Well, this is coming together a little quicker than I thought. Couple of updates:
1) I ordered a set of pickups. My first choice was a set of Lollar 64's. Second choice was a set of Fender Customer Shop Fat 60's. 3rd choice was try something different and have a custom set made by Wolftone. So didn't choose any of those....heh....totally not on my radar but I got a set of the Eric Johnson Signature pickups. I was browsing something, can't remember what but came across these and watched the video of what they are. Basically, it's a 54 neck pickup, vintage specs, a 63 middle pickup, slightly hotter with a rounder top end, which lets him lower the pickup so as to not interfere with his picking. Now THAT got my attention, my big issue with Strats is that I tend to pickup right over the middle pickup. Never occurred to me to use a hotter pickup and lower it. Duh......The bridge in this set is an hotter output (But still pretty vintage).
My suspicion is that I'll probably like the neck and middle a lot but wind up swapping the bridge for a Lollar Special S, which is my favorite single coil bridge pickup for Strat and Tele's. But, then again I may be pleasantly surprised.
Fender has this thing that certain accessories if you buy two you get 30% off both. So I added a $7 bottle of fingerboard oil, and sure enough I got these pickups for $160. Can't beat that.
2) I ordered the hardware, since this is a vintage themed guitar, I went with vintage style tuners. I got a set of the "Fender Road Worn" series tuning machines. They look like OEM Gotoh's to me. I've used them before and they work fine. Ordered an "aged" Gotoh neck plate and jack socket cup.
3) Tremolo, earlier in this thread we were chatting a bit about the Wudtone trems, which are all very interesting, but I just can't bring myself to spend $200+ on a trem for this guitar right now. So I decided to go with a standard 6pt vintage style trem. Then the question was, which one?
One thing I hate about vintage tremolos is the screw in arm. Even the high end ones from Gotoh, Callaham, etc wobble.
So I wanted something with a push in arm but also retained the vintage look. The only I've found so far is the Wilkinson one.
Trev Wilkinson is a genius and has invented some cool stuff, but his brand is a bit all over the place. There's cheaper versions and better made versions of almost all his stuff. I got the Wilkinson "ST" version of his vintage trem, which stands for "full size steel block". As opposed to his "short block" for import spec guitars or his alloy sustain block versions. I like this tremolo because the string holes are staggered to aide in intonation. They are not in a straight line. The sustain block is steel and has some heft to it. I have a brass block in my other Strat so decided to go with steel on this one.
It was fairly inexpensive so worth a shot to try. My next problem was that bridge is way too shiny. I needed to scuff it up some.
Again, not looking for an overly relic'd look. But just knocking off the shine. So after watching a lot of video's about using muriatic acid fumes, etc etc etc.....all of which seem excessively silly to me AND can possibly impact the metallurgy of the part. I decided to just hit the plate with some 800 grit sandpaper and call it good.
I have a set of Highwood Saddles (The only Strat saddles I will use.....) ready to go on these.
Next up, the neck needs a fret dress and crown and a nut cut for it..........more to come......
I have the same issue with picking and the middle pickup, which is just one of my many issues with strats Curious to see how you fare with the hotter pickup lowered
This thing is getting pretty close to being done. Realized that I forgot to order a couple of things.....like uhhh.....250k pots.....duh.
And strap buttons....so hopefully Amazon makes it here today and I can wire her up.
After letting the neck finish cure for a couple of weeks, I buffed it out one last time and put a coat of carnauba wax on it.
Yesterday afternoon I started the fret level and crown and dress.
Gotta make sure that your neck is absolutely as dead straight as possible before leveling the frets. I use a "notched" straight edge to check the neck relief and remove any. Then I use a straight edge to check the frets. I think I could have gotten away without leveling these. They were pretty level out of the box. But they were also un-touched and I figured I'd go ahead and do the level anyway since I was going to need to crown them.
I've shown my process before in other build reports...but I start with marking off the fret tops with a sharpie.
If you plan on doing your own fretwork, pinch your nose and invest in a good leveling beam. Doesn't have to be a StewMac, but these really are the best.
