NGD new guitar day.

[eniacmike]

I just bought a new guitar. 1987 MIJ 54' hartail stratocaster reissue. Pickups upgraded to fender custom shop 54's everything else stock. I think they did a really good job on the details. Button string tree, 8 hole 1 ply pick gaurd, truss rod on the body side, and kluson no-line tuners. The only things that are different are the 5 way selector, poly finish, and the knobs are a little off (54's had football selector switches and shorter skirt knobs) I paid $550 with the tweed case and he gave me the original pickups.

My concerns were noise, vintage frets, and the vintage neck but there is no noise, I like the frets, and the neck feels good to me. I was a little worried about not having a tremolo bridge, but I knew 95% of the time I would never use it, and I would probably end up blocking it up anyways.



I probably won't do anything to it except maybe get some aged knobs to match the pup covers.



It's a really light body without the trem bridge very comfortable to hold, and the sustain is awesome.

[crashguitar]

Congratulations. She is beautiful.

[madbean]

That is a score!

[gtr2]

mmm I want a strat again 

[CapnCrunch]

Congrats!

I love the MIJ strats, and I'd love to have a "50's" model sunburst like yours.  I have two, and they are both blonde.

Have fun with it.

[eniacmike]

Yeah I really wanted to find a black one and do the gilmour thing with a black pickguard but the burst is really cool too. It reminds me of ronnie woods strat.

The guy who sold it to me also had a MIJ 62' reissue basically the same strat with a rosewood fretboard and a mint pickguard I told him when he's ready to sell it to give me a call. It played really nice and had the trem bridge.

I am really thinking about building a 5e3 kit from weber this christmas to go with this guitar though. vintage on a budget thats my thing. I am just a little scared of working with MAINS voltage but I have a friend who builds amps all the time and another friend who builds boutique amps so I know I can get good advice.

[jkokura]

Mike, that's a really pretty guitar. I really like strats without trem's personally too. Nice NGD! I had one this summer, and epi Dot and I still can't put that thing down!

Jacob

[CapnCrunch]

Yeah I really wanted to find a black one and do the gilmour thing with a black pickguard but the burst is really cool too. It reminds me of ronnie woods strat.

The guy who sold it to me also had a MIJ 62' reissue basically the same strat with a rosewood fretboard and a mint pickguard I told him when he's ready to sell it to give me a call. It played really nice and had the trem bridge.

I am really thinking about building a 5e3 kit from weber this christmas to go with this guitar though. vintage on a budget thats my thing. I am just a little scared of working with MAINS voltage but I have a friend who builds amps all the time and another friend who builds boutique amps so I know I can get good advice.

I love Gilmour's black strat.  I bought my second MIJ strat because it is a maple neck.  I've been looking for the right black strat body to put one together.

As far as the 5e3 build goes, I have some advice, for what it's worth.  I've built a 5e3 clone.  It was my first amp build, and I looked around for a while before I decided to go with a kit.  I had never built an amp before, so I figured a kit was the way to go.  I decided against Weber based on parts quality.  I built a Mission Amps kit.  I'd highly recommend Mission as a great option for a couple of reasons.  First, the kit comes with top quality parts.  Second, Bruce Collins, the owner of Mission Amps, is a great guy to deal with and offers great customer service.  If you have problems, he'll help you.

Since you have a couple of amp building buddies.  You could also have them help you source parts and go without a kit.  This would allow you to build the amp as a head with high quality parts.  Something you really won't get from Weber.  If I had it to do over again, I'd get a beefier output transformer to help tighten up the low end.  That's the only sniggle I have with the 5e3 circuit.  Parts quality definitely makes a difference in amps.  Get the best Transformers you can afford.  Don't go cheap on pots, switches, and tube sockets.  Also, consider the SOZO blue Astron replacement capacitors.  They make a very noticeable difference, though they are expensive.  Some will tell you to use all carbon comp resistors, but I don't think you have to use them everywhere.  Here is a link to an article on the use of carbon comps to get that "magic mojo".  If you need help sourcing part PM me, and I'll give you links to some of suppliers I have used.

http://www.geofex.com/article_folders/carbon_comp/carboncomp.htm

Also, I wouldn't worry too much about the hype that working with amp voltages can kill you.  It's possible, but if you are careful, you will be fine.  The most important things to learn are to keep one hand in your pocket while you are working inside a chassis when high voltage is present, and how to drain your power supply caps, so high voltage is not present.  Amp building, like pedal building,  it is addictive.  I can almost guarantee that you will want to build several more amps when you are done with the Deluxe.

Good luck and have fun!

[eniacmike]

thanks for the tips. I heard good things about mission, although their website is confusing.

I am not really a big mojo guy I would never go tracking down some mojo caps or resistors. I have alot of friends who don't know the first thing about electronics and they talk about carbon comp and mojo caps and they don't even know what a resistor does.