DrNomis_44's Gold Standard STA-1M Build.

[Andy40]

Respect Doc ......thats a decent outlay on tuners

[DrNomis_44]

Respect Doc ......thats a decent outlay on tuners

For sure, the set of 6 Sperzel Tuners cost me Au$180.00 all up, so hopefully they will be really good quality, what's really cool about Sperzel Tuners is that they can be fairly easily converted from Right-Hand to Left-Hand, so if you're buying a set of Sperzels to put on a reverse headstock you can simply convert the tuners over so they will fit.

[DrNomis_44]

Update:


Woohoo!! A big box of some new guitar parts just arrived in the post, here's a pic of all the stuff that was inside the box:






These were what I was mostly waiting for, they are the new set of Gold Sperzel Locking-Tuners I ordered for the Gold Strat:




They have a gear-ratio of 12:1, that means you need to rotate the knob 360 degrees 12 times for the tuner-shaft to rotate 360 degrees once, it may sound like the gear-ratio is too coarse, but it's not really, considering that vintage Kluson Strat/Tele tuners also had a 12:1 gear ratio.

On one end of the Tuner-Shaft is a small hole which you thread the string through, on the other end is a thumbscrew, this raises or lowers a thin steel pin which is inside the Tuner-Shaft, tightening the Thumbscrew raises the steel pin up into the end of the Tuner-Shaft which has the small hole for the string, this will effectively lock the string to the Tuner-Shaft so that you don't need to have very many string-wraps around the Tuner-Shaft, this will help to keep the string in tune better.

There's one other difference with these Sperzel Tuners compared with Standard Tuners, they don't need any mounting-screws, instead, there's a short steel spigot poking out from the underside of the tuner where it sits flush with the back of the Headstock, the small spigot fits inside a small hole drilled into the back of the Headstock a short distance from the 10mm Tuner Mounting-Hole, the small spigot is to stop the Tuner from moving out of alignment due to string-tension, this would also cause the string to go flat.

The Sperzel Tuners are attached to the Headstock via threaded bushings same like a set of Standard Tuners.


Also, the heights of each of the Sperzel Tuners are staggered, so that you have two Tuners that are set the highest (E and A), followed by two that are set a bit lower (D and G), and two set to the lowest height (B and E), this is so that you can eliminate any friction-inducing string-trees from the B and E strings which would cause tuning-stability issues.

[DrNomis_44]

Here's some more pics of the Sperzel Tuners:


First, here's a closeup pic (sorry about the focusing, been trying to figure out how to fix it):




Next, here's a few pics of the Sperzels installed on the Headstock of my Gold Strat:


Front View:





Back View:





And Side View:





Notice how the Sperzel Tuners for the E and B strings seem shorter than the others?, that's to give a proper break-angle over the nut without having to use a String-Tree that would cause tuning-instability due to friction, I may not have to install any string trees at all, which is good cause my main aim was to eliminate them completely.

[Dedman]

xmas time at Docs place! Nice haul!

[DrNomis_44]

xmas time at Docs place! Nice haul!

Totally mate, Xmas did indeed came early for me, which means I'll be able to make some progress on my two guitar builds, the Gold Strat got the Sperzels, a set of six new Gold pickup screws, and some new Gold Scratchplate screws, the HotRod Strat got a new White Pearloid Scratchplate with pickup holes for a Humbucker, Single-Coil, Single-Coil pickup configuration, a set of Black Strat Knobs, a White Trem Spring cover, some new Chrome Scratchplate screws, A Chrome Jackplate with screws, and a Chrome Neckplate with screws, hopefully I'll get the HotRod Strat finished before the end of the year.

[andrewdosborne]

Nice aquisition Doc and love the Sperzels

Sent from my GT-I9506 using Tapatalk

[DrNomis_44]

Update:


I guess it's time for an update, anyway, last week I decided to put the Gold Strat together so that it was in a playable condition, I did that because I was going out to my friend's place for a jam and I wanted to give myself a break from the LP Studio and the White Ibanez RG350DXZ, so I got the Gold Strat up and running, but found that I couldn't accurately intonate the low E-String properly, no matter how much I adjusted the String-Saddle towards the neck, the Software Tuner-App (called AP Tuner 3) I was using, kept saying that the 12th Fret note was flat compared to the 12th Fret Harmonic, I'll explain what the cause of the intonation issue was shortly.