Oh, and as mentioned before in other threads, invest in a good fret crowning file....I really like this "Z" file from StewMac, I can't believe how fast and consistent I can crown a whole set of frets. Used to take me hours with a 3 corner file.....now it's like literally 10-15 minutes.
I think the last pictorial I did I used MicroMesh pads to do the fret polishing. I also like to use these "Fret Eraser" types. Here's one time I will say do NOT get the Stew Mac ones, they cost 4x what these I got off Amazon cost. They're exactly the same. Also, don't get hung up on the "grit" numbers. They're meaningless and don't map to sandpaper grits. I think they just make up some number and call it that.
But I start with the "220 Grit" eraser after crowning. This is the longest step, but if you put in the time to make sure all the scratches are removed in this step, the successive grits go a lot faster.
Once I got up to the "2000" grit eraser it's ready to play, and about the level of polish you'd get from a better off the shelf guitar. But I like a high polish, so I hit it with a Dremel felt wheel with some polishing rouge.
Here's the neck all done, fingerboard got my usual treatment of some cleanup, sanding/scraping, a coat of Danish Oil, let it soak about 15 min, wipe off, then I buff it with a Dremel again with a cloth buffing wheel. Then a final coat of fingerboard oil.
test fitting everything here. Just checking that there isn't any weirdness that I'd have to compensate for. Since this was a GFS XGP body and even having used them them twice now, in the back of my head I'm still expecting something goofy.
And turns out there WAS something goofy, but it wasn't the GFS body but rather the Mighty Mite neck. The neck heel profile was not radiused quite right. I didn't like the way it fit in the neck pocket, although it was a nice snug fit. I had to do a slight bit of chisel work in the neck pocket to allow the neck to seat all the way in. It's still not a "picture perfect fit" like you'd get with a Warmoth neck and body. I also think that the AllParts necks are better cut as well. Having said that, this is not a bad neck and with a little fitting it all worked out.
I forgot to snap some pics of installing the tremolo. The GFS XGP Body came routed for the trem but no trem holes are drilled. I actually like this as it gives you the flexibility to choose whether vintage 6 screw trem (and which spacing 2 7/32 or 2 1/16, or 2 1/8) or do a 2 point trem like an American Standard. But locating the trem can be a bit tricky especially with a tight pick guard trem route.
So I put some blue painters tape down around the trem area, put the pick guard on, traced the outline of the trem cutout.
Then took it back off and measured for the trem screw holes.
The screws for the trem need to be exactly 25.25" from the nut, which will give you ~25.5 to the saddles.
The PROPER way to drill the holes is with a jig and a drill press, you want them as straight as possible.
I don't have a proper jig and was too lazy to make one so I did the drilling by hand. It came out pretty good. Since I rarely have to drill trem mounting holes it's not worth it to build or buy a jig.
I used a Gotoh "aged" jack cup and my favorite jacks, these wierd looking "Pure Tone" jacks.
Trem mounted, pickups installed.....and waiting for the pots to arrive. Oh and I also forgot to order a switch tip....sigh......
Nut installed, cut and polished, and the string retainer was the final touch. The Mighty Mite neck was drilled for 3/8" modern style sealed tuners.
But my preference is vintage style notched post tuners. The last time StewMac had a "free shipping" sale, I bought couple sets of their 3/8" to 11/32" conversion bushings. I got the relic'd version as the regular nickel ones are just too shiny. But the relic'd ones are a bit too relic'd. I know I'm so hard to please......but overall it looks ok with the "Fender Road Worn" tuning keys. These are a great option for an "aged" vintage style tuning keys. They look, feel, operate like Gotoh's to me. I suspect they're OEM'd by Gotoh. Very smooth and no backlash. For $32 on Amazon they're half the price of the "Gotoh Relic" tuning keys and are essentially the same machines. The Gotoh Relic keys are a bit "over relic'd" (like the StewMac bushings. I really like these Fender Road Worn series of hardware. Just enough aging so it doesn't look brand new shiney but not so much as to look like they got dipped in an acid bath.......
