Built a nice new Strat from cool parts

[Tom60]

Killer

The thing with Fenders is .. (in my very humble opinion)
- how the neck mates with body

You can end up with a dud - or a great one..

My 50´s MIM Esquire is like 95% of my MB Nocaster
and I even prefer it for the 7.25 radius and vintage frets

I´ve tried to reach the masterbuilders at Fender,
if I am right to think that they try several necks with the particular body
before they call it a day.. restringing and all

I never got any answer

but I believe it is that... no wood tapping nonsence

you pay the Fender Custom Shop masterbuilders for finding the right match

.. and if you´re lucky, you can end up the same ..

[jricc]

Looks great Rockabilly69! Love that classic burst

[rockabilly69]

Originally Posted by jricc

Looks great Rockabilly69! Love that classic burst

Thank you. For me, a Stratocaster with a two color Sunburst is my favorite. I started out with a cream pickguard and off white knobs, but I replaced it with a white pickguard and eggshell colored knobs, switchtip, pickup covers, and trem tip. On almost every picture I looked at of mid 50's Strats, the plastics are very white, and very rarely to they darken with age. And I liked the way they looked so I had to experiment to find just the right whites. I never knew about the egg shell color and it is just the very smallest bit darker than the white pickguard.

I think I finally got it where I like it visually...



I also spent a few hours dialing in the trem system, I removed 2 springs, smoothed and lubricated all the contact points, and then floated the tremolo. It is so much more fun to play now, and the tuning stability is great! You can see here the slightly different white on the pickup covers and the other plastics.



I wasn't a fan of the Eric Johnson neck-plate, so...



The sunburst looks different in different light...

[rockabilly69]

Originally Posted by Tom60

Killer

The thing with Fenders is .. (in my very humble opinion)
- how the neck mates with body

You can end up with a dud - or a great one..

My 50´s MIM Esquire is like 95% of my MB Nocaster
and I even prefer it for the 7.25 radius and vintage frets

I´ve tried to reach the masterbuilders at Fender,
if I am right to think that they try several necks with the particular body
before they call it a day.. restringing and all

I never got any answer

but I believe it is that... no wood tapping nonsence

you pay the Fender Custom Shop masterbuilders for finding the right match

.. and if you´re lucky, you can end up the same ..

I think there is something too certain bodies matching with certain necks. A few months back when I built my Jaguar, soon as I bolted the new neck onto the body, the guitar became something special. It just came together!

In my personal opinion the neck contributes more to the tone the the body wood.

Why? Because years ago I had three different Teles, and I would swap the necks around, looking for the PERFECT combo. In every instance, the basic tone of the neck followed it to whatever body I bolted it into.

As for wood tapping they may just do it to see if the wood is lively that they are going to use for the neck. Why start with a dead piece of wood!

[Tom60]

Originally Posted by rockabilly69

In my personal opinion the neck contributes more to the tone the the body wood.

As for wood tapping they may just do it to see if the wood is lively that they are going to use for the neck. Why start with a dead piece of wood!

The tone follows the neck .. that´s what I believe too, heard it many times

And as for the body - the nocaster has a depth and richness of an acoustic
guitar - like no other electric guitar I´ve played ... so they are doing it right,
tapping the blanks or not

[rockabilly69]

Originally Posted by Tom60

The tone follows the neck .. that´s what I believe too, heard it many times

And as for the body - the nocaster has a depth and richness of an acoustic
guitar - like no other electric guitar I´ve played ... so they are doing it right,
tapping the blanks or not

That nocaster sounds great! I just love when a guitar comes together as a total package.

I own, have owned, many guitars and I've only kept the ones that have the magic. Some of them came that way from the factory, others needed a little tweaking to get them there.

Although some people think they are getting much better woods and parts at the custom shop level, I think a lot of what really makes custom shop instruments great, is the attention to detail on the string path. When a guitar has a perfectly cut nut, perfectly level and crowned frets, and a bridge set-up to perfection, it just works at it's optimum level. Add some good pickups, and it's on.

Even though I have some cool very good sounding custom shop guitars, one of my all-time favorite guitars is a poly finished standard run production model Zemaitis guitar. Go figure! It's one of the living, breathing animals.

You can breathe on the pickups and get a good sound!

It wasn't that way when I bought, but I felt the resonance, and I could hear the tones trying to get out of it. And the fretwork was immaculate. So I totally gutted it. It was originally equipped with high output humbuckers and run of the mill electronics. I swapped the pickups for some 50's DeArmond 2000 inspired pickups called MR2000SB made by Gabojo Amplification. I also closely matched the 500K pots (closer to 550K) to get the brighter tones that I new I could get out of it, swapped the caps until I got the perfect tone sweep (I alligator clipped in many different caps till I got there), replaced all wire with cloth pushback wire, replaced the 3-way for a better Switchcraft switch, and replaced the output jack with a Puretone for better contact. I also replaced the tuners with a 21:1 ration set. It is is now a monster guitar, that actually looks too pretty to take too seriously.



And here's one that breathed fire right out of the factory...

[Tom60]

Your Zemaitis with DeArmonds would wake up a dead for sure

there is a guitar with these pickups I´ll have one day they sound like nothing else

and an SG with P90s and wraptail, be it Special or Jr.. a real flamethower - what else to say ?

[rockabilly69]

Originally Posted by Tom60

Your Zemaitis with DeArmonds would wake up a dead for sure

there is a guitar with these pickups I´ll have one day they sound like nothing else

and an SG with P90s and wraptail, be it Special or Jr.. a real flamethower - what else to say ?

The Zemaitis...


The SG...

[Tom60]

Great stuff.. I mean it.. Funny, I just listened to Ry Cooder before that, Fool for a cigarette, Smack dab in the middle.. my favorites. I can hear some Little Feat there too - a lifelong song, Red Streamliner rollin

[rockabilly69]

Great stuff.. I mean it.. Funny, I just listened to Ry Cooder before that, Fool for a cigarette, Smack dab in the middle.. my favorites. I can hear some Little Feat there too - a lifelong song, Red Streamliner rollin[/QUOTE]

Thanks my man, and two of my favorite slide guys ever!

And you can hear some nods to Lowell in here when the slide kicks in...

[Tom60]

Jesus.. you are thousands miles from me, and so close..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPk27dyudTY

[rockabilly69]

Originally Posted by Tom60

Jesus.. you are thousands miles from me, and so close..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPk27dyudTY

[Tom60]

There is no greater feeling when it comes from your heart

[rockabilly69]

Originally Posted by Tom60

There is no greater feeling when it comes from your heart

ain't that the truth