Birth of a Black Strat

stickyfiddle

No, not the Black Strat, but with a recent John Mayer concert behind me, and a pending Pink Floyd show ahead of me, plus a lifelong love of The Edge, I thought it was time to build something in black. I finally got strings on mk1 of this today

Right now... 

• we have an alder body that's a bit more buggered than I'd like, but it was well priced and is well under 4lb. I'm on the lookout for something lightweight in nice-ish-but-not-pristine nitro. 
• The neck is a quartersawn Jazzmaster neck that's I've used in a couple of previous builds. It's a nice neck but not the long-term answer for this guitar. The primary neck is stuck somewhere in the USA, and may be a couple of months before it's ready to go on a guitar; 
• Pickups are Monty's Space Time Continuum set. The neck & middle are spectacular, the bridge is good but not as fat as I'd like. I'm used to a Rio Grande set with a Halfbreed in the bridge, so I may go in a similar direction; given Edge and Gilmour both use ridiculous bridge pickups in their own Strats I don't feel a need to go that far, but a bit more chonk would be good
• Trem is Callaham's vintage narrow. I have a full vintage-spaced one I may also try but I need to judge that when the final neck is in place
• Plastics are whatever I had in the parts box for now - total mismatch but functional. I have a nice set of reliced pale mint stuff on its way as I don't really want a full tribute to a specific instrument, and especially one as iconic as the DG Black Strat. But it's fun for a little while  

 

axisus

Looking good. I do like a strat. And I much prefer a trad looking trem as well.

fretmeister

That's looking nice!

Tell me more about the Rio Half Breed please. My black strat currently has the Seymour Twang Banger in it and I do like it but it also sometimes sounds a bit too different to the Lollar 64s in Middle and Neck and I'm thinking about a change for the bridge.

stickyfiddle

Yeah, it's a good start at least

@fretmeister The Rios are awesome. The set I have is 2x Tallboys and a Halfbreed in the bridge. 

The Tallboys are their hot-vintage pickup, A5 magnets at 7.2k. The Halfbreed is a step up at 7.4k with slightly fatter polepieces and slightly fatter sound, but not hot-hot. The Muy Grande is the another step up again but I haven't tried that one. 

https://riograndepickups.com/vintage-tallboy-strat 

https://riograndepickups.com/halfbreed-strat

To my ears they're just an extremely great Strat pickup. I guess they're more on the "Texas" side of things than e.g. Hank Marvin but not an unusable caricature at all like some hot strat pickups can be. I fitted them 12-13 years ago now after a recommendation on Musicradar (@DrBob I think?) and I haven't considered switching them even once. 

The Monty STC set is really really good too, I just need a fatter bridge pickup, and I'll probably buy whatever the Monty chaps recommend - my guess is a Full Monty with a baseplate, but I'll have a chat with them. I should probably also try the Lollar Special I have in the parts box because that might do the job without spending any money.

And if all else fails these wonderful pickups will go on here and I'll get another set of Rios

fretmeister

I'll set up an ebay notification thing, see if I get lucky on one!

fretmeister

Blimey - there are literally zero Rio Grande pickups on ebay with UK shipping.

Maybe I'll get a Lollar Special S for a ton instead! It's a little hotter / fatter than the regular 64 bridge pickup and it is the one that Lollar recommend for that sort of thing.

LionAquaLooper

That's very nice.  I've always preferred all black strats with dark fretboards.  Maple fretboards don't look right on them IMO.

stickyfiddle

fretmeister said:

Blimey - there are literally zero Rio Grande pickups on ebay with UK shipping.

Maybe I'll get a Lollar Special S for a ton instead! It's a little hotter / fatter than the regular 64 bridge pickup and it is the one that Lollar recommend for that sort of thing.

Yeah Rio Grande have almost no UK presence these days, which is a shame.

I have a set of Lollar Specials as well. I tried them in my Danocaster and found them a bit dull but I will try at least the bridge one in here and see what happens 

ICBM

I hope I can say this given that it’s not intended to be the final neck , but it’s amazing how wrong the Jazzmaster headstock looks on a Strat! Despite being probably my favourite Fender head shape - on a JM or a Jaguar, or any of the short-scale offsets.

Other than that it looks great, the partscaster look is very strong even though they’re all more or less standard parts. It’s interesting how much different the narrow-spaced bridge is too, but the strings line up perfectly with the pickup poles. The bridge pickup always looks a bit odd with the standard spacing, because the angle effectively makes it narrower.

stickyfiddle

ICBM said:

I hope I can say this given that it’s not intended to be the final neck , but it’s amazing how wrong the Jazzmaster headstock looks on a Strat! Despite being probably my favourite Fender head shape - on a JM or a Jaguar, or any of the short-scale offsets.