After doing the final set up, intonation, trem set up (I usually deck vintage style tremolos on Strats)
So I've got mixed feelings about the Woden-Tune neck finishing kit. In some ways it came out like a wipe on poly finish.
The color coats didn't go on that great. I think I won't use it again. I think I prefer my tried and true Danish Oil or Tung Oil finish necks a bit better.
That or a true glossy nitro finish. After I wrap up this project, I'm going to re-finish the neck on my P90 Tele build. I'm going to experiment with some Alcohol dyes diluted in denatured alcohol. If I can get the right tint. Then I plan to redo the headstock decal and finish. I'll probably do another a nitro gloss finish on the headstock like on this guitar.
Here's a couple of pics of how the finished neck looks like in terms of the amount of gloss after 4 coats of the top coat. It "feels" like an old, worn, aged nitro neck. So in that sense I'm pretty happy with how it ended up.
Man that looks excellent. I really love a candy apple Red finish. Also in fairness to Andy I'm pretty sure that's one of his main goals rather than the level of gloss.
The problems you had are pretty similar to the other guys I know have used it so I still wouldn't try it myself. I'd prefer paying someone else to spray it in nitro or just do it myself with tru oil.
So after the final set up and intonation, I've been playing it a bit and so far quite happy with how it sounds acoustically.
There's at least one high fret that I need to chase down, but I won't do that until it's been sitting under tension for a week or so and gets acclimated. Sometimes a high buzzing fret can resolve itself after the guitar has a chance to settle a bit.
I've gone down the rabbit hole of trying to fix a buzzing fret too soon after assembling the guitar and it's like chasing your own tail. Fix one issue and two more pop up. Best to let it all settle for a week or before dialing it all in and doing any final tweaks.
The neck profile on this Mighty Mite neck is very much like an off the shelf Fender C shape. I am much less picky about neck profiles than I used to be when I was in my "high end acoustic guitar" phase. I went through a phase of being a total neck profile snob....it had to be "just right". And "Just right" was a Collings neck profile. I still have preferences, but these days I can pretty much adapt to anything I'm playing.
My favorite neck profiles are the PRS Pattern Regular (What used to be called Wide Fat) and I really like the AllParts F-style neck profiles for both their tele and Strat necks. This Mighty Mite is a bit thinner than that but still very playable and comfortable.
Can't wait to hear what these pickups sound like, but it might not be until later in the week I can get back to wiring after the pots show up.
Sooooo.......I need to do some food prep for Thanksgiving meal tomorrow at my in laws. (I'm making the stuffing, gravy and chopped liver pate for appetizers....). Then it's back to pedals if I have time this evening....
This thread is awesome! I've been aching to get rid of my first electric, Fender MIM floyd rose strat, and build a strat myself. Just haven't been able to get around to either bc my semester has been tough... Can't wait to hear what u think of the pickups.
This thread is awesome! I've been aching to get rid of my first electric, Fender MIM floyd rose strat, and build a strat myself. Just haven't been able to get around to either bc my semester has been tough... Can't wait to hear what u think of the pickups.
If you've been following this thread, these were all fairly inexpensive parts that I'm using. I purposely wanted to see if I could make a great sounding, great playing and great looking guitar with non- "premium" parts. So far so good! By the time all's said and done this whole project will come in under $600.00. I'll post and update and demo once I get the pickups wired up.
Ok, after making "Stuffing Muffins" (I'll post my recipe in the "Cooking Forum", they're always a huge hit every year with the extended family), authentic Jewish chopped liver with real schmaltz and gribens....that I make myself.
Helping my daughter with the cake she baked and will bring over to my inlaws to finish icing. (She's a cake decorator by trade at our local grocery store chain bakery..) I happened to look on the porch and the rest of my parts were delivered. Yay Amazon! Even though it was late, I HAD to finish wiring the guitar.....
