on eBay.  It's a squier that the dude had dropped a floyd in.  By co-incidence, it turned out he was in my parent's town (interstate).  I gave them the money, they picked it up for me, and I finally got it in my hands yesterday.

No idea what the pickups are in it (I should measure the resistance at some stage), but I don't think the HB is stock as it's a different colour to the singles, slightly.  I was thinking about putting a reverse maple fretboard neck on it, but I'm digging the look so far.  A change of strings to 9-46 and a quick action adjustment and I'm pretty happy.  Might shim the neck slightly to get the action a mite lower.  Hate the volume knob placement though, as the pot spins too easy when I knock it.  I'll probably drop a tonezone or super distortion in (although I have some ibanez and peavey HBs around that measure around 15k) as I like hot pickups.  It has a cool set of strap locks on it - they screw into a base unit and the strap can still rotate.

Overall, not a bad buy.  Not too badly ripped off.  Seems like a solid guitar.

The strats with the larger 70's style head look better.
Thats a good one.
Very Ritchie Blackmore

[Willybomb]

No, haven't shimmed the neck yet.  That'll happen when I do the pickup swap.  I'm looking at a JB or a Steve's Special currently.

Anyone know of any decent hum free singles (haha) that aren't humbuckers per se, or rails?  What are the opinions on GFS?

[galaxiex]

No, haven't shimmed the neck yet.  That'll happen when I do the pickup swap.  I'm looking at a JB or a Steve's Special currently.

Anyone know of any decent hum free singles (haha) that aren't humbuckers per se, or rails?  What are the opinions on GFS?

My recent experience with GFS.

I recently bought a set of GFS "noiseless" Strat pickups.

These ones...  http://www.guitarfetish.com/Classic-Trucoil-Fixed-lead_p_24605.html

They are the TCVS True Coil Vintage Set. 7K / 6K/ 5.5K

The Strat I installed them in had 250K pots and with that, the pickups were very low output.
I changed out the pots for 500K and they are better, but still much lower output that any of my other Fender guitars with actual Fender single coils.

To be fair, GFS says to use 500K pots with humbuckers, but still I would have expected better (more) output.
Perhaps it's because they are "vintage" that the output is low.

Maybe their "Hot" wound noiseless have more output, but I thought then I might be getting away from the single coil sound.... IDK...

These GFS TCVS are 4 wire plus shield, they came with 2 of the wires already twisted and soldered, leaving the other 2 wires for hookup + the shield.
I installed them as the came out of the box.
Noise was just as bad as regular single coils.
(my house has a reeeeely baaaad "noise field" is several rooms where I simply cannot use single coils.)

A couple emails back and forth with GFS and it turned out the set they sent, were wired wrong.
Fixed that and the hum/buzz is much less, but not completely "noiseless".
Granted my situation (house) may be unusual. Or maybe not....

I'm still kinda disappointed with these pickups, re; the low output.

I'm gonna try a 1Meg vol pot and if that doesn't help, I'll see about sending them back.

Gotta give kudos to GFS for the help they gave me so-far, for figuring out the wiring.

HTH

Edit; I may bite the bullet and spring for an actual Fender noiseless Strat set....

Edit 2; Oh yeah... I had to router the pickup cavities deeper to fit the GFS set.