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First Build Black Strat

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drewski

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Some cell phone pic updates of my first warmoth strat build......

Here is the parts all laying together for color scheme purposes only...black alder body from the showcase with all black hardware....black bridge....black jack plate.....black screws......the neck plate will be black...the tuners will be black.....figured there are enough black strats with nickel hardware out there, im not goth I swear im a classic rock player  :toothy12: but went with a tortoiseshell pickguard that I had lying around to give it some color

http://www.flickr.com/photos/drucinski/11254021753/

So black Friday sales went out and I got myself the pickups....im trying a set of Duncan vintage rails as shown.....I think im going to try to strip the logo off the front if I can do it....just looks like an eyesore to me going with the all black. Wiring assembly is not soldered yet but will be come Monday. once again going with the black knobs screws and switch tip. I considered getting knobs with no markings on them again to go with the all black but I had these laying around also so on they go.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/drucinski/11254021273

SO yesterday tried my hand at installing the vintage 6 hole tremolo. No sweat!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/drucinski/11254020813

And going with the 5 springs in the back. I don't use the trem usually but did not want to go hardtail. considering going with a block ala the Clapton strats but I think this will do fine. BUT I probably should have waited and ran my grounding wire to the claw before I installed the springs. Oops.  :laughing11:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/drucinski/11254020573

So Monday ill solder everything together then basically the body is done except for all the holes ill be needing to drill for the pickguard mounting, strap buttons, jack plate. (so basically its not done at all). now the wait for the neck I ordered. I went with the vintage modern strat neck. Jumbo frets, 9.5 radius. Vintage tint satin finish. I copied the stats on the neck of my current favorite strat more or less. Really think the vint tint is gonna look nice up against the black and tortoise pickguard. Very interested to see how my choice of pickup came out but the whole idea is if I don't like em, rip em out and try again  :evil4:


Now if I could only read the letters in this little box to verify I am a human and make my post go..
 
That's gonna be great. I loves me a black guitar. Only problem with them is they're like black cars - they're nearly impossible to keep presentable. Every fleck of dust and every fingerprint shows up like neon. But, who cares? When they're presentable, they're beautiful!

I have a Jazzmaster I'm working on at the moment that's gonna finally be my "blacker than black" fiddle. No chrome or color at all, unless you count the frets and the birdseye behind the fretboard. And who knows? At some point, I may refinish the neck and make that black, too! <grin>
 
Thanks Cagey.....I thought about the whole black car thing myself but wanted to keep it simple this time....maybe next time ill upgrade to the rear-routed quilted maple top dyed turquoise strat body.....but this is a good way to cut my teeth methinks
 
Y'know... I've got a couple/few guitars with the super-fancy tops and all the bling-bling to go with them, and I find I don't play them. Probably gonna get rid of them. You get a guitar that's just so precious you don't even wanna touch it, and what good is it? It sits in the case or on the stand or hangs on the wall, and everybody goes "Ooooh!" and "Aaahhh!", but in the end it's just a piece of art. You don't dare take it out and use it. I'm not rich enough or have enough room to be that impractical.
 
Mmmh, delicious build - congrats!

I like black strats too. I have recently built one that was almost entirely black (neck, ebony fretboard, headstock, tuners, back, pickguard, pickups), only blue dye quilt maple top. Looks great, plays great, sounds great (there is a thread in the strat section).

If it was me, I would prefer a black pickgurd on your guitar, perhaps with a white rim, over the tortoise but that is a matter of persoal preference of course.

Cagey, I hear you with respect to the beautiful looking guitars that don't get played ... I eventually got over it and just play them, not minding if a guitar eventually may also look like a players instrument. But the joy of looking at a wall full of pretty guitars is undeniable :-)
 
Frank67 said:
Cagey, I hear you with respect to the beautiful looking guitars that don't get played ... I eventually got over it and just play them, not minding if a guitar eventually may also look like a players instrument. But the joy of looking at a wall full of pretty guitars is undeniable :-)
Click to expand...