I wired it with the "Eric Johnson" wiring scheme. I stumbled on this wiring a few years ago and it makes so much sense I don't know why I hadn't thought of it sooner, like decades ago. I used to hate using the Strat bridge pickup, now it's become my favorite. The premise is to use the lower tone control dedicated to the bridge pickup so you can preset it without making your neck and middle too dark. Then the middle pickup when selected bypasses the tone stack and it just wired straight to the volume control. Then the final piece to the scheme is a .01 or .015 tone cap which gives each tone control a really wide range taper so you can dial up a lot of sounds.
I did not add a treble bleed on this one, but I might yet. I have a treble bleed on my other Strat with the same wiring scheme.
The one new thing with this set of pickups, as I mentioned earlier in the thread was how EJ spec'd the middle pickup to be a bit hotter than normal, which helps keep the top end a little more round and less strident since it bypasses the tone control completely. It also lets him lower the pickup and still match the output of the neck and bridge yet stays out of the way picking over it (like I do). I'm still messing with pickup heights but I did lower it about 2/64's lower than my usual starting point and the output actually still matches. So it definitely works. I happened to learn this tidbit of info from the video about these pickups where Eric talks about it. It's not mentioned anywhere else, and I can see how someone might really get confused by this hotter than normal middle pickup if they did't know it was SUPPOSED to be lower than the other two. But then I guess if you're buying Eric John Signature pickups I suppose Fender expects you know something about Eric Johnson's gear.....like I really don't. Except he plays Strats......really really good.....and has some unusual Fuzz tones.
It was already pretty late but I wired the guitar up and spent about 15-20 minutes playing them. They sound really good but different from what I had originally intended for this guitar. I originally wanted a fatter hotter set of 60's style pickups. The EJ set is a hybrid set of a Custom Shop 54 neck (which sounds fantastic), the custom wound and output middle and bridge. So in some sense it's more 50's than 60's but in some other sense its more 60's than 50's.
In terms of quality, I've always been very happy with any pickup set the Fender Custom Shop comes out with that I've tried. I have a feeling that I will learn to really love this pickup set but I need to play it some more. It's very different sounding than my other Strat with the Lollar Dirty Blonde set (which is a good thing). But it's not just the pickups, that other guitar also has a brass block which tends to sweeten the high end a bit. This one has a steel block, so for the neck pickup and the "in between" sound positions, it sounds more "vintage" and has a bit more snap and sparkle.
But I need to come up with a couple of dedicated amp settings for this guitar to really get the best out of it.
The rest of this week is pretty packed with family stuff but I will record a demo of the guitar at some point. It really sounds great, just "new and unfamiliar" still.....
Oh and I used a Russian PIO tone cap.
There's also a ground wire that I need to add. The bridge position has a lot of hum. I think I need to add am extra ground wire directly from pot to pot. It's weird, on some guitars I don't need it and some others I do.
Oh I also forgot to snap a "full frontal" of the finished guitar. but the pics above earlier in the thread show how it will all look its the cream knobs.
The one last little niggle is the trem arm tip being pure white. Unfortunately this Wilkinson arm does not have a screw off tip, so I can't replace it. I'm thinking up ways that I might be able to tint it to match. Like maybe soak in in tea overnight or coffee or something, still pondering this dilemma. heh....
Well, I thought I was done with this project.....seems I am not...sigh....
First, I mentioned that I was having a hum issue....not the 60 cycle single coil variety of hum...but more like a lifted ground somewhere.
I figured I had a cold solder joint somewhere or like some guitars, it needed an absolute grounding between the pots.
So since I had to unstring it anyway to get the pick guard off I decided to ignore my own advice and deal with the couple of high frets while I was at it instead of letting it sit under tension a few more days.....(coming back to that later).
So first off, I double checked my ground solder joints and they were all solid. I added some additional grounds connected all 3 pots. No joy, still had the hum issue. It's ok clean but hit a fuzz or overdrive and it was intolerable.
It's nice and quiet as long as I have both hands touching the strings.
Then I noticed something wierd, the hum would intermittently get worse depending on how I was holding the guitar. So I started fiddling with the cable jack and sure enough it was making an intermittent contact in the jack.
