Jonesin' for a new Strat...

[DustyCat]

Not sure how to structure this thread but, very happy repeat Warmoth customer, your advice welcome. 
Basically, I've chased my tail with small variety of guitars and have come full circle, since my first electric guitar 20 years ago...to replace and retired my Squire Strat with EMG's. She's earned retirement.
So here goes:
Stratocaster, chambered body with "f" hole (2 f holes?), and (gasp!) 2-Tek Bridge.
I also found a top that I'd like to compliment with a satin finish and S-S-H pickups mounted direct to body (so no pickguard).
All the contoured trimmings, also every great option like straploks (Schaller, the good ones)
I guess that mandates a rear rout for electronics (I wanna go EMG's again).
I'd like (...if only for testing my new hypothesis...) to have this guitar as resonant as possible.
My theory (from the local bell choir at church) is that if the guitar were made out of metal, like a bell, and rang like a bell, that would only be a good thing (who knows, maybe not). But that's the direction I'm going...those bells sound so good...
I'm noticing the gaping holes for the rear rout and the 2-tek bridge...Do these routs compromise resonance? That's a pretty big hole for the 2-Tek Bridge...
I'm pretty nimble with my fingers, I can go pretty slim...surgical...if necessary, if the instrument sounds more alive...I'd like it to sound more a live/resonant...i think...
Battery box...I have one of these on a strat and yes it is quite handy, but is it possible to have the rear rout cavity cover have a battery box BUILT IN? I'm thinking of a back door with a doggy door...but for the guitar. In fact, that could be a new coin "Doggy door" for guitar that you can use
Do they make the 2-Tek bridge in black/gun metal?
Can the 2-Tek Bridge come in a piezo model also?
I used to love my SADDLE SAVERS (graphite) so smooth, NEVER break a string. How does the 2-Tek bridge accommodate strings?
Finally, I find neck dive annoying, especially with my Swamp Ash Thinline Tele with new Warmoth Padouk neck. It just flops over if I'm not careful. To compensate I was thinking...
about going with a heavier wood for my new Strat body to compensate for the weight reduction from the chambered and the 'f' hole. A warmoth rep said Zebrawood was just too monster heavy, but that was without the chambering and the f hole. F hole just looks so good.
What wood do you guys recommend? My first thought was mahogany.
I'd like something that sounds really good EVEN when NOT PLUGGED IN!
Good to me means full and clear and resonant
At least for my ears.
I dont mind a heavier wood to compensate for neck dive (to balance the weight reduction).
Anyways thanks in advance for your help, I just love these custom options. It feels like an arcade...

 

[musicispeace]

I have one chambered strat body with a thick, boatneck neck on it and have experienced no neck dive whatsoever. So the fact that you have that top strap button as far forward as it is on a strat you should be fine. I also have a solid alder body strat with a Bubinga neck that is heavier than maple and again, no dive issues. So you should be OK on that end. I believe the lightest possible bodies currently on the market are roasted swamp ash so even with chambering you should still be in the neighborhood of a normal 4 pound plus body.

I believe Warmoth offers a doggy door battery compartment for your EMGs. From what I have gleaned its better and less stressful to have them do it rather than try to DIY add it after you get a guitar body shipped to you. Others here will have to comment on your other questions or on the subject of unplugged resonance. It's funny that my most unplugged resonant guitar that i practice with while watching TV is an old Yamaha Pacifica  that just rings unplugged and is actually enjoyable to play that way. It may have a basswood body for all I know but is certainly a solid body. My best sounding (through an amp) parts strat is almost inaudible unplugged by comparison if I have the TV on. Best luck on your project and keep us posted.

 

[mayfly]

Hmmm.  Don't know about strat stuff, but for that doggy door battery box on the back cover plate I think you'll have to cut the plate yourself.

 

[Logrinn]

Not so, this is what I put on my Fender Super-Sonic:

Link: https://www.allparts.com/PG-0548-025-White-Backplate_p_2572.html

 

[DustyCat]

Not so, this is what I put on my Fender Super-Sonic:

Link: https://www.allparts.com/PG-0548-025-White-Backplate_p_2572.html

I was planning on going with direct mounted pickups. Don't they need a rear routed cavity for the wiring?

 

[Logrinn]

They do. And that rear cavity comes with it's cover (with no "door"). But I was thinking about the trem cavity (which is what the cover I showed is for). I believe the Clapton strat uses part of the trem cavity for a battery compartment. And with this kind of plate with a door, you'd get pretty easy access to the battery.
Could be an option. And then again, it shouldn't be too hard making a "door" in the rear cavity cover.

 

[Cagey]

In order to avoid routing the body, I've mounted battery boxes on the rear control cavity cover a couple times and it's worked out ok...

