idsnowdog
Imperator of Indignation
I bought a reliced black Sonic Series Mustang body a few weeks ago off Craigslist. It's a light basswood plank body and although it looks like it has a tremolo it's actually a fixed bridge. There's no spring cavity below the bridge plate and the cigar tailpiece is bolted to the bridge plate. Possibly inspired by the Ben Gibbard Mustang. I didn't realize it was a hardtail until I took it apart and I won't miss the crappy tremolo.
It was missing pickups, neck, saddle, and tuners. The control plate had two 2 meg pots which I thought was strange but it wasn't stock. I added a resistor in parallel to bring them down to 375K. I have a SSL-5 with a copper baseplate in the bridge and a SSL-2 neck. Both sound great.
I have played other Mustangs and I didn't want a dark and muddy sound. So I bought a roasted maple Mustang neck from ebay that is good quality and reasonably priced. I don't like the heel truss rod adjustment but I didn't notice that when I bought it. I also found a cheap saddle on ebay that has both height and intonation adjustment.
The bad:
It was missing pickups, neck, saddle, and tuners. The control plate had two 2 meg pots which I thought was strange but it wasn't stock. I added a resistor in parallel to bring them down to 375K. I have a SSL-5 with a copper baseplate in the bridge and a SSL-2 neck. Both sound great.
I have played other Mustangs and I didn't want a dark and muddy sound. So I bought a roasted maple Mustang neck from ebay that is good quality and reasonably priced. I don't like the heel truss rod adjustment but I didn't notice that when I bought it. I also found a cheap saddle on ebay that has both height and intonation adjustment.
The bad:
- The black paint is poor but it matches the grunge aesthetic.
- The string angle is shallow over the saddle which causes the strings to rattle. However, nearly all Mustangs have shallow bridge string angles and rattling saddles. I drilled out the crappy unthreaded posts and used Gibson threaded TOM style inserts and posts. I laid a strip of bandage tape below the saddles which killed the rattle. I also wrapped the posts with plumbers thread lock tape which really improved stability, tone, and sustain. If I was to redesign the saddle I would use Gibson TOM posts and lower the intonation screw holes and cut a small V notch for each string so the string doesn't make contact with the rear lip of the saddle. This would reduce rattle and stop binding when using the tremolo.
- It was sloppily swimming pool routed and shielded with copper foil. It's nice to be able to use whatever pickups I want but the Gibson 3-way switch and pots tend to short circuit by touching the shielding. This is exacerbated by poorly positioned pickguard screw holes and a shortage of screws. I believe once I drill new holes and have enough screws I can resolve the shorting by insulating the areas with duct tape where pots and switch make contact with the shielding.
- I am using Wilkinson height calibrated tuners but the string angle is still too shallow causing ringing through the nut on the unwound strigs. I have a Floyd Rose style string retainer bar on order which should help resolve that issue.
- I have been playing around with a modified Alembic Stratoblaster style booster on my breadboard for the last two months. It sounds massive! Since this Mustang is swimming pool routed I should be able to find room for the circuit board I built. The on/off mini-toggle could go on the pickguard in front of the control plate. However, finding room for the battery is iffy so I might need to have an external battery pack and a stereo cable.
- I also have a Q-filter pot that will replace the top mounted jack and I will drill a side mounted jack socket.
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