So that was surprise #1.....this is my first bad Puretone Jack. My confidence in them has been shattered.....I popped a good old Switchcraft in and there a voila, that problem was solved, no more intermittent "more hum".
But I still had a hum. Here's the weird thing, it's limited to the bridge pickup. Neck and middle don't have the issue.
But even in position #2 the hum from the bridge was bad even though it's a RWRP middle pickup. There should be no hum at all. So I'm beginning to suspect there's something wrong in the pickup itself, like maybe a loose winding, or bad joint or something. But,, before investing anymore Columbo time into that thread of investigation, I sat and spent some time playing the red Strat side by side with my other sunburst Strat that has a set of Lollar Dirty Blonde pickups.
There was simply no comparison, even though the Lollar Vintage Blonde neck and middle are "50's style" vintage output (5.6-5.8k) they were rounder, fuller, more bell-like and more "3 dimensional" compared to the EJ set.
They also had a sweeter top end where the EJ set has a bit of harshness to the trebles which really becomes apparent when you add gain. The EJ set is a bit hotter in the neck and middle (6k, 6.5k). Yet the Lollar just had more balls in every way compared side by side. The EJ Bridge pickup (the one giving me fits with the hum) doesn't compare very well with the Lollar Special S bridge I have in my Strat set, which is an even hotter, fuller bridge pickup (7.6k).
The "Lollar Dirty Blonde" set I have is the Vintage Blondes in the neck and middle with a Special S in the bridge (which has an almost P90-like attack). Hands down the best set of Strat pickups I've ever heard. And the Fender EJ set doesn't come close. They just sound like weaker, flatter pickups by comparison.
So before spending anymore time tearing my hair out trying to chase down that hum, I'm returning the EJ's.
And I ordered a set of Lollars, which was my first choice to begin with, I should have stuck with it. The whole premise of the project was to put the dollars where it counts the most, which is always the pickups. So this project material cost has jumped up to around $750.00 (not counting labor....but I'm cheap..... Still a pretty darn good overall cost for a guitar that sounds and plays at this caliber. Point being, you don't NEED to spend $2k for a Nash to get to this level of guitar.
I ordered the Lollar '64 Neck and middle, which are slightly hotter than the Vintage Blondes I have now, I wanted something a little different than what I already have. The 64's have a bit more mid range and are warmer but not to the point that you lose the bell like chime, bloom and "quack" in the "in between" positions. For the bridge I got another Special S, the same as I currently have. It's really the "perfect" Strat bridge pickup. It still sounds like a Strat, it's not so overwound and overpowered that you lose that vintage Strat quality. But it's SO much more useful than your typical Strat bridge. So hopefully I'll have a nice bit of contrast between the two Strats for different sounds and parts.
Before I started in with the wiring I used my "rocker gauge" to find the couple of high fret spots. They weren't buzzing so much as fretting out with big bends. And if you've seen any of my demo's you'll know that I do a lot of big bends, for me it has to be clean and clear.
I found two spots (or so I thought)
After locating and marking the high spots I'm using my "StewMac FretKisser" to spot level with the strings still on the guitar and under tension. This stupidly expensive little file is worth its weight in gold.....
After knocking down the high spots a bit I can immediately pickup the guitar and play and see if I got it or not. This is a HUGE time saver. Generally if I find anything less than 4-5 high spots I'll spot level, if I find more than that, I'll do a partial re-level, usually incorporating a very slight bit of "fall away" from 14th fret upwards. That's usually where the problems are from the dreaded "hump" that plagues most bolt on guitars.
Here's I've re-marked the 4 frets that were affected for re-crowning....
Only take a few passes with my "Z file" crowning file to get a nice definitive crown.
Then same process as before with the fret erasers working up each successive grit until the final 2000 grit polish.
The the final touch with a Dremel felt wheel with some of the red polishing rouge.
I like a high shine silky feel....
Ok, so I mentioned earlier, that you should let the guitar sit under tension for at least a few days after building before trying to fine tune these little things because it still doesn't even know it's a guitar yet.....
