Strat-o-tomfoolery - Part II - Firemist Gold 8-17-23 New demo added

MichaelW

MichaelW

Well-known member
So as I've mentioned in another post. I'm officially unemployed as of 2 weeks ago and taking a sabbatical.

Good thing is I'm taking a much needed break from the corporate world. Bad thing is, I'm on a fixed income for a while, so definitely need to back off on the all the gear acquisition/building.

I have a couple of projects that were "in flight" before I exited my former company.
There's a wee bass project (I'll post when it arrives)
And there's a budget electric 12 string project that has not arrived yet.

Then there's this Strat. I've been eyeing a gold strat for quite some time. The Fender Roadworn series Firemist gold. But they're really not very inexpensive for what they are. And add to that the cost of getting a new neck and pickups to my liking.....I decided to just build one from scratch.

I've been keeping an eye out for a gold MJT strat body but wound up getting a BloomDoom Guitars body. As I understand it, Justin Bloom used to work for Mark Jenny (MJT). It's a very nicely done body in a "closet classic" type of relic. The "Firemist" gold looks like a "new" finish in that it's not as aged/faded as some other Firemist guitars I've seen, most notable from the Fender Custom Shop.

This guitar is really being built around a set of pickups I wanted to try from Onamac Windery. The "Pink Tone" set is supposed to be inspired by David Gilmour.

Downside is that he winds these to order and it takes him a while to get them done. I have a couple of sets of pickups I ordered over a month ago and still no peep from him.

So in the meantime, I ordered a set of cheap GFS strat pickups roughly the same winding and output as the Onamac ones that will be going into this guitar as a temp set.

Waiting for one last item, a Wudtone "Holy Grail" tremolo system to arrive. I'm pretty sure I have all the other parts.
Still debating whether I want to have any aged hardware on this guitar.

Here's the BloomDoom body.
IMG_4975.JPG

IMG_4976.JPG

IMG_4977.JPG

Some light checking to simulate a closet classic.
IMG_4978.JPG

This another neck from Guitar Flow on Reverb. A nice roasted maple neck with some interesting figure on the rosewood board. Today's project is to start the headstock decal.
IMG_4979.JPG

IMG_4980.JPG

Stay tuned....
 
My tremolo arrived today. This is the Wudtone "Holy Grail" version of their awesome trems.

I blame @SillyOctpuss for turning me onto these trems. Once you try one, you can't go back to a standard 6 hole trem.
They aren't cheap but they're worth it in my opinion. Smooth action and great tuning stability.

The "Holy Grail" version has the added mass on the plate, so it's not completely "vintage" styling. But it's also not super far off either.
We'll see how much different it sounds from the vintage ones that I've used. This was the last piece I was waiting for to start this strat build.
(Although with the temporary pickups, still no word from Onamac Windery on my strat set)

I'm also waiting for the lacquer to cure on the headstock, I should be able to wet sand and buff it out tomorrow.

IMG_4984.JPG

Since this Strat will (eventually) have a set of "Gilmour inspired" pickups, I decided to go with the Gilmour length trem arm.
Not sure how much I'll like it but we'll give her a go.

IMG_4985.JPG
 
Nice. They are absolutely fantastic trems, easily my favourite out of all I've tried. I'm looking forward to seeing what you think of the holy grail vs the vintage model. The vintage wasn't available when I bought mine.

Oh this also reminds me that my prs trem turned up while you were on your break and it's already gone back to the sender. They clearly hadn't set it up properly or had done something weird with it because it was damaged round the screw holes. They hadn't mentioned the damage in the ad either.
 
SillyOctpuss said:
Nice. They are absolutely fantastic trems, easily my favourite out of all I've tried. I'm looking forward to seeing what you think of the holy grail vs the vintage model. The vintage wasn't available when I bought mine.

Oh this also reminds me that my prs trem turned up while you were on your break and it's already gone back to the sender. They clearly hadn't set it up properly or had done something weird with it because it was damaged round the screw holes. They hadn't mentioned the damage in the ad either.
Click to expand...
Ugh sorry to hear that.
 
Ok, I’ve pretty much got her out together today but not without some hiccups.

The set of temp GFS pickups sound pretty darn good for $23 pickups. BUT, QC remains an issue at that price point. The bridge pickup has a broken coil wire somewhere. It’s totally dead. I had another GFS bridge pickup laying around that I put in for the time being. A temp bridge pickup for the temp bridge pickup if you will hahaha.

They are also noisy as hell. I’m not sure if I have ground issue, I might. Makes my red strat sound like i’m using noiseless pickups in comparison. ALSO, I have a bum Switchcraft jack, sigh….first time that’s ever happened but it’s intermittently dropping signal, that’s after resoldering it twice!

Having said all that, it’s sitting under tension right now and I’ll give it a couple weeks before the final setup. I may need to deal with a couple high frets. I can already tell this is going to be my favorite strat. The neck profile is just a skootch fuller than my red strat. I absolutely love how it feels and plays. And it actually sounds pretty darn good with the frankenstein set of pickups in it.

I have a couple pedal build reports to post and will, try to do a demo with the “Firemistress”.

Love the look of this!

IMG_4997.JPG

I used a set of the Xotic Raw tremolo springs.
IMG_4999.JPG

IMG_5001.JPG

There’s some cool and interesting figuring on the rosewood board.
IMG_5002.JPG

My “Wall ’o Strats”….
IMG_5003.JPG
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top