What is the exact spec of your Partscaster (Tele or Strat) and why?
Body=Swamp Ash one piece (sustain)
Neck=Quarter sawn maple, compound 10"-13", vintage frets, double action truss (stable for low action)
Hardware=All Gotoh, 18:1 machines, chromed brass modern style bridge (sustain and stability)
Electrics=Scatter wound hand made pickups, 6.5kohms bridge/7.5kohms neck (just because they're hand wound)
Finish=Nitro neck/spray can body (next job - proper paint)
Action= On the deck with very little rattle
I play all bluesy stuff and all pentatonic. I play with a very light touch so can have everything set close and low.
Comments
Neck = Quarter sawn maple, 9.5", vintage frets (GSP Basses), - Stability.
Bone nut (Manchester Guitar Tech) - Tone and Tuning stability.
Hardware = Cheap-ass tuners, Aged nickel Fender bridge, 60's threaded saddles (Not in photo), Aged nickel control plate - @Bridgehouse built it,......he chose them!
Electrics = Fender Japan 60's Pickups, CTS, Orange Drop, Electrosocket - 60's sound? I don't know, ask @Bridgehouse
Finish = Nitro neck/Nitro body, Fender 'Daphne Blue', Light Relic - Because he likes hitting things with big wrenches once he's painted them up to look really nice.
Action = 1.6mm - 1.3mm at 12th Fret - Because any higher is working too hard.
https://i.imgur.com/Cs4lT4p.jpg
This was a partscaster that I'd had for years, but decided to give it a revamp. Want to try something really stripped back - the mod I did before had push/pulls etc. So I wanted a single P90 and in the neck. Why? Why not lol.
https://i.imgur.com/5KHLGTs.jpg
Body - MJT. Alder. Finished in Candy Green as that was the colour I had my heart set on - at the time, it was MJT or the Fender Custom Shop, and I preferred to spec an MJT perfectly for a third of the price.
Neck - USACG via MJT. Quite a thick C profile but with 22 big frets and a flattish radius, because I play a lot of modern-sounding fast stuff and wanted it to be extra easy to play. Went for the wrong headstock though, and chose the wrong finish. Those aesthetic concerns, combined with the fact I'm not sold on the profile, mean I will probably be replacing the neck at some point. Not in a rush though, as it's perfectly liveable. These faults aren't a reflection on USACG or MJT either - just a case of me not giving enough thought to what I wanted.
Pickups - Oil City StoneTones. @TheGuitarWeasel 's prices were exactly in budget, and they punched well above their weight - I've heard Strats with pickups that cost twice what these did or more, and they weren't as good. As usual with Ash's stuff, as soon as these pickups went in I knew I had "the" sound, and the thought of swapping them for anything else actively repels me.
One day, I plan to do another MJT build which will be an equivalent to this, but a maple-neck, double-bound Tele. Probably in gold.
Body- ash with TruOil finish. (It came with the neck & was coated in THICK poly so I refinished it)
Neck- maple. Coz that's what Springsteen had on Born Run- my inspiration.
Pick-up and harness- OilCity Alligator 90 (I LOVE P90s & find Tele pickups harsh)
OilCity Esquire harness (I wired it myself initially, but wanted better pots & caps, add in my rudimentary soldering skills... Time for upgrades. Ash's soldering is beautiful).
Hardware- all from the parts drawer
Pickguard- cut from a scratched Born to Run 12" single. Because why not- it looks cool.
I might upgrade the hardware & put a thicker neck on there, but it's a great guitar as it is.
Esquire https://imgur.com/a/gXdfg
The one behind it is a partscaster too
Plank, box- lying around.
curtain fixings, an old hinge- from my DIY box
Tuners, piezo & strings- guitar parts box.
Plays fine- I've even gigged it.