You need to make sure you've got room to do it, so watch for interference from switches/pots. Cutting the hole isn't too demanding, as the battery box itself usually has a flange mount that will cover up holes that are less than beautiful. No need to make a template so you can route something clean.

Note that some battery boxes have springy contacts inside that the battery terminals touch, so you just slide a battery in and close the door you're done. Seems like a good idea that's quite convenient, but not all batteries will clear the polarity blocks molded into the housing, so you end up having to bend the negative battery terminal to force the issue, which is not reliable. You put a battery in, and the guitar doesn't work so you wonder if it's in backwards and flip it around. Still doesn't work, so you wonder if the battery is dead and go in search of a replacement. Assuming you have one, you put it in and it still doesn't work because you forgot to squish the terminal. You squish the terminal, and now it works, but it's intermittent. If you don't smash the guitar at this point, you're at least questioning the wisdom of having a battery in a guitar in the first place. Everybody said "Don't do it! You'll be sorry!", but of course you ignored them because you're smarter than they are. ARRGGHH!!!

What I'm saying is, get a battery box that has a clip. Less chance of things going pear-shaped at an inopportune moment. At least, until one of the flimsy little wires break and the guitar is useless until you can get to a soldering iron and a replacement clip.

 

[Logrinn]

Nice solutions you've got there.
And I totally agree on the whole battery thing issue. Active pickups? Why? What's the point?
Then of course ... YMMV and all that.

Anyway, merry christmas Cagey! :rock-on:

 

[Cagey]

Thanks! And a merry Christmas to you, too!

In the past I've been against the idea of batteries in a guitar, if for no other reason than the buggers are liable to leak and destroy something. But, while it can still happen, that's not the problem it used to be. Modern batteries have shelf lives measured in years, so that risk is acceptably small. Of course, you still have the dependency issues associated with requiring power for operation of the instrument and the reliability issues mentioned earlier.

Still, having power onboard does open up some interesting possibilities - mainly the ability to use a preamp - which broadens the types of pickups and tone controls possible. In my case, I have a set of Fishman Fluence "single coil" style pickups installed on the Velocity, which sound pretty sweet. There's a set of Fishman Fluence "humbucker" style pickups installed on one of my Soloists, but I haven't heard those yet. I have a set of EMG actives on one of my VIPs. Not as impressed with those, but they're usable.

In addition to a set of Seymour Duncan Hot Rodded Humbuckers, I also have a set of Graphtech "Ghost" piezoelectric transducer saddles installed on one of my Jazzmasters. So far, they're... interesting. Not what I expected at all. Don't let anybody kid you - piezos on an electric do not make it sound like an acoustic by any stretch of the imagination. But, I haven't put any time into them yet. I have a little acoustic simulator stompbox, one of those new T.C. Electronic "Mimiq" doubler stompboxes, and an Axe Fx II. I think between those three bits of electronic wizardry and a bit of tweaking, I should be able to get a believable acoustic 6 string, 12 string and a pretty wide variety of electric sounds out of a single guitar.

 

[TBurst Std]

Thanks! And a merry Christmas to you, too!

In the past I've been against the idea of batteries in a guitar, if for no other reason than the buggers are liable to leak and destroy something. But, while it can still happen, that's not the problem it used to be. Modern batteries have shelf lives measured in years, so that risk is acceptably small. Of course, you still have the dependency issues associated with requiring power for operation of the instrument and the reliability issues mentioned earlier.

Still, having power onboard does open up some interesting possibilities - mainly the ability to use a preamp - which broadens the types of pickups and tone controls possible. In my case, I have a set of Fishman Fluence "single coil" style pickups installed on the Velocity, which sound pretty sweet. There's a set of Fishman Fluence "humbucker" style pickups installed on one of my Soloists, but I haven't heard those yet. I have a set of EMG actives on one of my VIPs. Not as impressed with those, but they're usable.

In addition to a set of Seymour Duncan Hot Rodded Humbuckers, I also have a set of Graphtech "Ghost" piezoelectric transducer saddles installed on one of my Jazzmasters. So far, they're... interesting. Not what I expected at all. Don't let anybody kid you - piezos on an electric do not make it sound like an acoustic by any stretch of the imagination. But, I haven't put any time into them yet. I have a little acoustic simulator stompbox, one of those new T.C. Electronic "Mimiq" doubler stompboxes, and an Axe Fx II. I think between those three bits of electronic wizardry and a bit of tweaking, I should be able to get a believable acoustic 6 string, 12 string and a pretty wide variety of electric sounds out of a single guitar.

Cagey, for an acoustic sound from the piezos and the AXE, dl an acoustic guitar IR. Use that as your speaker.  Use the tube preamp as your amp. Keep the gain down. Use a parametric EQ on your mids.  Gets you quite close with SC pups. For HBs cut those mods more playing with the Q

 

[Cagey]

Silly me. I completely forgot I could do that. Excellent idea, and thank you very much!

