My next Strat...a pictorial 6-17-23 Update

Really interesting to hear your opinions on this stuff. It's looking fantastic!

I have tried a few Callaham bits and pieces and for the most part can't say I'm a fan unfortunately. I've been happy with the Fender Vintage style bridges and prefer them over the Callahams I have tried. Don't get me started on the Callaham all-steel TOM bridge - I hated it! I'm surprised at your feelings about the springs but I guess of course they might affect the tone - everything else does! If I get a Strat again one day I might just have to try a brass bridge block.

Your fret work is impressive. That's something I don't think I could ever do. A good friend of mine recently got a Rickenbacker 330 refretted with SS frets. He spent a day levelling them, getting the set-up perfect only to discover it had completely shifted the next day and he had to do it all over. Apparently the guy who did the refret completely loosened both truss rods while flattening the board and that messed everything up somehow - I'm no expert.

And when I got a pickup plate from Lindy Fralin he said to use some beeswax to solidly connect it to the bottom of the pickup. He suggested using a big soldering iron to warm up the baseplate enough to melt the wax enough to form a bond between the baseplate and pickup, otherwise you would get microphonic feedback. Apparently magnetic force is not enough to prevent feedback. You may not notice it with a quiet clean tone although you might hear some handling noise.
 
HamishR said:
Really interesting to hear your opinions on this stuff. It's looking fantastic!

I have tried a few Callaham bits and pieces and for the most part can't say I'm a fan unfortunately. I've been happy with the Fender Vintage style bridges and prefer them over the Callahams I have tried. Don't get me started on the Callaham all-steel TOM bridge - I hated it! I'm surprised at your feelings about the springs but I guess of course they might affect the tone - everything else does! If I get a Strat again one day I might just have to try a brass bridge block.

Your fret work is impressive. That's something I don't think I could ever do. A good friend of mine recently got a Rickenbacker 330 refretted with SS frets. He spent a day levelling them, getting the set-up perfect only to discover it had completely shifted the next day and he had to do it all over. Apparently the guy who did the refret completely loosened both truss rods while flattening the board and that messed everything up somehow - I'm no expert.

And when I got a pickup plate from Lindy Fralin he said to use some beeswax to solidly connect it to the bottom of the pickup. He suggested using a big soldering iron to warm up the baseplate enough to melt the wax enough to form a bond between the baseplate and pickup, otherwise you would get microphonic feedback. Apparently magnetic force is not enough to prevent feedback. You may not notice it with a quiet clean tone although you might hear some handling noise.
Click to expand...
I definitely hear some additional handling noise especially when switching under gain. If you listen to the demo closely you can hear a pretty audible "click" when switching pickup positions. Next string change I'll pull the pickguard and do something a bit more permanent with the baseplate.

SS frets are a biotch to level and dress and kill your files. I'm not a big fan of SS frets. I've had them on a few guitars, most recently on a Suhr Classic strat and I did not care for them. I know I might be in the minority but I think they don't feel quite right and do have an impact on the tone. I've never had the gumption to drop the $$ on Callaham stuff, in general I prefer to build my tremolos from components. Such as the brass sustain block and I am a HUGE fan of the Highwood strat saddles. They sound right but mostly because of the way they thread the height adjustment screws from below. It's one of those "Geeez, why hasn't anyone thought of this earlier" things....no saddle adjustment screws poking out and very comfy to rest your palm on. My only issue with vintage style trems is the screw in arms, I hate the wobble.
Which is why I used the Wilkinson trem on this guitar. It's a push in but otherwise retains the vintage styling. (Even though I only wound up using the base plate, everything else got replaced, hahaha.

I was VERY surprised with these springs. I'm not completely sure I understand the mechanics of it. But it's definitely doing "something". Whether or not that something is good or bad depends on the player I suppose.
 
HamishR said:
Really interesting to hear your opinions on this stuff. It's looking fantastic!

I have tried a few Callaham bits and pieces and for the most part can't say I'm a fan unfortunately. I've been happy with the Fender Vintage style bridges and prefer them over the Callahams I have tried. Don't get me started on the Callaham all-steel TOM bridge - I hated it! I'm surprised at your feelings about the springs but I guess of course they might affect the tone - everything else does! If I get a Strat again one day I might just have to try a brass bridge block.

Your fret work is impressive. That's something I don't think I could ever do. A good friend of mine recently got a Rickenbacker 330 refretted with SS frets. He spent a day levelling them, getting the set-up perfect only to discover it had completely shifted the next day and he had to do it all over. Apparently the guy who did the refret completely loosened both truss rods while flattening the board and that messed everything up somehow - I'm no expert.

