Zebrawood Strat

jackthehack

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Body: Warmoth hollow chambered alder body with Zebrawood laminate top, all chrome hw, hard to tell from photo but that's a mint green pickguard with aged creme knobs/PU covers; oil stained and shot with 12 coats of nitro

Neck: Warmoth Vintage Modern one piece Indian Rosewood neck, corian nut, Sperzel locking tuners, 6105 frets

Electronics: Fender Custom Shop '69 pickups, vintage wiring with CTS pots, NOS .050 cap

zebrafront.jpg



zebraback.jpg
 
lllllllllllllllllllllllovin the zebra body and that skunk stripe on the neck is the coolest. the fiinsh on the alder back it a perfect shade to complement the neck and top man that is a nice build.
 
Hmm, let me go check....

5 finished Warmoth Strats
1 Unfinished Warmoth Black Korina Strat
1 Unfinished Warmoth Black Strat, have "vintage" neck of questionable vintage, may order another neck
1 Unfinshed Warmoth Tele Deluxe
Enough parts to finish another couple of guitars, but may wind up buying more parts as I don't like the way they go together, may evolve into 3 guitars

Cherry vintage (early 80's?) Epiphone "Dot" ES-335, trashed electronics, installed Seymour Duncan '59s
Late 90's cherry set-neck Epiphone reissue of '57 TV model Les Paul - seeking vintage P90s to update electronics
Early 90's Gibson Melody Maker II
Fender Custom Telecaster, black with cream binding, dual Duncan humbuckers
Ltd. Edition Ovation all Koa acoustic-electric

Just got rid of a '77 Fender Strat, trying to make up my mind right now whether to order the only unfinished flame maple LPS or go with wild maple VIP, neck availability for either in Showcase SUX right now


 
Nice colors and contrast, I've always thought Zebra wood looked pretty cool in the body gallery, though very personal, almost a like it or hate it look..........I like it, This guitar has a really clean look to it, I would love to hear how the woods sound together........can you describe it for us??????   

Being your such a serious Strat player, do you have a favorite Pickup Combo for Strat tones??????

I ask because somewhere along the line Im gonna have to build a True Strat, Callaham Trem, Alder body, Wenge neck ....so Im looking for the ultimate Strat pickup, (if that exist),  so many say Lindy Fralin, so I was wondering if you like Fralins over Fender????

sorry bout all the questions........ :)
 
Wow, that's kind of like asking which of all the women I've slept with was best, there's no real answer, but I'll try.

I've done a LOT of experimentation, one great thing about eBay is that if you can do a pro job of wiring, you can always prewire a pickguard with the set and get your money back and even make a couple of bucks profit on occasion.

Personally, I think Fralins are a bit over-rated; I bought a set of the "Real 54s", but find the Fender Custom Shop 54s superior and eBayed the Fralins.

So far, the "Strat" sound combinations I like best are:

1.) Vintage: Fender Custom Shop '54s/69s on hollow chambered alder bodies with exotic wood tops
2.) Hot/Hendrixesque: Fender Custom Shop SRV Texas Specials on hollow chambered alder bodies with exotic wood tops
3.) MegaHot: Fender Custom Shop SRV Texas Specials or GFS '64 Overwound Staggers in neck/mid position, Seymour Duncan Lil '59 or
JB Jr in single coil form factor in solid mahoghany/walnut bodies.

Those are just my own sordid personal preferences....

What kind of a sound are you trying to get out of the Strat you're going to build? If you're trying to replicate a particular player's sound, reseach what kind of pickups they're using and maybe try using that set, if you buy them cheap enough you can always eBay them and get most of your money back and go from there....

As to what the Zebrawood Strat sounds like, I'm in the process of recording something with it, will post a link when done, don't wait up....

 
Hey Superbeast  I wind my own pickups, and they sound very strat like.  Buy a pickup kit from stew mac. you will have to figure out how to wind it and count the windings ( I bought the winder from stew mac, it works well ) then just wrap about 7500-8500 wraps and you got an alnico strat sounding pickup, Mine sound great.

Let me put it this way. a roll of wire is about 25 bucks and will wind about 8-10 single coils (or half as many humbuckers)  I forget the price about 15 bucks for the pickup kit, so basically you can make your own pickup for about 20 bucks. If you need only less than 10 pickups, buying a winding machine would pay for itself quick.

I think all the hype arround who makes good pickups is hype from the makers, its a coil of wire wrapped arround magnets    the number of windings and tension of wire being wrapped are the only REAL variables,,,,,yes magnet type makes a dif too.  I'm sure I will get arguments, but really, it's simple

John
 
Hey Thanks Jack,....for all the info, ..... well Im a sucker for the Hendrix, Vaughan, Rory Gallagher sounds, so I like your Idea of the fender 54/69 choices, I was a bit worried about the Idea of Fralins, in that I read quite few guy's who said they sounded great Vintage wise but they ended up changing them out anyway.....so I didn't want that, ........
I also like the Idea of going Hollow Alder and of course Love the Idea of Exotic top, now that I got one Im not sure I could order without...hehehehehheeh
Im gonna use Wenge even though I know it will color the tone just to add my own custom touch to it, I've been dreaming about that neck for sometime, Im preping my wife on the Idea and I may not get to order till later this year yet, but thats O.K., I broke her in on a Beauty that cost a few pennies the first time around so I don't mind if I have to wait a few more months to get the ball rolling.
I also preped her with the Beautiful Idea of building a guitar for every year we're together....hahhahaahahahah, as a token of our Love of course, so as the years go by we can take pictures together with my guitars in the background, showing our Love for one another..ahahhaahhh......

Hey John, Yeah I wouldn't want to wind my own simply because theres a bit of mystery and something special about pickups too me.
Even if they sounded better than anything I've ever used I would think they were lacking somehow....hahahahahhah
Pickups are one of those things I want to remain ignorant of, it helps me to keep that "theres something special about this guitar" Voodoo Vibe going.....hahahaahahah
 
Its kinda hard to buy a Fender after seeing tops like these......not to mention you'll never get an exotic wood neck as smooth as this either......Nice!
 
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