Custom HotRod Strat Build.

[DrNomis_44]

I have Armstrong blades in the Community Prototype build I did, just one of the doubles (humbucker size) and a single size, I used a freeway 6 way switch and a push/pull to give me 7 combinations. I think it's too much, they sound great on their own but start mixing them or hit the ALL combo and ...I can't think of the words to describe it...overpowering? If I was a shredder who loved gain and drive in bucket loads I might like it but they don't suit me, not in this combo anyway. I think I'll replace them with Toneriders or similar and use them in 2 separate axes further down the line.

Doc, the strat looks great, well done mate!

Cheers mate, at least one of my guitar builds had to go according to plan, and I had a feeling it was going to be this one...haha.


The action on it is pretty low, I have it set up pretty close to Fender Strat specs, and I think it plays pretty well, the tuning stability is pretty good, if any of the strings do go out it is only by a very minute amount and it only takes a small tweak of the micro-tuners on the bridge to bring them back into tune, and the return to pitch after a dive-bomb or pull-up is better than what the bridge on my RG350DXZ is capable of, I'm happy with the guitar, but the current pickups need to be changed out for better quality ones.

[wazkelly]

Hi Doc, great news and really happy for you.

[FrankenWashie]

You need to do a Photoshoot for this one Doc, that's a serious bit of gear you've built! Great job!

[DrNomis_44]

You need to do a Photoshoot for this one Doc, that's a serious bit of gear you've built! Great job!

Cheers mate, I'll see if I can do one when I've got the new pickups I'm ordering next fortnight installed in the guitar, I also want to do a demo soundclip so you guys can hear what it sounds like, I can't wait to see how the FrankenWashie turns out, if it ends up looking anything like how I'm picturing it in my mind, it'll look cool.

[FrankenWashie]

Cheers mate, I'll see if I can do one when I've got the new pickups I'm ordering next fortnight installed in the guitar, I also want to do a demo soundclip so you guys can hear what it sounds like, I can't wait to see how the FrankenWashie turns out, if it ends up looking anything like how I'm picturing it in my mind, it'll look cool.

Nothing like the weight of expectation eh? I seem to be making some steady progress with it, so I'm hopeful of a result in the next few weeks. Got a Batchelor week coming up so there'll be some concentrated building effort going in.

[DrNomis_44]

Update:


Next Tuesday, I'm going to be ordering some new bits and pieces for my HotRod Strat from Realtone Music, here's a list of what I'm going to be ordering:


* 1X Black Tonerider Rocksong full-sized bridge humbucker.

* 2X Kent Armstrong Dual Blade Single-Coil sized Humbuckers (one for the neck position and one for the middle position).

* 1X Set of Chrome Gotoh 6-In-Line Tuners.

* 1X Chrome Gotoh R2 1inch & 5/8 Locking Nut and mounting hardware.

* 1X 500k Log Mini CTS Pot (for volume control).

* 2X 250k Log Mini CTS Pots )for the two tone controls).

* 1X Black Bee .1 uF Oil Paper Capacitor (for the tone cap).


There's a couple of reasons why I'm going with the Kent Armstrongs, firstly, I haven't tried using any Kent Armstrong pickups before, secondly, I was after a couple of single-coil sized humbucking pickups so that I could get the single-coil tone without the hum, I had tried noiseless pickups before, but, I had some issues with the pickup routes not being deep enough to accommodate the pickups, with the Kent Armstrong Dual Blades, the two coils are mounted side-by-side rather than one on top of the other, I'm replacing the existing tuners with some new ones because one of the existing tuners is feeling a bit gritty when I tune the strings up to pitch, the existing tuners are a set of Chrome DR Parts Tuners that I bought for $26.00 from one of my local music stores, I bought them mainly to get the guitar up and running, same thing with the Eston guitar I bought from Cash Converters, now that I know that my design-concept for the HotRod Strat works, I can go ahead and upgrade any parts that need upgrading.

I'm ordering the Mini CTS pots because there's not enough clearance between the existing pots ( three 24mm 250k Log CTS pots), and the side of the body routing in some places, I literally had to use a sharp Stanley-knife blade to shave off some wood in strategic places in order to be able to fit the scratchplate to the body, the new Mini CTS pots will provide better clearance, with a reduced risk of shorts to ground to the copper-foil shielding tape I used to line the body routing, although no shorts to ground have occurred, I'm also changing the value of the volume pot from 250k Log to 500k Log so that there's less loading on the pickups (the pickups will sound a bit brighter as a consequence, but I'm fine with that cause they are all going to be humbuckers anyway, and they will all benefit from the slight extra brightness, besides there's the two tone controls I can use to take off any excessive brightness, so it's a win-win situation all around).

I'm going to be replacing the existing Chrome Schaller R2 Locking Nut with a Chrome Gotoh R2 Locking Nut because I found that some of the strings (particularly the high B and E-strings) tended to buzz a bit like a Sitar, I traced the cause to the notches in the existing Locking Nut, where the strings pass through, as it turned out Schaller made the notches a bit too wide when they manufactured the nut, so the string tends to vibrate against the side of the nut when plucked, I had the same issue with my white RG350DXZ guitar, which I fixed by swapping out the locking nut for a Gotoh, Gotoh seem to make the notches a bit narrower so that the strings fit better.

I'm going with a .1uF Black Bee paper-in-oil cap for the tone cap simply because I've never used them before, you're probably wondering why I'm using a value of .1uF, rather than the more common .047uF value, it's because I've elected to wire-up the tone controls using the Eric Johnson (currently my favorite, cause it makes the most sense to me) wiring system/scheme, here's a comparison of the wiring schemes of Fender's Standard Strat wiring, and the Eric Johnson wiring system/schemes:

Standard Fender Strat (Neck, Middle, and Bridge Single-Coil Pickups and two 250k Log Tone Pots):

Position 1= Neck + Tone 1.

