Taking a project off the sideline

FuseG4

Our Neighbor Totoro
My yamaha strat-o-copy from the "sideline'd guitars" thread... I decided tonight I'd get some stuff for it!

Taking cues from a few fender instruments here.

For the "blacktop" look, I'm going with Muddy Waters knobs on solid shaft pots, and I think eventually a chrome humbucker cover. We'll see how open coils look first. The black pickguard should go well with the whole thing I think.

For a Hwy 1 HSS strat kind of theme, I'm going with hotter pickups. The neck and middle on that guitar are "hot A3" and the bridge is a 16.6K A5 "atomic" humbucker.
my take on that is that the neck pickup will be a black SSL-6 , bridge will be a JB. no middle pickup this time, just a hole in the pickguard for now.

The wiring scheme will be that of a Hwy 1 Telecaster. 3 way switch (neck, neck/bridge, bridge), 250K master volume, and a 250K master tone. I picked up .1 µfd and .022 µfd disk caps and a 4.64 kΩ resistor for making the "greasebucket" tone control which rolls off highs without adding bass.

I'm thinking the 250K pots and the warm basswood body/rosewood board should keep the JB from going too crazy in this guitar. I can always try A2 (or 8!) and try and save it if I find A5 to do the upper-mid spike thing I've read about. Never tried a JB before, but I've always wanted to, and this seemed like the right project.

I got the idea of going in a highway 1 kinda direction when I remembered I spent all that time putting a thin, matte nitro finish on this axe. I figured, what the heck, hot pickups can be cool sometimes!

I'll post another pic after I throw this junk in there, and you guys can tell me if I need anything else. Here's how she looks now, before the new stuff.
NelRed2.jpg


thanks for looking!

lol I just realized my switch tip is white and I don't think I ordered a black one. Well, thankfully i've got a black tele-style one laying around.
 
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Re: Taking a project off the sideline

Sounds like it'll be pretty sweet! I've got a strat I'm fixing up also, its actually an austin strat copy which you might think is crazy but its an older korean made model with a flame top and it plays amazing. Its an hss and it has the fender hot a3 single coils in the neck and middle, I had a JB in it but almost all of my guitars are twin humbuckers so I'm putting a gfs dream 90 in the bridge and its wiring with cts 250k pots. Its a trans black flame maple top with a maple neck and rosewood board, I'm going to put all black hardware on it and upgrade the tuners and a trem with a solid steel block and ss steel saddles. I can't wait until I get mine done! Good luck with yours man!
 
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Re: Taking a project off the sideline

Sounds like it'll be pretty sweet! I've got a strat I'm fixing up also, its actually an austin strat copy which you might think is crazy but its an older korean made model with a flame top and it plays amazing. Its an hss and it has the fender hot a3 single coils in the neck and middle, I had a JB in it but almost all of my guitars are twin humbuckers so I'm putting a gfs dream 90 in the bridge and its wiring with cts 250k pots. Its a trans black flame maple top with a maple neck and rosewood board, I'm going to put all black hardware on it and upgrade the tuners and a trem with a solid steel block and ss steel saddles. I can't wait until I get mine done! Good luck with yours man!

pics?

I almost went with hot A3s but I saw they were going for like $35 on ebay right now! Didn't feel like waiting it out for a better deal.

I thought about doing the GFS steel block but thought better of it. The thing was NOT a drop in replacement, I had to get a tech to route out the side of the trem cavity to keep it from rubbing on the side. What a pain! Other people have complained of the same thing. Too bad the callaham one is $60! Thats 2x what I paid to originally aquire this guitar!

I'm thinking of getting some MIM bent steel saddles. They aren't the best, but they're pretty good.
 
Re: Taking a project off the sideline

pics?

I almost went with hot A3s but I saw they were going for like $35 on ebay right now! Didn't feel like waiting it out for a better deal.

I thought about doing the GFS steel block but thought better of it. The thing was NOT a drop in replacement, I had to get a tech to route out the side of the trem cavity to keep it from rubbing on the side. What a pain! Other people have complained of the same thing. Too bad the callaham one is $60! Thats 2x what I paid to originally aquire this guitar!

I'm thinking of getting some MIM bent steel saddles. They aren't the best, but they're pretty good.

I'll try to get a pic soon, its actually in parts in my floor right now lol I still have some parts to get I have not ordered yet. The pickups I actually got in a loaded pickguard on ebay last year, wd pickguard with two a3 singles, duncan JB in the bridge, cts 250k pots, and dimarzio switch all wired up for $99! I put the JB in my schecter and I bought a black dream 90 off ebay and it got here today so I'll wire it up tommorrow. I hope the GFS trem and steel block will fit in my trem cavity...
 
Re: Taking a project off the sideline

I'm waiting for a guitar I feel comfortable putting P90s in. If I snag a second agile at any point it will be a goldtop. The original goldtops were all mahogany anyways.

That's a killer pickguard deal btw.
 
Re: Taking a project off the sideline

Got everything today but the pickup screw holes on the SSL-6 are stripped, so I'm sending it back to the dude. No wonder it was only $35. Now I gotta waste postage sending it back to the dork. 1st bad ebay experience in I think about 2 years.
 
Re: Taking a project off the sideline

Aww man that sucks, I've had 2 bad deals on ebay but most have been good. the first one... I bought a cheaper washburn delta king 335 copy off ebay 4 years ago, it took 2 WEEKS before the guy even shipped it, it got here and I opened the package and the headstock was cracked! I emailed the guy several times and never heard a thing from him and then is ebay acount was closed, I ended up reselling it as a project. The second one... I bought an acoustic that was supposed to have a "cosmetic blem", when it got here the top was cracked all the way from the bridge the the bottom off the guitar so big you could the the inside of the guitar. He only refunded a small part of my money and I ended up trading it to a friend that owns a guitar shop.
 
Re: Taking a project off the sideline

Got everything today but the pickup screw holes on the SSL-6 are stripped, so I'm sending it back to the dude. No wonder it was only $35. Now I gotta waste postage sending it back to the dork. 1st bad ebay experience in I think about 2 years.

Just get a matching nut (or new screw and nut combo) and glue it to the underside of the baseplate - easy done. Better and cheaper than shipping it back surely
 
Re: Taking a project off the sideline

Just get a matching nut (or new screw and nut combo) and glue it to the underside of the baseplate - easy done. Better and cheaper than shipping it back surely

This.

Also, nice guitar. The finish looks pretty cool, especially with that black guard.
 
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