Red Strat 2.0 (-ish) 8-26-23 Update - Demo Added

MichaelW

MichaelW

Well-known member
Or maybe it's 3.0 by this point....I've lost track hahaha.

If you've managed to keep up with all my Strat-o-tomfoolery posts, you'll recall that I built a red strat last year.

That one was a bit of an experiment with keep everything low cost and overall BOM fairly budget conscious.

Well, it turned out nice but something about it nagged at me. So it wound up getting a new MJT body, then a new Guitar Flow neck. Then it got a Wudtone trem (damn that @SillyOctpuss, I can't play any other Strat trems now.....I've been so spoiled..... :ROFLMAO: ).

Then it went through a series of pickup changes. But it just never quite got to where I wanted it to be.
So I gutted it, and migrated most of the components into what turned into my "Fat Strat" project. THAT guitar is now perfect! It's my favorite Strat so far and plays and sounds exactly like I wanted it to. It's different enough from my 50's Strat and my Shoreline Gold strat.

So now I have this cool MJT Candy Apple Red body.....what's one to do? I kinda have all my Strat sounds covered with my 3 Strats. But, it's kinda like having 2 bbq ribs left on the platter, I don't really NEED to eat them but it's not enough to put away in the fridge....heh.....

So I decided to build it out with the original intention of having a Candy Apple Red 60's Strat to replace one that I had let go of many many decades ago.

I had an extra neck that I got off Ebay cheap. I was working on it a couple days ago and when I went to scrap and smooth out the fingerboard the "rosewood" started to come off in big slivers. Sigh......I've had nothing but problems with these cheap Chinese necks. So I said screw it, if I'm building this out then I'm going to do it right. So I ordered another neck from my favorite Reverb neck source. Guitar Flow. These necks are just really fantastic, every bit as good as an Allparts neck and in some respects even better, for less than 1/2 the price. The profiles are nice and chunky and none of the necks I've gotten from needed anything more done to the frets than a minor bit of dressing and a polish. They come leveled and crowned. (Unlike Allparts necks)

I'm also having Wolfe Macleod wind me a custom set of Grey Bottom 60's pickups that will be a little out of spec of a true 60's wind but a bit more to my tastes.
It won't be as "fat" as my Fat Strat but it will be "chubbier" than my Shoreline Gold strat. (At least thats the plan). I don't have the pickups yet, hopefully next week sometime.

I also got another Wudtone Tremolo. I decided to "age" this one a bit with my ferric chloride PCB echtant method.
I aged the jack plate as well. Not a heavy relic but more like a patina.
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The neck arrived in the mail today. When I first took it out I was like "hmmmmm......." it's got some very light grain in some areas.
But the more I looked at it, the more it grew on me and now I'm really digging it. It's going to be a rather unusual look but interesting.
Once I get it oiled it should look really nice with a bit of a golden hue in some places.

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Stay tuned, more to come.......
 
It's probably your mad tinkering skills, but I've never been able to get a partscaster right like you seem to. I'll get good parts, assemble everything that should make a great guitar but it never does. I've come close once or twice, and other guys have loved 'em but they've never done it for me. Then when I think of how much they have all cost me to build (although I get most back when I have sold them) I think why didn't I just buy a CS Fender?

I've had a few CS Fenders and they're not always better, but when you get a good one (and I finally have!) they can be sublime. I always buy used so can get my $$ back if I don't bond with them. I have even made some money on one or two.

But you seem to have a knack, Michael! I'll have to stick to building amps and pedals. That bridge looks fantastic too.
 
HamishR said:
It's probably your mad tinkering skills, but I've never been able to get a partscaster right like you seem to. I'll get good parts, assemble everything that should make a great guitar but it never does. I've come close once or twice, and other guys have loved 'em but they've never done it for me. Then when I think of how much they have all cost me to build (although I get most back when I have sold them) I think why didn't I just buy a CS Fender?
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After spending a ton of cash on my early partscasters I had the same experience as you. These days I gve all the parts to a luthier and get them to build it for me. The two times I've done that I've ended up with a killer guitar that I've kept and actually play! All my self built efforts were sold off in pieces and lost loads of money.

Michael's fretwork looks great though.
 
HamishR said:
It's probably your mad tinkering skills, but I've never been able to get a partscaster right like you seem to. I'll get good parts, assemble everything that should make a great guitar but it never does. I've come close once or twice, and other guys have loved 'em but they've never done it for me. Then when I think of how much they have all cost me to build (although I get most back when I have sold them) I think why didn't I just buy a CS Fender?

I've had a few CS Fenders and they're not always better, but when you get a good one (and I finally have!) they can be sublime. I always buy used so can get my $$ back if I don't bond with them. I have even made some money on one or two.

