cdwillis
Well-known member
What's up everybody? I haven't been around much since I'm on a hiatus from building, but I'm still tinkering around a bit on the breadboard and I check in on the forum from time to time. I wanted to show off my new guitar a little bit
I've had a few strats over the years. Eventually they all got traded or sold off because I've had other guitars I liked more. There's been one style of strat I always wanted, a natural finish ash body 70s style strat with the big headstock and bullet truss rod adjustment.
Coincidentally guitar center had a Memorial Day sale with 10% off on used gear right after I spent most of a month filling in for the swing shift guy at work. As a little reward for putting up with that crap, I bought this 2004 (I think) classic series 70s stratocaster. Just got it in the mail today and it's basically pristine.
It's got the u shaped neck with the vintage 7.25" radius and vintage sized frets. After noodling around on it for a bit I took the strings off and went to work on it. I lined the pickup cavities with copper shielding tape, soldered a jumper on the pickup switch so the bridge pickup is connected to the tone control that's normally just for the middle pickup, cleaned up the frets with some 0000 steel wool, and replaced the 9 gauge strings with 10s. This guitar sounds pretty good. I might swap in a different bridge pickup down the line to beef it up a bit, but the pickups all sound good. There's not much info about the pickups online. They've got plastic base plates and some type of alnico magnets. I'm not sure if they're alnico 5, 2, or even alnico 3. The pickguard was fully shielded and the pots were full sized CTS pots. I was expecting the cheap alpha mini pots. It was all pretty clean.
I'm still tweaking the saddle height a little bit and I did order a Duncan SSL6 off reverb to through in the bridge position. I was going back and forth on SSL5 or SSL6, which are the same pickup just with staggered (SSL5) or flat (SSL6) pole pieces. I was leaning towards the staggered because of the 7.25" radius, but I thought the flat would give me a little more flexibility in pickup height without that G string pole piece causing issues.
I've had a few strats over the years. Eventually they all got traded or sold off because I've had other guitars I liked more. There's been one style of strat I always wanted, a natural finish ash body 70s style strat with the big headstock and bullet truss rod adjustment.
Coincidentally guitar center had a Memorial Day sale with 10% off on used gear right after I spent most of a month filling in for the swing shift guy at work. As a little reward for putting up with that crap, I bought this 2004 (I think) classic series 70s stratocaster. Just got it in the mail today and it's basically pristine.
It's got the u shaped neck with the vintage 7.25" radius and vintage sized frets. After noodling around on it for a bit I took the strings off and went to work on it. I lined the pickup cavities with copper shielding tape, soldered a jumper on the pickup switch so the bridge pickup is connected to the tone control that's normally just for the middle pickup, cleaned up the frets with some 0000 steel wool, and replaced the 9 gauge strings with 10s. This guitar sounds pretty good. I might swap in a different bridge pickup down the line to beef it up a bit, but the pickups all sound good. There's not much info about the pickups online. They've got plastic base plates and some type of alnico magnets. I'm not sure if they're alnico 5, 2, or even alnico 3. The pickguard was fully shielded and the pots were full sized CTS pots. I was expecting the cheap alpha mini pots. It was all pretty clean.
I'm still tweaking the saddle height a little bit and I did order a Duncan SSL6 off reverb to through in the bridge position. I was going back and forth on SSL5 or SSL6, which are the same pickup just with staggered (SSL5) or flat (SSL6) pole pieces. I was leaning towards the staggered because of the 7.25" radius, but I thought the flat would give me a little more flexibility in pickup height without that G string pole piece causing issues.