Body - Fender US Special 3 tone sunburst, because it was available second hand and already finished
Neck - northwest guitars satin maple neck with maple board, because it is satin and fairly standard (it’s slightly thicker than s tyical Fender standard C)
Bridge - Wilkinson 6 saddle with modern saddles, because I rest my hand on the bridge a lot and prefer the feel to bent saddles.
Tuners - Black ones from Northwest guitars, because they’re cheap and black, they work fine.
Electronics - single H guard with EMG 81 and a volume pot, because that’s what I needed to play the songs and nothing extra.
Body: Cedar from my neighbours garden. I wanted to use local timber. The silhouette is modified Tele, more of a bulge on the upper bout to alter the strap position and balance. Reduced lower bout so that it doesn’t impede upper fret access. Heavily chamfered for forearm and stomach and left wrist.
Neck: One from @TTony. Feels like 12” radius. Maple for sound, and rosewood for feel.
Hardware: Six saddle modern bridge because I prefer the intonation. Large bridge plate because I wasn’t sure about the strength of the Cedar. Reverse control plate because I like it that way. Axetec tuners, non-locking to keep the weight down. Schaller style locking strap buttons so it doesn’t fall off. Electro jack socket which guides the jack plug into the hole.
Electrics: Oil City Californian in the neck for its Strat-like sound. Wapping Wharf in the bridge position. Having a tappable single coil is like having a choice of two pickups. CTS 250k pots, .22 caps, and .003 Tap. Five way Super switch selector: Bridge, tapped bridge, neck and tapped bridge in parallel, neck, both pickups in series.
Finish: Tru-Oil. An oil finish is quick and easy to apply, and doesn’t crack when knocked. I like the look of wood grain, which is why I don’t use pick guards, and prefer stain to paint. This one I left un-stained.
Did you spray the body yourself?
It actually looks really good, especially with that tort guard. Nice.
Body: Russian alder. Because it was built for me by @russianbear ;
Neck: Canadian maple strat neck with jazzmaster decal applied
Tuners: Fender branded ? Schaller, off a standard strat
Pickups: Two Gibson P90s
Bridge: Mastery (for my money the apex of bridge engineering)
Vibrato: Fender Jazzmaster/Jaguar (although I’m on Safari for a Mastery to replace it)
Electrics: standard stuff save we ditched the rhythm circuit.
Finish: metallic flesh pink. From the Toyota Yaris collection
Body - battered, black 1972 Fender because it is cool, light, resonant and sounds great
Neck - Allparts 50s maple nitro finish because the original 1972 neck broke and this is nicer
Electrics - Seymour Duncan Broadcaster bridge & neck because the originals were shit and went in the bin
There are 3 reasons that it's my favourite.
- The neck. Rosewood, custom build from Warmoth and just wonderful.
- The pickup. Oil City Diesel Tap, with an added little-bit-extra.
- The body. Self build, lovely piece of Ash , which is slightly under-standard thickness and so quite light.
Feels good, sounds good, easy to play. I pick this up in preference to far more expensive options.That was when it had a DiMarzio DP210 in it, - since replaced with a "proper" Oil City P90.
The mini toggle is for the p'up tap - the body was too thin to use push/pull pots.
Neck is maple/ebony - one of GSP's.
Body is another self build, is one-piece Ash, and is again under standard thickness as I had to thickness the plank down to remove a "feature" in the wood. Originally I thought it would be scrap, but turned out to be completely savable.
This is what it came from ...
As you can see, a hollowbody. Made from Cherry. The neck was horrible (also my first attempt), and the p'ups were swapped a long time ago. I've still got the body. Somewhere.
Made it as a learning experience really - my first neck, my first hollowbody, my first Tele.
And finally ...
Body & neck by GSP.
P'ups by Oil City.
I wanted to do something a bit different, rather than another thinline Tele, so I messed around a bit with the pickups and switching options. Both p'ups are tapped via push/push pots, and the mini-toggle is a blower (IIRC).
