Building a Gilmour strat - need your help!

The Dali

The Dali

MeltedClockologist
Hi everyone... to avoid the ridiculous $4000 that Fender is charging for the David Gilmour Signature Strat I am going to build my own. This will take a while to accumulate the parts at the right prices, so I'm getting started now. Please let me know if you have anything that you'd like to move out that you think would work!

(FYI - if you want to see the Strat I'm building, Fender has an entire site dedicated to it here: http://www.fender.com/features/gilmour/

So... on to what I need for my project...

Body - I may use a MIM body to simplify matters. The Gilmour strat is alder so most MIM bodies would work. I'm not hung up on Nitro vs Poly. The tremolo screw spacing may be off a hair, but I can live with it. So.... looking for a mint black body!

Neck - Need a 50's style neck with 21-frets. I'll likely get a new Warmoth finished in vintage amber unless I get lucky

Tuners - looking for Kluson-style inline tuners

Pickguard - need a single-ply black pickguard. I have a line on one for $22, but thought someone here might have one

Trem Cover / rear pickguard - looking for cream or parchment tremolo cover

Tremolo/Bridge - I'll likely just get a Callaham bridge assembly. I can get a MIM spec'd Callaham bridge with a Gilmour trem bar directly from Callaham.

Switches and pots - looking for Switchraft 5-way switch and thre CTS 250k pots

Neckplate - looking for any 4-hole neckplate with a serial number

Pup covers, knobs and switch tip - looking for cream covers, knobs and switch tip. Parchment would be fine.

Pickups - I have the SSL-5. I need a Fat 50's neck and CS '69 mid. I've looked around and they are hard to find outside of a set of 3. I might have to buy the two sets and then sell off the other 4 pups individually unless some folks here have them.

Case - Looking for a G&G case. I'd prefer black with green interior, but would also do orange, blue or red interior. Silver exterior would also be ok.

I know - a tall order, but it never hurts to ask! Also, if any of you have suggestions for me for this build they would be welcomed! I'll also start a build thread once I get going.

Thx, steve
 
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Re: Building a Gilmour strat - need your help!

I still don't hear a SSL-5 on Gilmour's live recordings. Hope we can avoid a flamewar this time around, just my opinion. I am aware of the statements in favor of the SSL5.

Do NOT get a Warmoth with the double truss rod, or any double acting truss rod either. Vintage only. And no Brazilian rosewood fretboard, that makes it too dark. I would get a nice semi-thick round neck profile (like Warmoth's '59) to rule out that thinner necks rob the sound and/or sustain.

I'd rather buy 10 cheap necks on ebay and try them all and ditch 9 the next month. For the body things should be OK but a Warmoth with their regular trem route is obviously out.

The green interior of the case will just wreck the sound, man. Don't do it.
 
Re: Building a Gilmour strat - need your help!

I've heard that some people substitute the Fat 50's bridge pickup for the SSL-5.

I am scouring for a decent amber neck - doesn't have to be Warmoth. Could be Allparts or MM. I am also looking at the MIM 50's re-issue necks... they look great, but they are going for $300!!
 
Re: Building a Gilmour strat - need your help!

On the issue of the SSL-5 this should be cut and dried...the black Strat has had an SSL-5 in thebridge position since just after the recording of the Wall...should we trust your ears and what you think you hear or should we trust Phil Taylor, the man that put the pickup there and says without a doubt that it hasn't been out since.

Anyway...I might have something of interest for you, The Dali...let me think on it and decide if I want to move it and I'll drop you a PM.
 
Re: Building a Gilmour strat - need your help!

Thanks for the information. Let me know what you might have! I have a line on a very nice Allparts neck that Imight jump on.
 
Re: Building a Gilmour strat - need your help!

Picked up an allparts neck. Cross that off the list!
 
Re: Building a Gilmour strat - need your help!