Good point.
 
yeah I considered the black pickguard too and the jury is still out that I might decide do go with that down the road. but I had the tort on hand, so that gets first crack. gives it a little contrast. but the nice thing is a few screws and I can have any look I want  :toothy10:
 
my old man stopped by today and we wired everything up. Amazingly everything works and we didn't cook anything! Blurry cell pic:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/drucinski/11296906866/

When I ordered the body I did so in a SSS pickup route config. I should have had them route for a humbucker in the bridge. Getting the wires to flow across and down is TIGHT. you can see where the two wires for neck and middle have been re routed around the bridge pickup. And that bridge pickup wiring is tight with the leftmost edge of the route. So grabbed a dremel and held my breath and cussed myself out for not ordering the swimming pool route and carved out a little bit more room for the wires to be run.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/drucinski/11296883385

no sweat. everything fits like a dream. Im sure I cost myself boatloads of tone and sustain though  :laughing7: Hooked her up to an amp and made sure everything worked. Position 1. Neck. No problem.

Position 2. Neck and Middle. Problem.

The neck pickup worked fine in position one but cut out when we switched to position 2. Middle pickup was fine. How could that have been?

After checking things out I squeezed the terminals on the switch so it was a little closer to the little piece of metal that actually moves with the switch. For whatever reason that was displaced enough so that the neck worked fine by itself but the switch lost connectivity with the neck pickup terminal when clicked into position 2. Odd. Going to have to keep that in mind if I have trouble with it down the road.

Solder iron didn't have enough juice to heat up the trem claw for the ground connection. I just shoved the wire into a spring for now. Probably will solder the ground wire to a terminal that I can attach to one of the screws for the claw rather than solder directly to the claw.

Shes starting to look like a guitar now and not a pile of parts! also scraped off that crap Seymour Duncan logo with some sandpaper. Probably could touch that up some. But boy was that bothering me.

now I wait for warmoth to do the neck and send her out

http://www.flickr.com/photos/drucinski/11296948924

edit: derped the living daylights out of my flickr links.....


 
ah yes you did a much better job of tying those cables off the short of it is I goofed (measure 0 times and cut) and stripped the wires down and went well I guess I have to do it this way now but the bridge pickup route still seemed pretty tight im not convinced I wouldn't have had to dremel a hair out of there I really didn't like the sharp break in the bridge pickup wire to route it to the control cavity.....but hey...no one will know.....except for everybody I told here  :laughing11:
 
Hmm. I only have one SSS routed Strat body, and I realised I can't compare, because it has EMGs in it. As you can see from this image, the wire comes off of an EMG parallel to the length of the pickup:

emg-sa-x_2.jpg


So it naturally finds its way through the tight holes.

My favourite is the swimming pool rout. You can do absolutely anything you want with that, and have space to spare. I even put two humbuckers in one, with a battery between them.

ActivePassiveBackofPickguard.jpg
 
Is that an active pickup and a passive pickup, without buffering? Those aren't going to mix, with such dissimilar output impedances.
 
Bit difficult to tell from that image, but the two pickups were wired to two different jacks.

[flash=560,315]http://www.youtube.com/v/fcooA3rrcPw?version=3&amp;hl=en_US[/flash]
 
Great video - I liked the way you worked each sound in.  Could you have used a single stereo jack or would the common ground be a problem?
 
just got an email from UPS...neck and neck hardware on its way

is it a faux pas to hug the UPS guy.....askin for a friend....... :toothy10:
 
Hehe! Yeah, probably. Probably depends on the UPS guy <grin>

Our regular UPS guy seems to be hip to some of the stuff I get. Every once in a while, I'll be at the door when he delivers and he always says "Whew! I'm glad you're home! Would have hated to leave this outside!" I would credit that with just being polite or conscientious, but he only says it when it's a neck or a whole guitar, which leads me to believe he has a good idea what's in the box.

But, I don't hug him. I just reholster my Glock and smile at the intimacy of life and death <grin>
 
drewski said:
just got an email from UPS...neck and neck hardware on its way

is it a faux pas to hug the UPS guy.....askin for a friend....... :toothy10:
Click to expand...

Not a problem, if he looks like this .....  :icon_biggrin:
 

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