Other than that it looks great, the partscaster look is very strong even though they’re all more or less standard parts. It’s interesting how much different the narrow-spaced bridge is too, but the strings line up perfectly with the pickup poles. The bridge pickup always looks a bit odd with the standard spacing, because the angle effectively makes it narrower.

lols

I don't hate it but it's not "right". I have an eye on a 70s all-maple neck as well, possibly for a sister Strat for a more Edge-y vibe, but that's a longer term project.  This JM neck was actually on the copper one for the last 18+ months and actually feels good on there, as it's even more of a partscaster vibe. 

I really like these Callaham bridges. They sound phenomenal, are very well engineered with the nylon arm-hole insert to stop play, and nicely machined pivot holes to keep everything working properly.  And the vintage mount/narrow saddle option is brilliant. The strings don't feel too close, and the Es actually follow the fretboard edges perfectly from nut to saddle, so you don't get anything slipping off the edges of the frets. 

And having avoided floating Strat trems basically forever, I think I'm finally coming around to them...  

fretmeister

stickyfiddle said:

fretmeister said:

Blimey - there are literally zero Rio Grande pickups on ebay with UK shipping.

Maybe I'll get a Lollar Special S for a ton instead! It's a little hotter / fatter than the regular 64 bridge pickup and it is the one that Lollar recommend for that sort of thing.

Yeah Rio Grande have almost no UK presence these days, which is a shame.

I have a set of Lollar Specials as well. I tried them in my Danocaster and found them a bit dull but I will try at least the bridge one in here and see what happens 

Mmm.

I really like the Lollar 64 in the neck and middle. They are ace. At the bridge it just needs a little something so I'm surprised that the one they recommend is a bit dull. Got to have that top end for a strat!

Maybe I'll play with pickup heights a bit more before I spend any money.

stickyfiddle

It might just be a big difference between the Lollar Special and the Rocketfires that were stock in that guitar - huge difference in vibe there that I suspect was just too much of a contrast. All my other Lollars are expectional so I don't think it's a pickup issue. Let me have a go and report back

I should really do some clips of all this too

stickyfiddle

I'm coming round the to relicing, though have been scouting for less-reliced bodies just in case. I found a 4lb roadworn that looks good and isn't expensive, so that might be worth a go. 

And in other news Coda has just listed this, which is badass. So maybe I need a second black body anyway... 

dindude

So apart from the body, neck, plastics, bridge pickup all about to change, you’re all good! Does look neat though. 

stickyfiddle

dindude said:

So apart from the body, neck, plastics, bridge pickup all about to change, you’re all good! Does look neat though. 

Yeah but you haven't even seen the neck plate yet...  

stickyfiddle

Right so the OG neck finally arrived today and is ace, thank god!

That will get a lightly-ambered tru oil and be ready in a month or so. I also nabbed a light-ish Roadworn body that I think will work better for this specific build. I'll keep this body at least in the cupboard, and it may get HSS and/or a sustainer in time. But it's on the backburner until the primary build is done and settled 

In the meantime this old JM neck is now in a suitcase with the Coppercaster body (where it was for the last 18 months) and it'll be with MrsF in Riyadh for a while so I have something to practise on when I'm there.  

fretmeister

What are you using to amber the Tru-oil?

stickyfiddle

fretmeister said:

What are you using to amber the Tru-oil?

I have a bottle of Transtint in Honey Amber. I found some other guys who say that combo works well, so fingers crossed.. 

I don’t want nasty, old decade-in-a-tobacco-hole vibes, just “definitely not new & pale”, so should be good I reckon. 

I’ll post some proper detail on that once I’ve started 

stickyfiddle

New body has arrived and new neck has got a couple of starter coats of oil today. 

I’ll get a little bit of amber on it tomorrow, then more clear through the weekend. Then I’m on holibobs in perfect timing to let it cure  

The slight stripes around the 12th fret are flame, not extra finish!! 

ICBM

The lack of finish in the body routs looks totally weird to me - I've seen it on quite a few recent guitars. Do they really finish the bodies before they rout them, or do they go to a lot of trouble to mask the cavities (and if so, why)?

stickyfiddle

ICBM said:

The lack of finish in the body routs looks totally weird to me - I've seen it on quite a few recent guitars. Do they really finish the bodies before they rout them, or do they go to a lot of trouble to mask the cavities (and if so, why)?

I actually really like the look but agree it feels odd 

Based on this sample size of 1(!) I'm pretty sure it's routed after finishing. But they did a good job. 

The listing says this is a 2025 alder Roadworn