DrNomis_44's Gold Standard STA-1M Build.

[FrankenWashie]

The way the UK is going, looks like our more and more right-wing politicians would be happy to start sending you convicts again for some extra cash!

Unlike the last time around, depending on how Ms. May goes with Brexit and the impending Election you might find a sizeable number of volunteers lining up to be transported.

[DrNomis_44]

Hey Everybody.....


A parcel with some stuff in it just arrived, and I think I know what's inside, will post a pic of the contents shortly.....stay tuned.

[wokkaboy]

Doc you are almost thread jacking your own thread mate and keeping us in suspense. You really are going for a 200 page diary hahah

[DrNomis_44]

Doc you are almost thread jacking your own thread mate and keeping us in suspense. You really are going for a 200 page diary hahah

Yep....hahahahaha...I'll have to have some strong words with myself, and tell myself off for hijacking my own threads, but I don't think myself will take any notice of me, which is just typical....hahahaha....okay, I won't keep you guys in suspense any longer, just give us a few minutes and all will be revealed....lol.


Rightio, without further ado, here's what was in the parcel:


X3 New White Kent Armstrong Dual Blade Pickups.

X1 Set of White Strat Knobs and etc.

X1 New Gold Strat Jackplate, with Gold Screws.




These are some new parts I bought for the gold strat, we are definitely getting very close to the finishing line, all I need to do now is order the new Gold Super Vee Bladerunner Strat bridge from Super Vee.com and we'll be in business.



So, do you guys want to see what the new pickups are going to look like when installed on the scratchplate, and with the scratchplate installed on the body of the guitar?....let me know how keen you guys are to see a pic.


Might see if I can get the mounting screw holes drilled in the back of the neck so I can attach the neck to the body today, and then I'll take a pic of the guitar for you all to check out, the new pickups look really good on the scratchplate, even better than I thought they would.

[DrNomis_44]

Here we go, this is to give you some idea what the guitar is going to look like once the build process has been finished, the original Gold bridge was looking a bit grungy so I fitted a spare silver bridge, it's getting replaced with the new Gold Super Vee Bladerunner bridge anyway once it arrives in the post after I've ordered it online:





Okay, so after a bit of thinking, I'm going to call the body finishing work "officially finished", the body has had three coats of clear coat applied to it and the surface feels like it has dried hard, so we are ready for the next stage in the build-process and that is to get any needed parts ordered online prior to wiring it up and getting it set up with new strings so it's playable.

[stan]

Looks awesome Doc, this will be a ripper, Kent Armstrong makes some very nice pickups

Oh and 1966 was the first issue of decimal currency...

[DrNomis_44]

Looks awesome Doc, this will be a ripper, Kent Armstrong makes some very nice pickups

Oh and 1966 was the first issue of decimal currency...

Cheers mate, so I wasn't too far off with Australia's switch to decimal currency then, was I?, yeah I'm really liking these Kent Armstrong pickups, I've got two installed on the Hotrod Strat and they sound great to my ears, they have just the right amount of highs in their tone so that I don't get that shrill ice-pickiness that you usually get with Single-Coils, but you also get that Humbucker fatness too, these Dual Blade pickups are actually Humbuckers in a Single-Coil sized package, so that means you also don't get that annoying hum coming through the amp speakers like you do with standard Single-Coils, I'm predicting that this guitar should sound like a fat sounding Strat.

[corsair]

Cool!! Love Kent Armstrong gear, and those blades look to be the ducks nuts!!!

Can you still get the whole Hank Marvin sound out of those pickups, Doc?

[DrNomis_44]

Cool!! Love Kent Armstrong gear, and those blades look to be the ducks nuts!!!

Can you still get the whole Hank Marvin sound out of those pickups, Doc?

From my experience with the two black Kent Armstrong Dual-Blade pickups installed in my HotRod Strat, I'll have to say that yes you can still get that Hank Marvin sound out of them, best way I could describe them as sounding is like a hotter Single-Coil pickup without the treble ice-pickiness, but they do still retain a lot of that Single-Coil character, these Dual-Blade pickups are actually Humbuckers, each of the two blades has a coil wound around them same as in a Humbucker, it's the single blade Polepiece that's actually what's responsible for retaining the Single-Coil character, so you get the best of both worlds, I've tried Noiseless Strat pickups before but they usually sounded a bit weak and ice-picky through my Marshall, on the other hand the Dual-Blades sound fatter to my ears, hence the reason why I like them a lot.


They make a whole lot of sense to me anyway.


I'll definitely make sure I record a demo clip of the Gold Strat once she is up and running in a playable state, that way you'll be able to hear what the pickups sound like.

[DrNomis_44]

Update:


Just been doing some checks with a couple of steel rulers to check if the neck is aligned correctly, and as far as I can determine, the neck alignment appears to be spot-on, so I'm feeling pretty relieved about that.


Note that I won't need to install any string-trees on the headstock because the Gold Sperzel tuners I'm using are set up with staggered-heights, this means that the high B and E strings will be pulled closer to the headstock so that the break-angle over the nut is a little steeper than usual, and therefore the strings will ring-out properly without buzzing like a sitar, I've tried it before and it does seem to work well, the bonus is that there won't be any friction issues caused by the string binding in the string tree cause there aren't any string trees.

These Gold Sperzel tuners are also lockers, that means I don't need to have very many string winds around the tuner capstan to anchor the string, I just need to thread the string through the hole in the tuner capstan, pull it taut, then tighten the thumbscrew on the back of the tuner and I'm done, and then just tune the string up to pitch.