"Old" Lake Placid Blue Strat (Half-Warmoth)

[jay4321]

Japanese 62 RI body, Warmoth compound radius neck, GFS overwound 60's-70's pickups (outstanding), Earvana nut, Schaller tuners. One volume knob config.

Tonar from these forums did the neck finish & applied the nitro. I should get some more neck photos up because he did such an outstanding job. And yes, I like Fender decals on my Fender copies.

This is the second Earvana nut I've had made by Warmoth. Not sure if you can make it out in the photos but the nut is a bit crooked, I saw it the moment I opened the box... I hope that's not going to cause intonation problems. My Tele Deluxe Wamoth also had a somewhat shoddy Earvana job the first time, which had to be returned (though they took care of that and did a perfect job the 2nd time). Maybe the rounded cuts for the string lengths will "compensate" for the slight angle of the nut. We'll find out.

J

 

[jay4321]

Oh, and the cream-colored face dots don't work all that well with the OLPB & white pickguard. I thought I wouldn't notice, but I do.

The good news is that I also have a nice black strat body, and I think the neck will wind up on that one at some point. Seems like it would make more sense.

 

[mayfly]

Woah!  That looks great!

Very much willing to help get your wiring sorted so that guitar can be used properly.  Please post some pics of the underside of the pickguard so we can tweak it.

 

[Unwound G]

Good looking assembly.  Certainly deserves the Custom Shop label.

 

[Soylent]

Yeah! That's a beauty mate! Very jealous!  :guitaristgif:

 

[Tonar8352]

That guitar looks great.  I wish could take credit for that Lake Placid Blue finish, it looks very nice. 

 

[jay4321]

That guitar looks great.  I wish could take credit for that Lake Placid Blue finish, it looks very nice.  

You did enough more than enough getting a $135 neck to look this good. The contours where the neck meets the headstock look a ton better then they way they come from W.

 

[backhair]

great looking strat! tell us more about the pickups - i'm thinking of throwing some of the gfs 70s greybottoms into mine.

 

[jay4321]

great looking strat! tell us more about the pickups - i'm thinking of throwing some of the gfs 70s greybottoms into mine.

Well I'm mostly a humbucker guy and I've tried a lot of single coils, non-boutique but decent aftermarket sets from Fender Custom Shop, Seymour Duncan, Dimarzio and so on. I was looking for a little more juice than standard single coils for this project.

All told these are very punchy, and do have that overwound sound I know not everyone is a fan of. They're a little on the loud side but I'm running through an ISP Decimator (and an NS2 in the effects chain) which makes short work of those issues. But they're very clear and have sort of a modern tone as opposed to vintage. At this price point I can't recommend them enough, they suit me better than '69s (which were my favorite single coils). I don't know that they're for everyone, but at the price point I'd highly recommend then in a nice alder strat to check them out.