NGD finally here! Tobacco burst Swamp Ash HSS hotrod strat

[Steve St.Laurent]

Since it's complete now I figured I'd put this in here.  I FINALLY got my new mistress after 4 months worth of work and waiting!  Had a local luthier assemble it to make sure it was right and man did he spend the extra time to get every little detail right.  Here are the specs:

Schaller locking tuners (chrome)
Maple Warmoth Pro neck w/Indian rosewood fingerboard - Vintage tint satin finish
Custom logo designed by me on the headstock w/MADE IN USA and HOTROD STRAT (in the same font as the stratocaster on a fender headstock) and the Warmoth logo
1 11/16" nut width
Fender LSR roller nut
Standard thin neck contour
10"-16" compound radius fingerboard (22 frets)
SS6105 frets
Abalone dots
Custom polished aluminum neck plate with machined W Warmoth logo and an S'69 (letter of my name and year I was born)
Threaded inserts for neck attachment
Chambered swamp ash body with swamp ash laminate top (3 lbs 10 oz)
Tobacco burst finish front & back
front HSS route, top jack
Fender two point chrome tremolo
Black/White/Black pickguard
Hennessey deluxe chrome strap locks
Lace Holy grail pickups in neck and middle
Lace Dually Red/Silver humbucker pickup in bridge
Double Treble Python strap

Here are the switching options:

S1 switch (from american deluxe) in volume w/custom wiring allowing the following pickup options with the 5 way:

S1 Up:
1 - Bridge
2 - Bridge & middle in parallel
3 - Middle
4 - Middle & neck in parallel
5 - Neck

S1 Down:
1 - Bridge & middle in series
2 - Bridge & middle & neck in parallel
3 - Bridge & neck in parallel
4 - Bridge & neck in series plus middle in parallel
5 - Neck & middle in series

the top tone pot is a master tbx control pot which is a 2 way tone pot with a middle detent that allows you to cut treble or bass

bottom tone pot is a push/pull pot wired to work as a variable coil split for the humbucker so I can use either coil individually, both together, or one at full volume and the other at variable volume along with all the above options

and a fender passing lane switch to bypass the volume & tone pots and go straight to the humbucker

OMG - I'm in LOVE!  Huge thanks go out to:

Warmoth (of course)
Unofficial Warmoth (lots of information!)
TFN Technologies - did the custom wiring harness & switching ( http://home.earthlink.net/~tfntech/id20.html )
Double Treble custom guitar straps ( http://doubletreble.com/python.html )

and last but certainly not least:

Paul Schotzko from Elderly Instruments who did all the assembly and setup ( http://www.elderly.com )

Later this week I'm going to do a video and demo all the different switching options, etc - I'm having too much fun playing right now to take the time to do the video lol!

 

[Tonar8352]

Great job!  Now you’re in trouble, one is never enough.  :icon_smile:

 

[Cagey]

Very nice!

Tonar's right, though. Once is never enough. Finding out you can have such a premium instrument at a fraction of what the majors would charge just drives you to build the collection you've always wanted.

So, you live near Lansing? Been a while since I've been through Elderly's. Gonna have to make a pilgrimage one of these days.

 

[stubhead]

That is really, really close to what I would do if I would do a strat. A Jeff Beck fan, by any chance? Also, this:

bottom tone pot is a push/pull pot wired to work as a variable coil split for the humbucker so I can use either coil individually, both together, or one at full volume and the other at variable volume along with all the above options

You're really, really going to like this, also as those choices interact with the other pickups. I have something somewhat similar on my #1 "tele-shaped" guitar, a Lawrence L500XL in the bridge with it's own five-way - either coil, both in series, parallel or out-of-phase. And concentric V/T's for everybody...  The Lace and Lawrence pickups are similar, dead-clean power with enough trebla, mids and bass to shape in many directions.

Leaving the selector switch with two pickups on makes for some delicate balancing of outputs that gets you tones that just don't exist any other way. It's not the easiest, but it was good enough for Page, Allman, Peter Green, B.B. KIng and the like. Set a decent amp to sound right with your guitar on 7, 7, and 7 and you don't need an overdrive pedal. Try a JBL, Altec/Lansing, Black Widow or other high power clean PA speaker and the beast oughta sing...  :hello2:

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Tonar's right, though. Once is never enough. Finding out you can have such a premium instrument at a fraction of what the majors would charge just drives you to build the collection you've always wanted.

So, you live near Lansing? Been a while since I've been through Elderly's. Gonna have to make a pilgrimage one of these days.

Yeah, I live 30 minutes west of Lansing.  I'm in Elderly at least once every 2 weeks as I take lessons from Frog there.  I consider myself very lucky to have such a great shop right here in town.

I'm already planning future builds.  The next will probably be a tele but I need to do a lot of research first as I know nothing about tele's at this point.  I'm also designing some hardware to make a custom travel electric.

I've been playing it for the last 3 1/2 hours non stop and I'm in love!  With the chambered body it feels alive.

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

A Jeff Beck fan, by any chance? Also, this:

Try a JBL, Altec/Lansing, Black Widow or other high power clean PA speaker and the beast oughta sing...  :hello2:

Not particularly a Beck fan.  I just spent a lot of time researching my options and when I came across TFN tech and saw what kind of options he could offer it opened up the pearly gates   I talked with Tom at TFN quite a bit until we got what I wanted nailed down.  I wanted a very versatile guitar that would do almost everything I might want to do and this fits the description.  I play through a Digitech RP500 into a PA setup (you can see it all in the pic behind the guitar although it's slightly out of focus on purpose).  I went the PA route so that it wouldn't color the sound coming out of the RP500 so that I could utilize the amp/cabinet sims in it.

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Here's the videos I promised:

Part 1 is and intro and talking about the build and the options:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGfCoP_Vxyk

Part 2 is a sound demo of all the different options both clean and dirty:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m36sRugr0g

 

[KainThornn]

Beautiful guitar! :headbang:

 

[llmtelecaster]

Can somebody please tell me what NGD means?

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

NGD = new guitar day

 

[Cagey]

Can somebody please tell me what NGD means?

What Steve said. NGD = New Guitar Day. It's a personal holiday, almost on a par with LMVD (Lost My Virginity Day), but you get to keep the guitar. However, you may end up divorcing it. Much like sex partners, some guitars start out promising but eventually become a severe discomfort at the exit end of the alimentary canal. To be fair, it's usually not their fault. A better guitar comes along, and sometimes you just can't have both.

 

[llmtelecaster]

Can somebody please tell me what NGD means?

What Steve said. NGD = New Guitar Day. It's a personal holiday, almost on a par with LMVD (Lost My Virginity Day), but you get to keep the guitar. However, you may end up divorcing it. Much like sex partners, some guitars start out promising but eventually become a severe discomfort at the exit end of the alimentary canal. To be fair, it's usually not their fault. A better guitar comes along, and sometimes you just can't have both.

Ahhhh, I got ya. You know, you could always take out, oh let's say, a half-million dollar life insurance policy on them and then have them conveniently disappear.