Does it still sound like a Tele? No, it just sounds like me
Squier body. No idea what wood. It's sherwood green with candy apple red underneath
CP60's neck (12" radius and Gibson-y frets are lovely)
Callaham bridge (after trying every cheap option I finally spent the cash and fully understood that somethings are just worth paying for)
Rio Grande Midbottom set (Halfbreed bridge and vintage tallboy neck/middle). Spectacular vintage-bit-pokey Start pickups
Rothwell Hot Little Knob - gives nice options and makes for a very versatile "fat switch" for gigging a whole set with just this guitar. I don't use it much these days, but it's completely stock when turned off
Fatboy relic pickguard, because it's exactly the right shade of mint.
Body is ash, but semi-hollow like a 72 thinline, but without the f-hole because that would look a bit odd on a La Cab.
Neck is from USACG and is absolutely HUGE. Rosewood board over quartersawn maple with stainless 6105 (narrow/tall) frets. Basically trying to go closer to the Duo-Jet thing than a regular Cabronita Tele, while still obviosuly being a Tele.
I don't know if it's the quartersawn-ness or the hollowness, or the baseball bat size of the neck, or just a great pairing of neck & body where they resonate nicely together, but it absolutely *sings* acoustically.
Classic/Classic+
Pots are BKP-special order CTS 550k, which I like as much for their low torque than the value & taper
Bridge is a Callaham hardtail (this was the test-bed before ordering the Callaham for the Strat above)Pickups are TV
Tuners are locking Schallers with pearl buttons. I went for pearl as a minor nod toward John Mayer's black strat, but mostly cos they're pretty. Might switch for non-locking ones at some point, just to take away the smidge of neck dive it has (the heavy neck & hollow body sound great but ergonomically it's slightly annoying)
And credit to @WezV for the finish. Nitro body (checking courtesy of January 2013's snow) and his patented (not actually patented) tru-oil slurry neck finish. It's almost 5 years old and still fantastic.
Gold Top.. A lump of mahogany, from a guy I used to work with (free). Probably (definitely) deserves better than the treatment it's had from me, over the years. Paisley fabric back and sides (inspired by Jookychap) and a gold leaf top. Cleared out late mother in law's, a while back, and the gold leaf had been the father in law's (who I never knew). Seemed like a nice way to use it up. I had to buy some to add to it, though, but hey.. Paisley neck plate, just because..
Cheap Chinese neck off the bay, Wilkinson tuners, maybe. Unknown Gibson Humbucker (cheap) and GFS zebra humbucker (cheap). Schaller roller bridge (cos I like em, and if you're slightly off with your placement..).
It's been painted, repainted, had different bridges and necks over the years. This is it, now, though..
Swamp ash T-type.. Body shaped from a blank from Crap Surprise, in Derbyshire, cos it looked nice. Modulus Graphite neck because it came in at the same price, with tuners, as a maple tele neck without tuners - no contest. BKP Stormy Monday (no particular reason, but it's alright..) and Mojo P90 (used for a nice price). Brown furniture wax finish. Schaller roller bridge.
Blue one.. Booboo..? body off the bay. Not sure what wood it is. I bought it on price, and I liked the Strat-ish shape. Squier Affinity Tele bridge pickup. Super 70 neck pickup. Wilkinson tuners. Previously had a Johnson Tele neck, but currently sporting a Revelation Tele neck. I'm a sucker for the lefty/righty thing..! Revelation neck was dead cheap.. Engraved neck plate, cos I liked the look of it. Bridge was off ebay.. The Revelation neck is slightly narrower, so I've got a slightly narrower spaced vintage style bridge, for next time I restring. It's usable for now.. Heat resistant engine/brake caliper paint. Easy enough to apply, tough, hopefully.. Nice colours..
I've used decent-ish pots, I think, in them all, and 50s-ish wiring, I think.. They all play and sound pretty good to me.. Rough and ready, and don't really stand up to close scrutiny, but they'll do.. Not worth a fraction of what they've all cost, over all the years, but they've kept me busy..