DrNomis_44's Gold Standard STA-1M Build.

[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.

[DrNomis_44]

Update:


I've decided to go ahead and wire up the new pickups on the scratchplate and get it all working so that when I buy some new strings for the guitar next week, I can get it all set up with new strings on it and tuned up ready for playing, I will also record a demo so you can hear what the guitar sounds like too for you.....stay tuned.


By the way, I'm feeling very excited about being able to play this guitar again after such a long time.

[Kick]

I share your excitement so I'll be stay tuned

[DrNomis_44]

I share your excitement so I'll be stay tuned

Haha...I bet, I'm wiring-up each of the pickups so that they work as straight Humbuckers, just measured each one of them with my multimeter to check that they are all good, each one is measuring about 9k, so they should be pretty hot sounding, the pickups I had in the scratchplate before all measured about 6.5k or thereabouts, they were a bit weak sounding to my ears.

[Zandit75]

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.

Update:


I've decided to go ahead and wire up the new pickups on the scratchplate and get it all working so that when I buy some new strings for the guitar next week, I can get it all set up with new strings on it and tuned up ready for playing, I will also record a demo so you can hear what the guitar sounds like too for you.....stay tuned.


By the way, I'm feeling very excited about being able to play this guitar again after such a long time.

You were doing so well on the last page!! Where's the damn photos??!!
Two extra days added to your visit!

[DrNomis_44]

You were doing so well on the last page!! Where's the damn photos??!!
Two extra days added to your visit!

Hahahahahahahaha.......good one mate.....hehehehe.