Metal-ing up a Strat

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Grandturk

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I figure I might as well get this thread started since I've got some progress to report. I've been hankering for a Fender Strat with a Floyd for a while.

Actually, my first real guitar was a MIJ Fender Strat 62 with a recessed Kahler licensed Floyd. Cool guitar, black on white, HSS, 21 fret rosewood fretboard. Strange mixture of features. Anyway - I parted that one out to make way for something else a few years ago (I've got to dig up a pic of it eventually and scan it).

First of all - big ups to ulijdavid on the Jackson/Charvel Forum - he's done all of the heavy lifting on this one so far (I've just picked it and packed it) and his pictures are featured here.

The initiation of the project kind of fell into my lap with a really good deal on a Fender 60's Roadworn Strat neck. I didn't really get a great vibe from the Roadworn seires in general, but I really liked the 60's neck because its got a nice piece of rosewood and the relicing doesn't look stoopid. The neck arrived with a very flat sheen to the headstock - I hit it with some polishing compound followed by regular Dunlop guitar polish and it brought up the shine a bit. Then I sent it down to ulijdavid:

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Next up was the body. Its a 68 RI MIJ body in vintage white - so its pretty creamy. If you've seen the Warmoth Vintage White color, its a bit darker than that - kind of between Warmoth Vintage White and Cream. Anyway - its a regular SSS 6-hole Strat body. Not terribly heavy, but no lightweight either. Here's how it looked when I bought it:

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Obviously - I needed something with a little more oomph, so this went down to ulijdavid as well:

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Humbucker routes and Floyd posts installed. Looking good so far.

While the body's winging its way back to me, I'll be working on the electronics. Originally, I wanted to do something really Frigged-the-Hell-Up - I was going to get a SSS mint guard, relic the hell out of it, including cutting out the bridge hum route by hand - messily - and filling in the Tone pot holes and the middle pickup hole with plastic cut from a trem cover guard, and then try like hell to make it look like some Strat-o-basterd 1982 creation.

Well, I lost enthusiasm for the "super-relic" since I don't really have the time or patience for that, so this is going to go more like a "closet classic" model. Anyway - I've got the wiring harness all ready for it - CTS pots, 3 ways blade switch, orange drop cap (yeah yeah yeah, I don't use tone controls yadda yadda yadda).

Pickups are going with "what's in the box" - a Gibson 57 Classic in the neck, a Dimarzio YJM in the middle and an old Kramer "California Pickup Co." humbucker in the bridge. I'm going to go with black knobs on the mint green guard in the above picture. Not sure about the mint green on the vintage white - I think it stands out too much. I'll probably order up a "parchment" guard at some point.

And of course, a chrome MIK Floyd left over from a Charvel ProMod to finish it off.

I'm thinking about stringing it up with 11's and tuning it to D for some Motley covers.

More to come!
 
Re: Metal-ing up a Strat

Eh, that much effort, I'd go with something better in the bridge. I just tossed a Dimarzio Evolution in the bridge of a Partscaster, sounded great.
 
Re: Metal-ing up a Strat

dominus said:
Eh, that much effort, I'd go with something better in the bridge. I just tossed a Dimarzio Evolution in the bridge of a Partscaster, sounded great.
Click to expand...

Well, we'll see. I've had that particular pickup for almost 20 years and it has always sounded great to me. I don't know what it is - its about 8.5K and packs a freight train wallop.

But who knows - if it don't work out, I can always go for my old standby Super Distortion.
 
Re: Metal-ing up a Strat

You are my hero.

By any chance, was your first guitar a HRR Strat?
 
Re: Metal-ing up a Strat

tc said:
By any chance, was your first guitar a HRR Strat?
Click to expand...

I'll scan a pic eventually, but I remember the receipt from Sam Ash saying it was an "SD Maverick." Haven't seen too many of them around over the years. Its possible it was a special run just for Sam Ash.
 
Re: Metal-ing up a Strat

No I was wrong...I think the HRR's had OFR bridges, not Kahler.

But yeah they were basically hot rodded vintage RIs with double locking vibrato systems and humbuckers. Dave Murray had a red one.
 
Re: Metal-ing up a Strat

Build Update (only one crappy pic):

I've got the strat mostly buttoned up now - more details to come, but here's a preview:

- I had to dremel a bit of the output jack cavity away on the inside to accomodate the hot pole bending out when you insert the jack. I'm thinking this part is supposed to be facing down in order to clear. Next time I'll think of that before I dremel.

- The mint green pickguard with black pickups and knobs really, really, really does not look good at all. Yikes, its horrid.

- Don't buy these made in China "American Indian" or somesuch strings. They're in a black pack and have a Native American head on them - they kind of look like the logo from American Spirit cigarettes. I bought a few packs over the summer because they were like 5 for $5. A. The guages were all wrong. B. They came out of pack pre-corroded. Needless to say, I need to swap them in order to intonate the thing. Yikes. Well, at least they were a good "throw-away" set.

- I need to trim down the Warmoth Floyd route pickguard around the trem. Its right up against it and rubs the trem when the Floyd is down on the body.

- Needed a bit of shim just to get acceptable string height with the floyd on the body (as was expected). I think I'll add a little bit more shim to get the Floyd up (clearing the pickguard problem) for a little pull back.

- Obviously I need to still intonate, but it sounded pretty good the little I was able to play with bad intonation and crap strings.

Next Day

OK. Got the neck angle sorted for now. Dropped in a big shim and I've got a bit of pull back in there. Loaded up some 11's and tuned it to D and intonated. Here's a quick pic:

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Terrible lighting in my apartment. Makes the mint guard really minty. Its bad in person, but its worse in the picture. I'll need to sort this out next.

Been playing some Crue songs with it - Girls Girls Girls, Live Wire, Too Young to Fall in Love, etc.

I've never been a fan of lowered tunings - and I'm still not. Even with 11's the strings feel floppy and to me, even sound floppy - kinda rubbery.
 
Re: Metal-ing up a Strat

Well...it's been said before in this forum...but dibs if you wanna let go of it :D
 
Re: Metal-ing up a Strat

The black pickups and knobs aren't great - but I'd still rock that thing. I like it a lot.
 
Re: Metal-ing up a Strat

Pretty rad mods, my man.

I love that you modded a Road Worn neck. I, too, have a Road Worn 60's neck, and I have to say, it's an excellent neck. To mod one is a large commitment to "I'ma have per-zactly what I want."

YOU DA MAN!!!
 
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