 

[TBurst Std]

Silly me. I completely forgot I could do that. Excellent idea, and thank you very much!

It works quite well with my Godin with piezos. And not even too bad with SCs.

 

[DustyCat]

Merry Christmas too!

Do you guys notice a difference in tone with guitars that have pickups mounted directly to the body (rear rout) vs. pickguard (top rout?

Call me crazy, but I'm trying to go for maximum resonance. My concern is the massive cavity of the 2-Tek Bridge.  ???

 

[fdesalvo]

Merry Christmas too!

Do you guys notice a difference in tone with guitars that have pickups mounted directly to the body (rear rout) vs. pickguard (top rout?

Call me crazy, but I'm trying to go for maximum resonance. My concern is the massive cavity of the 2-Tek Bridge.  ???

Mercy Christmas!  In my opinion, the neck (with a vintage trussrod) is more responsible for creating a deep and resonant tone than is the body.

The 2teks have mixed reviews and what's most important is the type of tone you are gunning for.  Modern bridges and hardware will not do a great job of replicating vintage tones, but can get you close enough with less hassle.  Case in point - the aforementioned bridge increases string separation, a tone you may or may not like. 

 

[Cagey]

Do you guys notice a difference in tone with guitars that have pickups mounted directly to the body (rear rout) vs. pickguard (top rout? Call me crazy, but I'm trying to go for maximum resonance. My concern is the massive cavity of the 2-Tek Bridge.  ???

No. Sonically, there are no advantages/disadvantages. Mounting the pickup directly to the body basically does three things for you. First, it allows you to go without a pickup mounting ring, which some find more aesthetically pleasing. Second, it makes it more difficult to set pickup height.  Finally, it increases the risk that the mounting will get loose due to mechanical disadvantages.

As an aside, Eddie VanHalen did it on his "Frankenstrat" because he couldn't find a mounting ring when he was assembling the thing, but it encouraged a lot of people who wanted to sound like him to do the same thing to their guitars.

Clearly an insightful and talented luthier​

Little did they know it was actually the strap locks that gave him that signature "VanHalen" sound. Silly humans!

As for resonance, if you want the maximum possible, you may want to consider buying/building an acoustic guitar. Electric guitar bodies have far too much mass to resonate much in response to a few grams of vibrating strings. The neck will respond to a degree, subtracting or diminishing some frequencies, but the body pretty much stays in place.

 

[zebra]

I did a search for images of guitars with 2-Tek installed, because I was interested in how they actually looked when installed.  Very little of the bridge shows, the saddles cover most of it.  If you install black Graphtech saddles, that's almost all you'll see.  They also sell surrounds, to give a more finished look.  You might be able to modify the finish on the surround.  I haven't tried it myself, just trying to contribute....

As for the piezo, someone did a Jazzmaster build on the forum a few years ago, and gave some good info on how he went about it.  One of my all-time favorite builds on the forum - really clean look:

http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=21469.msg317828#msg317828

Lace markets its pickups as an alternative to active pickups/pickups needing batteries.  Some folks think they are "sterile," but people say they same thing about EMGs, so if you already like EMGs, that's not an issue for you.  The Alumitones are broad-spectrum, low-noise, and maintain their signal will driving lots of processing/long cables - all the stuff people like about EMGs.  Something you might want to consider, esp. if you'll need a battery box for a piezo unit. 

Sounds like a cool build - I'm interested in 2teks and piezos myself, so I'm curious to see what you do. 

 

[DustyCat]

Okay thanks guys. I'll probably go with a pickguard to eliminate any complications. Also those body scratches may be rare but they do happen from time to time.  :doh:

Thanks for sharing your build with us Zebra.

Happy new year!

 

[Updown]

My concern is the massive cavity of the 2-Tek Bridge.  ???

Ha Ha Ha .....  you are kidding  :laughing7:

I reckon there is more wood taken out on a normal Trem route than a 2Tek.

My SG 2Tek  http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=20346.0

 

[Cagey]

Hey, Updown! Long time no see! You should come around more often!

Speaking of Yellow Terror, that inspired me to buy an SG kit from one of the suppliers of such things and my intention is to dress it out in much the same way - caution yellow w/ black hardware. Not going to do a 2Tek, but in the interest of generating headaches, spending lotsa money on a bridge and brightening up what's usually a somewhat warm-sounding guitar, I'm thinking of putting a Hannes bridge on it...

What's going to be even more weird is I bought the kit in the middle of the night off eBay, somehow not noticing that it's a 7-string instrument. I have enough trouble with 6 strings, so this one's probably gonna go on the auction block when done. Whatever. It'll keep me out of trouble next summer, and force me to build a jig I've wanted for a while now - something to paint set-neck guitars on. Should be fun.

 

[DustyCat]

Is wenge easy to sand by hand?