But you seem to have a knack, Michael! I'll have to stick to building amps and pedals. That bridge looks fantastic too.
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I'm not gonna even tell you how many parts casters it took me to get the skills to the point they are now heh. There have been some "unmentionables" along the way over the last 30 years...... :ROFLMAO:
 
Alan W said:
You’ve got the patina down! That looks great, and I think the fingerboard is going to continue to grow on you.
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Thanks, I definitely like this one the best so far (patina'd bridge). It's taken me a few tries to figure out the right amount of time with the acid, the right amount of pre-sanding and so forth to get the realistic patina and not an obvious over-relic'd look.
 
Well before the Red, white and blue truck of happiness dropped off my new Les Paul today I was working on this.

I finished the neck although once again, I'm not super happy with dealing with nitro in this blasted heat and humidity.

While I'm not planning to buy any more "new" guitars I do have some re-builds in the pipeline. I've got 4 sets of pickups inbound. 3 from Planet Tone and one set from Wolfetone. The Woflie set is for his red strat but in the meantime I decided to build it out, get an initial set up and let it sit under tension for a while.

There's definitely doing to be some massaging with the fret work that I'll need to do to get it playing as cleanly as I like.
For the time being I put the set of Onamac Windery "Pink Tone" set of "Gilmour" pickups in this. I didn't like them when I first installed them in my Gold strat. That opinion hasn't changed, they don't sound any better to me in the Red strat heh.

But it makes noise and I can play it! (Like I needed another Strat like a hole in the head....)

Anyway, I put two coats of tinted Danish Oil on the fingerboard then buffed it out. The grain pattern is not as stark as it was dry but I think it looks pretty cool.

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The bone nut had a chip on one end, but instead of replacing it I decided to try to sand it out, then gave it a nice polish. I like the look of "unbleached" bone nuts. I've also started using my own concoction of nut lube. I'll scrape some pencil lead into the slots then put a drop of "Nut Sauce" lubricant out of a syringe and make a little slurry. Seems to hold up the better than either by itself for tuning stability with the whammy bar.

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Candy Apple Red and Mint Green seem to go together like Rocky Road and Pralines and Cream.....:)

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I "aged" the pickguard screws but didn't do the pickup or 5 way switch screws. Looks a little wierd. I may go back and fix that later.
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This neck had a satin finish on it. I put a couple coats of carnauba wax on it and buffed it to a dull shine. Feels fantastic!


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Stay tuned for the new pickups when they show up. I'll put a demo together then.
 
Ok, finally getting around to doing a demo of the final (I think) configuration of this guitar with the Wolfetone Strat Cub pickups.
These are essentially a set of 60's grey bottom pickups with some Wolfe's tonal signature. Like all the other Wolfetone pickups I've tried they sound BIG. very 3D and they throw a big soundstage,

Plenty of that vintage 60's piano like bass, slightly scooped mids and wonderfully crystalline trebles that never get shrill or ice-picky.
Really loving this guitar now! It's no longer a source of frustration but up there amongst my favorite! Great that I now have built 4 Strats with different voices.

 
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I'm not a strat single coil guy, but it sounds good.

Never understood the short trem arm. It works for Gilmour, but there's a reason every else's isn't chopped down.
 
cdwillis said:
I'm not a strat single coil guy, but it sounds good.

Never understood the short trem arm. It works for Gilmour, but there's a reason every else's isn't chopped down.
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Gilmour and Jeff Beck in his later years. Figured it was worth checking out. Now I know heh......
 
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SillyOctpuss said:
Well that sucks but also absolutely not a surprise that it's non standard. At least you tried it.
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Ok I may be wrong on the non-standard size. Looks like it's a 5mm threaded arm, difference being that they use a special stainless steel alloy that's supposed to have some malleability for strength. It's bloody 38 GBP to order one from Wudtone directly from the UK. That's almost $50USD for a freaking trem arm.

I may try a Fender one and see if it works.
 
That's just robbery for a trem arm. It's only £17.90 for me to order one here. I'll get one and send it to you. You might as well have the right one. I don't think the Fender threads will work with the wudtone block because it's also a partial push fit and the threads don't go as high up as a Fender arm.

Let me know which one you want and I'll order it today.
 
SillyOctpuss said:
That's just robbery for a trem arm. It's only £17.90 for me to order one here. I'll get one and send it to you. You might as well have the right one. I don't think the Fender threads will work with the wudtone block because it's also a partial push fit and the threads don't go as high up as a Fender arm.

Let me know which one you want and I'll order it today.
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Thanks for the offer! I've got an email into BYO Guitars to see if they will sell the arms separately. They "should" being the only US Distributor.
Let me hear back from them first and I'll let you know! Thanks dude!
 
MichaelW said:
Thanks for the offer! I've got an email into BYO Guitars to see if they will sell the arms separately. They "should" being the only US Distributor.
Let me hear back from them first and I'll let you know! Thanks dude!
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No problem. Fingers crossed they sort you out and if they won't then SillyOctpuss parts stocks the things you need :ROFLMAO:
 
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