Well, I got impatient and didn't take my own advice, and wouldn't you know, another high fret spot popped up.....sigh. This time on the B string. Very likely from exposed from my work dealing with the G string.
Anyway, I have to wait for the new pickups to come sometime next week (Although Humbucker Music is typically lightning fast with their shipping). So it's going to sit under tension after I pull the pickups out tomorrow for at least 3 or 4 more days.
In the meantime I also have 4 drilled and painted enclosures ready to be built....so shifting my mindset back to pedals for the rest of the weekend....hahah....
Ok, spent most of the day washing, waxing and detailing my car, boy it needed it.
Then I yanked out the EJ pickup set out of the red strat and just for giggles threw in a spare single coil I had sitting in my junk box. It's a GFS pickup, not even sure when I got it but it has to be at least 10 years ago. It measured just a hair shy of 7k and "sounds" like one of their Alnico pickups.
Main reason was to check and if the hum was my wiring or the EJ bridge pickup. Well, it's definitely not my wiring. This pickup actually sounds pretty darn good. And the hum is just the normal single coil hum. There was something wrong with that EJ bridge pickup, I'm pretty convinced it was in the pickup itself.
Anyway, I can fart around and play the guitar with a single pickup while I wait for the Lollars to arrive.
Ok, spent most of the day washing, waxing and detailing my car, boy it needed it.
Then I yanked out the EJ pickup set out of the red strat and just for giggles threw in a spare single coil I had sitting in my junk box. It's a GFS pickup, not even sure when I got it but it has to be at least 10 years ago. It measured just a hair shy of 7k and "sounds" like one of their Alnico pickups.
Main reason was to check and if the hum was my wiring or the EJ bridge pickup. Well, it's definitely not my wiring. This pickup actually sounds pretty darn good. And the hum is just the normal single coil hum. There was something wrong with that EJ bridge pickup, I'm pretty convinced it was in the pickup itself.
Anyway, I can fart around and play the guitar with a single pickup while I wait for the Lollars to arrive.
For sure, it can be a rabbit hole, been down it too many times.....and usually something REALLY dumb I did.....like wiring the output jack backwards....I'm ashamed to admit I've done that a few times....heh
For sure, it can be a rabbit hole, been down it too many times.....and usually something REALLY dumb I did.....like wiring the output jack backwards....I'm ashamed to admit I've done that a few times....heh
Ok so looks like I’m not quite done with this build,hahaha.
The new pickups finally arrived today and i had them installed in a hot minute.
They sound exactly like i expected them to. Which is fabulous. I’ve got Lollars in humbucker guitars, P90 guitars but it’s really the strat and telecaster Lollars where they shine the most. I just haven't heard anyone make a better single coil than Jason Lollar. Not that they don’t exist, I just haven’t heard them. I loves me some Lollar strat pickups.
As expected the ’64 set is slightly warmer and a bit fuller in the mids than the Vintage Blonde set in my other strat. yet they still have plenty of twang and quack in 2 & 4 positions.
I played it quite a bit today after installing, then played my sunburst strat. Man there‘s just something special going on with that sunburst strat. I sold my Suhr strat after building it, it sounds so good. As mentioned tonally the slightly lower output Blondes have a bit more twang but both sets of pickups sound closer than they are different. Clean the red strat sounded fabulous. Under gain I‘m not loving it as much as I thought I would. I tried some different levels of gain and no matter what I could hear a slight bit of stridency in the highs. It was bugging me, I went back and forth between the old strat at the red one to try to figure it out and I think I finally figured it out.
The sunburst strat has a solid brass sustain block while the red has a steel one. I thought i’d leave the stock steel block in for some tonal separation with the burst strat but just don’t like steel blocks. There’s a sweetness to the sound of a brass tr‘em block that I just prefer.
Just so happens Musiclilly makes a brass block for my Wilkinson trem which has an unconventional string hole pattern. So I ordered one. We’ll see if that brass block can get that last 2% of tonal performance out of it.
Still a pretty darn good overall cost for a guitar that sounds and plays at this caliber. Point being, you don't NEED to spend $2k for a Nash to get to this level of guitar. 