And when I got a pickup plate from Lindy Fralin he said to use some beeswax to solidly connect it to the bottom of the pickup. He suggested using a big soldering iron to warm up the baseplate enough to melt the wax enough to form a bond between the baseplate and pickup, otherwise you would get microphonic feedback. Apparently magnetic force is not enough to prevent feedback. You may not notice it with a quiet clean tone although you might hear some handling noise.
Click to expand...

The montys plate I fitted had wax on it. I heated the pickup with a heat gun until it melted then let it sit till it cooled down. This was the worst bit as I wanted to reinstall it to see if it made any difference and didn't want to wait
 
Thanks @HamishR and @SillyOctpuss, the beeswax is a great idea. I have a block of pure beeswax I can use, (for polishing pipes when I was still smoking pipes....).

I think I'll do that, melt some onto the plate, put the plate on then hit with a heat gun.
I've been listening to my own Red Strat video and even in the demo I can still hear that the middle pickup has more output. I may need to lower it a tad more.
 
MichaelW said:
I definitely hear some additional handling noise especially when switching under gain. If you listen to the demo closely you can hear a pretty audible "click" when switching pickup positions. Next string change I'll pull the pickguard and do something a bit more permanent with the baseplate.

SS frets are a biotch to level and dress and kill your files. I'm not a big fan of SS frets. I've had them on a few guitars, most recently on a Suhr Classic strat and I did not care for them. I know I might be in the minority but I think they don't feel quite right and do have an impact on the tone. I've never had the gumption to drop the $$ on Callaham stuff, in general I prefer to build my tremolos from components. Such as the brass sustain block and I am a HUGE fan of the Highwood strat saddles. They sound right but mostly because of the way they thread the height adjustment screws from below. It's one of those "Geeez, why hasn't anyone thought of this earlier" things....no saddle adjustment screws poking out and very comfy to rest your palm on. My only issue with vintage style trems is the screw in arms, I hate the wobble.
Which is why I used the Wilkinson trem on this guitar. It's a push in but otherwise retains the vintage styling. (Even though I only wound up using the base plate, everything else got replaced, hahaha.

I was VERY surprised with these springs. I'm not completely sure I understand the mechanics of it. But it's definitely doing "something". Whether or not that something is good or bad depends on the player I suppose.
Click to expand...

I've only played a few guitars with SS frets and as they were guitars which weren't my cup of tea to start with I haven't been able to form any real opinions on SS.
 
I love the idea of SS frets, having worn the frets quite badly on a guitar I used to gig with. But I have to think that SS frets would change the tone - they would have to. How much and in what ways I don't know. So I'm looking forward to trying my friend's Ric 330 soon. He bought this one as a kind of back up to one he already has, and with the work he has done on his first one I was surprised at just how good it sounded.

As far as Strats go, I love the vintage Strat bridge. I use some shrink wrap around the arm just above the threaded part and it helps stop the wobbles. I have also cut the threaded part down on one or two arms so that the main bend in the arm is as close to the bridge plate as possible. I don't like having a large section of arm sticking out of the bridge before it bends more or less parallel to the strings. I like it to band as soon as it comes out of the block. Sometimes this means extending the threaded part, something which is really easy to do if you have the right size dies.

But I do find Strats frustrating after playing Gretsch for so long. The Gretsches have such a fat sound along with the twang, and Strats generally sound so thin in comparison. I've had a few Strats which nearly sound fantastic...
 
Well I love me some Gretsches too, different animal though. They all have their own thing going on. I'd love to get a higher end Gretsch someday.
For now my PRS Starla with the Portertrons and the Bigsby will have to fill that gap. It's "almost" a Gretsch.
 
Man, I was surprised but I did some going back and forth and the Raw Vintage springs are really noticeable to me, too. Big fan. I would like to try out the Highwood saddles at some point too, but not in a huge rush there...
 
almondcity said:
Does it still make a difference if you have the bridge flat on the body?
Click to expand...
Yah, I have my tremolo's "decked" on both my vintage style Strats.

One of the sets I ordered is going on my sunburst strat.

I'm planning on installing the other set on my oddball "super strat" that's got a Gotoh 2 point Trem, I'm interested in seeing if it makes any difference on that style. But I'm doing a complete trem rebuild on that one. Brass sustain block, brass PRS style saddles.