Position 2= Neck + Middle + Tone 1 + Tone 2.

Position 3= Middle + Tone 2.

Position 4= Middle + Bridge + Tone 2.

Position 5= Bridge.


Eric Johnson Fender Strat (pickups and tone controls as per a Standard Strat):

Position 1= Neck + Tone 1.

Position 2= Neck + Middle + Tone 1.

Position 3= Middle.

Position 4= Middle + Bridge + Tone 2.

Position 5= Bridge + Tone 2.


Notice how in the Standard Strat wiring that there are two tone controls active when position two is selected?, to me that's a bit like overkill and you'd end up with a very muffled tone if you maxxed-out both tone controls, that doesn't really make much sense to me, especially when there's no tone control active when position five is selected, that's just me, others may be perfectly happy with the Standard Strat wiring though.

On the other hand, the Eric Johnson wiring looks a lot more versatile, you do lose the ability to have a tone control active in position three, but really to my ears it's not a major issue at all and I think the tone I get with just the Middle-pickup selected is quite perfectly useable, I even think the guitar, on the whole, actually sounds better, maybe crisper and brighter, you don't necessarily have to use a .1uF tone cap, you can use any value that you see fit, smaller values of tone caps will roll-off less of the highs in the tone you get when the tone controls are maxxed-out than larger values, the useful range might be from maybe .01uF to something like .15uf or maybe greater, the idea is to experiment with different values till you find one that you personally like, and works for you, you might be using a set of pickups that are exceptionally bright, so a larger value of tone cap may work, sure, I could have just used a generic .1uF greencap bought from my local Jaycar Electronics store, and it'll work fine, but I elected to use something a bit more high-endy, and go for a paper-in-oil cap, there's nothing wrong with trying something different just for fun anyway, that's what guitar-building is supposed to be all about, right?

I checked out a youtube demo clip of the Tonerider Rocksong in action and I liked the tone, it has the midrange tone I'm after without too much bass ( I found out the hard way that if a pickup has too much bass in it's tone, it tends to make my Marshall's overdrive and boosted-overdrive channels fart-out a bit in a harsh way, the overdrive and boosted-overdrive seem to like pickups with a bit of midrange in the tone a lot better, maybe that's a quirk of my Marshall (it's a 100 Watt all valve 2 X 12 inch combo amp).

Once I've done the upgrades to the HotRod Strat and I know it's working well, I'll get on with doing a demo clip for you guys.....stay tuned.


By the way, I'm still very happy with how the Metallic Blue body finish turned out, considering how much trouble I had with the Gold Strat, I'm still debating in my head whether to apply a few coats of clear-coat or not.



Update 2:


I've decided to add a set of three new Stainless Steel Trem-Springs to my shopping list, they are only going to cost me $2.00 each, so why not.

[Simon Barden]

The tone control on the bridge pickup is a common mod these days. Certainly with a bridge humbucker, it makes sense.

Don't forget that you'll be needing the wider Fender/Floyd spacing for your bridge humbucker.

[DrNomis_44]

The tone control on the bridge pickup is a common mod these days. Certainly with a bridge humbucker, it makes sense.

Don't forget that you'll be needing the wider Fender/Floyd spacing for your bridge humbucker.

Yep, a very good point, I'll just check that the Tonerider Rocksong has the Fender pole-piece spacing, the spacing is not really an issue with the Kent Armstrong Dual Blades though, since the pole pieces are blades that span the length of the pickups, and as it turns out, the Tonerider Rocksong is indeed set up with it's pole-pieces F-Spaced, it is specified as being suitable as a Bridge pickup, the DC resistance is 12k, so I'm assuming that it is a medium-output pickup, the Kent Armstrongs have a DC resistance of 8.8k, hopefully that means they will be a reasonably good match for the Rocksong, the humbucker I currently have installed in the bridge position is one that came out of my PRS SE Custom 24, it has a DC resistance of 14.9, I think it is a bit too much for the other two pickups, cause the middle plus bridge pickup selection (position 4) is real thin and harsh sounding, all the currently installed pickups are going to be replaced anyway though so I can live with it till the bits arrive in the post, hopefully the guitar should sound great when I've finished doing all the upgrades to it, it's sounding pretty good as is though, just not when switched to position 4.


Last night I tightened up the truss-rod a bit to get the neck relief set to Fender's spec of .010 inch at the 8th fret, this also brought the action down a bit and it's about 2mm at the 17th fret, I'm not getting any fret-buzz at all on any string all the way up and down the neck, and the 1st fret action is pretty low and buzz free too, feeling pretty pleased with that.

With Fender style guitars, I tend to set them up using Fender factory specs whenever I can.

[Simon Barden]

I looked on Tonerider's UK website, and over here it comes in 50mm and 52.4mm versions. So as long as you've got the F-spaced version, that's fine. http://www.tonerider.com/rocksong

I've never bothered with factory settings, and always just adjust the neck/saddles/nut until I've got it as low as I can go without buzzing. I may then take it up from there (as I have a habit of setting my action too low for good practice). These days I may also try stoning/re-profilling some or all of the frets if it's obvious there's a small problem area.

[Simon Barden]

I've now got a better set of nut files, (my old ones were cheap and variable in their cutting power) but just taking the nut-slot cutting a few strokes too far is probably my biggest error, requiring either soma CA + baking soda filling, or fitting a new nut (and hopefully not repeating the process).