After a bit of thought, I decided to try installing a fresh new set of strings, thinking that the new strings I had just put on were duds, so I go through all the setup adjustments, get everything right, check the intonation, and the result was the same, I ended up trying two more sets of strings before de4ciding to swap-out the bridge for a brand-new Chrome DR Parts Strat Bridge I bought from Sounds Of Music in Casuarina, along with two more sets of 42-09 gauge strings, I install another set of brand-new strings, get it all adjusted and tuned-up, checked the intonation on all the strings, the low E-String was still reading flat no matter how much I adjusted it, it was only after I stopped and had a good think while taking a break when it finally twigged, I had noticed that the 12th Fretted note sounded funny compared to the 12th Fret harmonic, more to the point, the low E-String sounded a bit sitar-ish, so I used a magnifying glass to have a close look at the nut-slot for the E-String, it looked fine, then I had a look at the pickups and noticed that the pole-pieces seemed a bit too close to the strings, I tried lowering the pickups but couldn't because they were already bottoming-out in the pickup-routes due to the noise-cancelling coils (the three pickups are the Entwistle ASN57 Noiseless Strat Pickups), as it turned out, the three pickup-routes in the body just weren't deep enough to accommodate the pickups, I thought about deepening the routes but there wasn't enough wood left, so I had to do some serious debating in my head and finally decided to convert the three Entwistle ASN57 pickups to standard ones by removing the hum-cancelling coil (it was relatively easy enough to do), once I did the conversion on all three of the pickups I re-installed them, after tuning the Gold Strat back up to pitch and setting it up, I found that not only had I fixed the low E-String sitaring, I also fixed the intonation issue and the low E-String intonated properly, it no longer kept reading flat, I was also able to get the intonation for the other strings spot-on too.


So, what was going on?, here's my theory, with the pole-pieces of the pickups too close to the strings, it was causing magnetic-drag on the low E-String, making it vibrate at a lower pitch than it should have vibrated at when plucked, this was causing the 12th fretted note to read flat regardless of where the string-saddle was set, which is surprising cause the Alnico V pole-pieces used in the ASN57 pickups aren't that strong, I would have expected that with Neodymium Pole-Pieces, anyway, the issue ended up being fixed and I was able to get the guitar in a playable condition in the end, the only compromise I had to make was to put up with getting some background noise.


Moral of the story, if you're having trouble intonating the strings on your guitar, and you are 100% sure that you have everything else right, and there's no issue with the nut, particularly if it is a Strat-Style guitar, check to see if you have the pole-pieces of the pickups adjusted too close to the strings, for Single-Coil pickups Fender give the following specs for the clearance-gap between the low and high E-Strings for all three pickups with the strings fretted at the last fret (apologies for the imperial measurements, I blame that on my Fitter and Machinist apprenticeship where we had to learn to work in imperial units):


Low E-String: 8/64 Inch.

High E-String: 6/64 Inch.


Adjusting the clearances to those specs should ensure that the strings play cleanly and intonate properly.




Update 2:

A few days ago I had to sand-back some of the Gold Paint finish on the body of the Gold Strat, due to the paint still being soft after well over a week (maybe even a fortnight) of drying, after the sanding I gave the Gold Strat Body a couple of new coats of Gold Paint and have left it to dry for a week or so, hopefully the paint will dry properly, one thing's for sure, the Gold Paint I'm using seems to like drying in it's own time.


Note: One thing to avoid when using White Knight Super Gold paint is to avoid touching the surface with your fingers when it dries, the softest touch tends make the paint tarnish, and you end up having to spray a fresh coat on it to get that shiny lusture back, what a frustrating pain...oh well, I guess I'll get there in the end.

[wazkelly]

Note: One thing to avoid when using White Knight Super Gold paint is to avoid touching the surface with your fingers when it dries, the softest touch tends make the paint tarnish, and you end up having to spray a fresh coat on it to get that shiny lusture back, what a frustrating pain...oh well, I guess I'll get there in the end.

Maybe you might need to wear gloves when handling it, same as what they do for the Melbourne Cup Trophy too haha.

[DrNomis_44]

Maybe you might need to wear gloves when handling it, same as what they do for the Melbourne Cup Trophy too haha.

Hahahaha....it could be worse though, if I was using some 24 Carat Gold Leaf to cover it and it got all torn-up, just imagine how costly that would end up being.