The Black & Tan - first W project

[backhair]

After waiting 5 weeks for the neck and 6 weeks for my tech to put it together, I finally have my guitar. I'll try to find a proper camera and get some better pictures:

Body: 1pc alder 3lb 12oz - gunstock oil and wax finish
Neck: Superwide goncalo alves / jet black ebony / no face dots / fat profile
Bridge: Callaham hard-tail
Tuners: Planet Waves auto-trim
Pickups: neck = Vintage Vibe Guitars strat blade (Alnico 3) / middle = whatever came in the pickguard / bridge = GFS Lil Killer 10k

First things first - best guitar I've ever played, no joke. In another life, I was halfway decent at classical guitar (my nylon string is over 2" at the nut), so I'm used to wide necks. When I asked for a fat superwide, the guy taking my order told me "you know this is going to be a telephone pole, right?" As the weeks wore on, I grew apprehensive, thinking that maybe I'd gone too far. The second I felt this thing In my hands, it was like magic - the most comfortable neck I've ever played by far. Now I'm worried I won't be able to settle for anything else.

The hype about raw necks is well deserved. I didn't think it would be much different from a satin finish, but it really is. Once you start playing, it almost feels like there's nothing there.

Shot a quick video with more details and some sound clips. Click through to youtube for the HQ version.

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBtv5Ow9twc[/youtube]

 

[DocNrock]

Nice build...even if it is a lefty.  :icon_biggrin:

 

[tfarny]

Very cool! That's the kind of thing that makes you swear off of store-bought guitars forever. I'm really curious about the pickup choices though - you seem to be really careful about everything else and the finish is beautiful, so I'm not sure if you carefully picked those pickups ('whatever' in the middle, etc.) or not - it's really the main determinant of the guitar's sound, and once you hear some great ones it's pretty darn hard to go back to 'whatever' -  most guys are very particular about their pups!
Anyhow great stuff.

 

[Xplorervoodoo]

Cool guitar bro!  :icon_thumright:

 

[m4rk0]

I love it!
could be closely related to my swamp ash strat!!!

 

[Nando Vallart]

I like!

 

[Superlizard]

W00t!

Lefties R00l!  :icon_thumright:

 

[backhair]

Very cool! That's the kind of thing that makes you swear off of store-bought guitars forever. I'm really curious about the pickup choices though - you seem to be really careful about everything else and the finish is beautiful, so I'm not sure if you carefully picked those pickups ('whatever' in the middle, etc.) or not - it's really the main determinant of the guitar's sound, and once you hear some great ones it's pretty darn hard to go back to 'whatever' -  most guys are very particular about their pups!
Anyhow great stuff.

Yeah, It would have to be really special for me to buy something off the rack after this - I basically had a completely custom guitar built and setup for about what an American Standard strat would cost. I was chomping at the bit to have this thing finished, so I didn't put as much thought into the pickups as I should have. In a perfect world, there would only be neck pickups and clean amps, but alas, if you want to play rock, you need some grit and a humbucker in the bridge.  :guitaristgif:

I'm actually thinking about ordering a loaded pg from Vintage Vibe with an all-blade set. My biggest concern about pickups for this is making sure that the pole-piece alignment at the neck isn't completely out of whack.

As for all the lefty comments; sorry, it's a righty, that's just the camera playing tricks.

 

[erogenousjones17]

Great looking guitar. Very clean. I really like the lack of fret markers; for some reason it sets the whole thing off for me. I Have to agree with tfarny about the pickups though.

Also, I'm not sure about this comment... :laughing7:

alas, if you want to play rock, you need some grit and a humbucker in the bridge.  :guitaristgif:

 

[tfarny]

Well, I have the exact same bridge and it's pretty wide, but that's what the original strat polepieces were supposed to align to anyhow - the wide neck won't affect polepiece alignment as much as the bridge spacing. Also, I'm not convinced the pole pieces need to line up exactly anyhow - they cast a circular magnetic field and there is plenty of overlap. I highly recommend you to try the Dimarzio area series pickups - I have a '58 neck and bridge and VV 54 pro for a big fat bridge sound. Ridiculously good vintage sounds if that's what you're after, and no noise. And soldering your own is pretty easy actually.
And, ah, I'm pretty sure you can play rock and roll with single coil bridges!

 

[GoDrex]

As for all the lefty comments; sorry, it's a righty, that's just the camera playing tricks.

Thank God! :laughing7:

 

[blue313]

I'm actually thinking about ordering a loaded pg from Vintage Vibe with an all-blade set. My biggest concern about pickups for this is making sure that the pole-piece alignment at the neck isn't completely out of whack.

Your current "whatever" pickup can be a decent indicator as to how the others are going to line up.  From the sound of the build it doesn't seem that there's much taper to the string spacing.

That's one killer working man's Strat.  :icon_thumright:

 

[m4rk0]

You are not quite as hairy as I imagined you to be!

 

[Superlizard]

As for all the lefty comments; sorry, it's a righty, that's just the camera playing tricks.

Heresy!  (heheh)