Custom HotRod Strat Build.

[andrewdosborne]

Good stuff Doc Xmas has come early!

Sent from Nougat (Android 7)

[DrNomis_44]

Good stuff Doc Xmas has come early!

Sent from Nougat (Android 7)

Yep, for some strange reason Christmas has a habit of coming early for me, just you wait till you see what I'm getting myself for Christmas this year, I won't say what it is cause I will post a pic of it on Christmas day, but I will say this, it is something I have always wanted to own ever since I saw a picture of one in a magazine, getting it will fulfill a lifetime dream.

[andrewdosborne]

Good stuff Doc, now you've got me curious and excited!

Sent from Nougat (Android 7)

[DrNomis_44]

Update:


Okay, i have just finished installing all the new pickups, pots, and the tone cap on the scratchplate of the HotRod Strat, and have just tested to see if it is all working correctly, and sure enough everything works correctly, all three pickups seem to be working too, I am also not getting any hum whatsoever, it is all noise-free, all that's left to do is install the new springs, put on a new set of strings, tune up, etc.

Will let you know how it all goes, stay tuned.

[wazkelly]

That's just what the Doctor ordered.....haha.....pardon the pun.

Well done buddy, hope it sounds awesome.

[Simon Barden]

I'm pretty certain that I'm going to go for a white acrylic finish on the EX-1 as this may allow me to do some spraying in the house, plus I want to do some form of graphic on the body, which will mean using an airbrush and stencils. Whilst I've used one for acrylic paint on models before, I've never got it to work with nitro paint (just seems too viscous and really needs a gravity feed spray).

I bought a cheap pop-up camping toilet /shower tent to act as an outside spray booth, but I should be able to use it inside as well to stop the spread of any overspray.

Just got to decide on what the graphic will be. Nothing too complicated - maybe a black, light and dark grey, with a few coloured highlights. There's quite a lot of body to paint on with an Explorer shape. Something that's recognisable from a distance.

Good news on the build so far, lets hope it comes together exactly as planned.

[DrNomis_44]

That's just what the Doctor ordered.....haha.....pardon the pun.

Well done buddy, hope it sounds awesome.

Doctor?.....Doctor who?.....*frantically looks around the room*....who is this famous Doctor I keep hearing about?, I must meet him....hahahaha......sorry, I couldn't resist.....lol.

Update:


I've got the guitar tuned up to pitch and it is actually sounding pretty good, sounds nice and fat through some Amp Sim plugins in FL Studio, but I'm going to try it through my Marshall shortly, will let you know how it goes, by the way, the intonation on each string was pretty close to being spot on even though I haven't done a proper full setup on the guitar yet....stay tuned for more updates.



Update 2:


Well....it actually sounds pretty good through all three channels on my Marshall amp, this guitar puts out quite a beefy signal from all three pickups, to my ears the Tonerider Rocksong Bridge Pickup seems to be balancing pretty well with the two Kent Armstrong Dual Blades, and I'm not getting that really thin sound when I switch to the middle plus bridge position, like I was with the pickups I had installed before, I am getting some hum-noise when the Tonerider Rocksong Bridge Pickup is selected, but, that also happens with my LP Studio too, so I wouldn't blame the pickup, it might be some weird earthing issue somewhere, but I can live with it though, the Kent Armstrong Dual Blades are getting that Single-Coil tone, but they sound a bit darker than the typical Strat pickups to my ears, but that's actually a good thing since you don't get that ear-piercing harshness that you can sometimes get with Single Coils being put through a distortion effect, the Kent Armstrongs stayed smooth even at the maximum gain-setting that my Marshall was capable of, even the Tonerider Rocksong sounded smooth at high gain settings, on the other hand, if I were to do the same with the Infinity pickups in my white Ibanez RG350DXZ, the amp would start to fart-out in an un-musical way, I think the reason why the Rocksong stays smooth is because it has more of a midrange focus, there is some Bass in the tone too though, but anyway, I'm happy cause I am really liking both the Kent Armstrong Dual Blades and the Tonerider Rocksong, the tuning stability of the guitar seems to be okay enough, certainly better than my LP Studio, which seems to constantly go out of tune despite having a fixed bridge system, you'd think it would be more stable.

I still haven't done a proper setup of the HotRod Strat, but I might give it some time to settle before I do, the new Gotoh Locking Nut seems to have fixed the high B and E-String Sitar buzzing, and the new Chrome Gotoh Tuners are all working fine.

While I was wiring-up the scratchplate, I found out that the 500k Log mini CTS pot I ordered, was actually a Linear pot, since I tend to leave the volume pot on full, that is not really causing any issues, but, I might swap it out for a 500k Log pot later on though.

Well, I'd call the HotRod Strat project officially completed....unless I decide to work on it some more, that is.

The guitar looks great with it's all chrome hardware, black knobs, and the newly-installed pickups, I'll post some pics of it in the morning for you guys.....stay tuned.

[andrewdosborne]

Doctor?.....Doctor who?.....*frantically looks around the room*....who is this famous Doctor I keep hearing about?, I must meet him....hahahaha......sorry, I couldn't resist.....lol.

Is this a clue to the Xmas gift you've always wanted (a full sized sea foam green Dalek model that you can ride to and from the pub in)?



Sent from Android N

[DrNomis_44]

Is this a clue to the Xmas gift you've always wanted (a full sized sea foam green Dalek model that you can ride to and from the pub in)?



Sent from Android N

Hahahahahaha....too funny mate, although, if I could get it in Sonic Blue that would be cool, but the only shop that stocks them, only has them in a cute pastel shade of Hot Pink, and they already have five years of back-orders to fill, and those orders happen to be for Dalek models in all the other colours they normally stock.

I had a long phone chat with one of their sales reps, who ended up putting me on hold while he talked to the store manager, meanwhile here's me sitting in the chair with the phone glued to my ear....aaaaaargh....that's the last time I let my two cats play with that tube of Cyanoacrylate Super Glue.......hmmmm...now where was I?.....ah....yes...after what seemed like an eternity, time being relative and all that, the sales rep got back to me, and after a long-winded,convoluted explanation, the gist of it was that if I was willing to compromise, he would sell me a Davros model at a lower-price, provided I fixed it myself, I explained that I had no idea how to fix Davros models since I had never had any experience fixing them, next thing I heard was the poor sales rep muttering to himself "I knew we'd never be able to sell all those discontinued models", followed by some language that vaguely resembled a language I'd never heard before, he apologized to me and said that he was going to have a few more words to the store manager, all I remember hearing after that was something that sounded like a heated argument, in triplicate, then the call timed-out.

[andrewdosborne]

Too funny I'll pop out into my tardis and drop one off to you!

Sent from Android N