Actually, I'm pretty much doing a complete re-build, It's a Warmoth short scale 7/8th sized Strat and I've always had issues with the blade switch grounding out on the cavity shielding. There's not a whole lot of space. I originally built this guitar over 30 years ago and shielded the cavity with copper foil. So I'm planning to pull all that out, route out a little more room for a 5-way "super switch", the paint the cavity with shielding paint instead of copper.
 
I will admit I'm not sure WHY it makes such a difference. But I suppose since the sustain block is attached to the springs, anything touching the block will impact the tone. I know that some folks put masking tape on trem springs to reduce handling noise. I've never had an issue.
 
I have always thought that anything inside the guitar body and neck can potentially affect the tone. It’s simple physics of resonance: material density, anisotropic distribution of mass and all that stuff have an effect on the resonance frequencies (yeah there are many modes of resonance) of any engineered object (ever seen the Tacoma bridge video?). So I’m not surprised you found a bit that produces an audible difference. It’s probably affecting some important frequency!
 
giovanni said:
I have always thought that anything inside the guitar body and neck can potentially affect the tone. It’s simple physics of resonance: material density, anisotropic distribution of mass and all that stuff have an effect on the resonance frequencies (yeah there are many modes of resonance) of any engineered object (ever seen the Tacoma bridge video?). So I’m not surprised you found a bit that produces an audible difference. It’s probably affecting some important frequency!
Click to expand...
Yah, that was a wild video of the bridge!
 
I went with the brass block in my Holy Grail Tremelo, and was emailed asking if I wanted his original saddles, or the Highwoods that he was switching to; so I went with the Highwoods, which I had planned on adding anyway. It’s not decked (although the arm has been off the bridge for at least a year…) and I have all 5 of his springs in, since I do a fair amount of double and tripple stop bends. I feel like having the bridge have some potential to move (even if it is fairly stiff) adds to the Strat sound. I’ll check into these springs though.

I feel like the incredibly slight (to me, but I’m almost 72 and my upper hearing range is not what it used to be) ping that is added by SS frets is well worth the level of polish that the frets stay at. I do the same fret finishing touches that Michael does, but with a finer paste on my felt disks—and after about 2 1/2 years on my Baritone, I don’t think there’s any tactile wear on them. And that’s also my only guitar that has steel wound strings. My NS fret guitars begin to feel a bit sluggish after a month or so, but I just live with that.
 
Ok, one final (I think) modification to this guitar.

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I used a set of Lollar 64 neck and middle pickups with a Lollar Special S in the bridge.
The Lollar 64's (Formerly called the "Blackface") is Lollars best selling set of strat pickups. It's based on the 60's gray bottom pickups of that era although not entirely a "vintage correct" spec.

Somehow I was just not bonding with these pickups. I love the piano like bass and the accentuated mid's but it seemed to be missing something. It didn't quite have the "oomph" I was looking for in this guitar and the bass and mid response seemed to come at the expense of some sparkle.

I was still mulling over where I was going to go next with the pickups when I watched and episode of "Homeskooling" with Tom Bukovac and he had Jeff Senn on this episode. For those that don't know Jeff, he's a strat/tele builder extraordinaire. He builds primarily for the Nashville session crowd and has pretty low output so it's about impossible to get one of his guitars. (Not that I would ever spend that much money on a Strat...)

Anyway, he built Tom Bukovac's white strat that's seen in a lot of his videos and I've always loved how that strat sounded.
In this episode Tom had the guitar back at Jeff's shop for a re-fret and they had the guitar apart and Jeff explained how he got the "fat" sound Tom specified in this build.

Basically he used 3 Lollar Bridge pickups to get the guitar to sound really fat and full but it still sounds squarely in the "vintage strat" spectrum.
It had never occurred to me to mix and match different pickups to get to a desired sound and I think it's a brilliant idea. So I decided to copy what Jeff did on Tom's guitar.

I used a Lollar 64 bridge in both the neck and middle positions (~6.8k) and left the Special S that was already in the bridge position but I moved the steel baseplate to the bridge. This allows me to keep both the neck and middle pickups set fairly low and they're still nicely balanced with the hotter bridge.

I'm REALLY loving how this sounds now. It's a fatter, slightly darker, fuller sounding strat yet it still has plenty of quack in the out of phase positions. So between my 3 Strats I have 3 very different sounding guitars. This one is kinda in that Robin Trower/Ritchie Blackmore camp with a little less output.

I recorded a demo for it in my build report for the SushiBoxFX Ambassador build report.

IMG_5143.JPG
 
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