The correct answers to every possible hair-splitting question about David Gilmour's black Stratocaster - as replicated by Fender's Tribute model - are all to be found in the book, "The Black Strat" by Phil Taylor (DG's long-time equipment technician).

In historical order, DG's treble pickup has been, the factory original, a DiMarzio FS-1 and a SD SSL-1C (Customer spec). That's all, folks. Nothing else! If the guy who has serviced that guitar for over thirty years does not know what pickups are in it, who the bleep does?

See p.80 of the book for the SSL-1C invoice. If you can find any reference to an SSL-5 in the book, please post the page number and paragraph. Thank you.
 
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Re: Building a Gilmour strat - need your help!

Don't forget to route out under the pickguard between the bridge and middle pickups for a humbucker!
 
Re: Building a Gilmour strat - need your help!

I trust uOpt. He knows his stuff.
That's not sarcastic, I do trust what he says.
 
Re: Building a Gilmour strat - need your help!

Funkfingers said:
The correct answers to every possible hair-splitting question about David Gilmour's black Stratocaster - as replicated by Fender's Tribute model - are all to be found in the book, "The Black Strat" by Phil Taylor (DG's long-time equipment technician).

In historical order, DG's treble pickup has been, the factory original, a DiMarzio FS-1 and a SD SSL-1C (Customer spec). That's all, folks. Nothing else! If the guy who has serviced that guitar for over thirty years does not know what pickups are in it, who the bleep does?

See p.80 of the book for the SSL-1C invoice. If you can find any reference to an SSL-5 in the book, please post the page number and paragraph. Thank you.
Click to expand...

I'm aware of all this. It is still one person I don't personally know, and that person didn't inspect the Strat daily since 1980. The bill proves nothing about when it went in and how long it stayed in, and how often it went in and out.

I don't ask anybody to use my ears instead of their own. Gilmour's DVDs are out there to hear for all, and just for starters he gets same class (as in how hot) sound from the EMG SA bridge pickup in the red Strat (which is vintage class hotness-wise) and the black Strat.

I have personally owned and tested in the same guitar all the pickups involved, and I rate my sense of hearing instrument sound variations as good, better than most. I can tell you that a SSL1 and a SA are very audibly in the same "hotness" class and a SSL5 is easy to hear as a fatter pickup. It is much fatter and compressed. The same does not happen on Gilmour's material. I don't think there can possibly be a SSL5 in there.

There's no easy way to make me toss out my own evidence in favor of just taking somebody's word for it, without knowing whether changes occurred to the guitar while that single person wasn't looking.

Besides, I have seen way too much garbage being put into word around pretty pictures in books and magazines. This isn't an insult towards the author of the black Strat book, just a general publication comment. That author is also subject to editing by the publishing house. Publishing houses like to "clean up" the writing by killing lots of "at the time when I was inspecting the <thing> had <gizmo>" with "the <thing> has <gizmo>" and the like. I wrote for technical magazines in the past, BTW.
 
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Re: Building a Gilmour strat - need your help!

All that I can say is, at no point in Phil Taylor's book is there any reference to DG using a Seymour Duncan SSL-5 in the black guitar.

The three treble pickups that allegedly have been in DG's black Stratocaster are named and photographed by the author. (As is the experimental humbucker.) It seems terribly remiss of him not to include any others, doncha think?

None of this is to say that Gilmour did not use other Stratocasters with SSL-5-type pickups on recording sessions. His modified Esquire certainly has a hot Treble pickup - either rewound or built by Seymour Duncan.

Page 80 of Taylor's book states that the SSL-1C pickup went into the black Stratocaster in late 1979. i.e. AFTER the recording of "The Wall" album but BEFORE the concert tour. If the book is telling the truth, logically, the pickup that we are hearing on "The Wall" must be the DiMarzio FS-1.

I put it to you that the Duncan SSL-5 and the DiMarzio FS-1 are both hot/dark single coil pickups. The sounds that they produce are not a million miles apart. I suggest that this explains the DG tone that is heard on "Animals" and "The Wall".
 
Re: Building a Gilmour strat - need your help!

The Wall is the FS-1 but the SSL-1C went in the guitar just after the album was finished.

If you do a search on this forum and read up you'll find out that the SSL-1C (C stood for Custom Wind) was re named SSL-5 (Custom for Strat) in the early middle 80's but Seymore and crew.
 
Re: Building a Gilmour strat - need your help!

I don't like to use a studio album like "The Wall" for this. To boot there's a lot of neck and notch pickup cleans in there which aren't relevant. I don't want to end up in a ridiculous situation like the one with the "Stairway to Heaven" solo where many use it as a benchmark for Les Paul sound although most insiders have been convinced that it is a Tele :)

The advantage of the DVDs is that you can see which guitar is in use. You can even see which pickup is selected in case it isn't obvious.

There's also the (awesome, IMHO) version of Comfortably Numb from1986 on youtube. Within the limitations of youtub'e sound you can also hear that the EMG HA (SA in a humbucker casing) pickup in that Charvel is about the same class as the later DVD's red and black Strat recordings. To me, all three guitars have the same "class" bridge pickup, and none have the distinctive fatness and compression of the SSL5.

Might be interesting to listen to the Tele on the DVD if it is known to have a awg43 pickup, although he probably changes everything about the signal chain at the same time...
 
Re: Building a Gilmour strat - need your help!

Shoot. I cannot respond to your posting without risking a ridiculous situation.

Instead, I shall express my own fondness for EMG's single-coil-in-a-HB-casing pickups. I have one in the neck position of an Ibanez. I also have the SPC midrange boost. No points for guessing whose sound I attempt to rip off with that guitar? ;)
 
Re: Building a Gilmour strat - need your help!

Can't see why we would end up in a ridiculous situation.

It's not the first time that this forum's member arrive at different opinions about pickups :)

Now, about beer, that would be surprising
cheers.gif
 
Re: Building a Gilmour strat - need your help!

I would use the ssl-1 set for a DG strat and a blender pot. SSL-1's are hot enough imo..
A much bigger problem is the amp and speakers - hiwatt, fane and cornish pedals.. - that's what makes his tone so huge....
 
Re: Building a Gilmour strat - need your help!

If you asked me what pickup to use to get some Comfortably Numb solo style sounds I'd have to say Antiquity 1 for Strat. Yes, it A2 and it will probably not work great for emulating his cleans.

But the Ant1 will give you a rounder, softer sound with more sustain (real or perceived, but it's there). You will definitely have an easier time making the thing "sing" lacking all the extensive rig and fine-tuning and perfect wood pieces.

Besides, it is the best Strat pickup anyway :p
 
Parts for your gilmour project

Parts for your gilmour project

You forgot to list the need for the mini toggle switch to activate the Neck pickup in series with the 5-Way.

I am sending you an email regarding the following parts I have for you:

Like new G&G Fender "Deluxe" case with orange interior & 2 keys

Allparts single-ply (8 hole) black pickguard wired with 3 CTS pots and a mini-toggle switch + Oak Grigsby 5-way. Built with vintage cloth "pushback" wire. The pickguard and mini toggle are left over from my own recent Gilmour strat build. (See picture below of Eric Johnson strat built as a Gilmour look-alike.)
The CTS pots & switch are from a '69 strat project I did about 6 months ago but ended up going with Kinman Woodstock Plus noiseless pickups.

Also - to finish your Gilmour you might want to consider the Hendrix "X" strap. I bought one but ended up putting it on my Hendrix strat as pictured below. Martin Pryce (a dude in England) makes these Hendrix straps out of top quality leather and they are AWESOME. Here's the link to his site:

http://www.hellforleather.tv/index.php

2e66nau.jpg


2h53f5z.jpg
 
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