EX-1 with alder body build

[JimC]

Fair enough, it was just an idle thought. Anyway as a whole its striking and distinctive, which is right for what it is. I am by no means a fan of the Explorer style, which makes it difficult to make a dispassionate judgement, but I think I still like the presentation of this one best of your recent builds, even though its probably the one I'd least like to own.

[Alexej]

Great to see your Explorer finished! One of the first builds I checked when started working on mine! Really like the "metallic white"!

[Simon Barden]

Thanks.

Jim, this was the original neck colour:


And this is the current colour, so it is a fair bit darker overall than when it started out:


I'm not sure the dark bits are really any darker than before, but the lighter colours have darkened considerably so there's much less of a range of lights and darks.

I think it looks a lot better shown on its side than vertically on a stand.

It actually went quite a bit lighter than the first picture after sitting around and drying out for a year. this was the neck before staining and oiling:


It's not a particularly comfortable guitar to play sitting down, as the square front edge of rear upper bout sticks into your arm (so I now understand why some people have bevelled that edge), but until the straplocks turn up (hopefully tomorrow morning), I can't tell how comfortable it is to play whilst standing up (or rather soloing with with one foot on the monitor and a fan blowing my hair around).

[wazkelly]

Thanks.

Jim, this was the original neck colour:


And this is the current colour, so it is a fair bit darker overall than when it started out:


I'm not sure the dark bits are really any darker than before, but the lighter colours have darkened considerably so there's much less of a range of lights and darks.

I think it looks a lot better shown on its side than vertically on a stand.

It actually went quite a bit lighter than the first picture after sitting around and drying out for a year. this was the neck before staining and oiling:


It's not a particularly comfortable guitar to play sitting down, as the square front edge of rear upper bout sticks into your arm (so I now understand why some people have bevelled that edge), but until the straplocks turn up (hopefully tomorrow morning), I can't tell how comfortable it is to play whilst standing up (or rather soloing with with one foot on the monitor and a fan blowing my hair around).

Definitely a very comfortable guitar to play standing up as you get used to resting your arm on the large rear wing. Amazingly well balanced too. unlike it's cousin the EX-5 which is much longer and as a result tends to suffer neck diving syndrome.

[Simon Barden]

A friend popped over today (Steve Harris/Arkieboy), whom I'm making the green Hexacaster Strat for, and I just caught the end of him playing my EX-1.

At least it gives an idea of what it sounds like, though the sound quality isn't anything like as good as in the room at the time. Plugged into a Blackstar HT5 1x10" combo on the drive channel with medium gain (those IronGear Metal Machines are pretty powerful).

[dozymuppet]

Holy crap that sounds great. I think I'm going to have to add those pickups to my cart (I'm on the hunt at the moment).

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[wazkelly]

Sounds great Simon

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[Simon Barden]

Thanks chaps. It does a great rock/metal sound. Pickup DCRs are 21k(B) and 17k(N), so no shrinking violets. They use 44AWG, which partly explains the high reading, as 44AWG has a resistance that's approximately 60% more per unit length than 42AWG. So a truer indication of their 'hotness' calculating back to as is if the pickups were wound with 42AWG. They'd then be equivalent to 13k and 10.5k. pickups. A typical 42AWG PAF pickup will typically have a DCR of around 7.5k ohms. So not only do they have a lot more turns on each coil, but they have ceramic, not alnico, magnets, which also increases the pickup output significantly.

As a result of the increased turns, the inductance is high and the resonant peak comes down significantly. This knocks off a lot of treble, so they aren't in anyway bright or clear when played cleanly (though it's hard to find an amp where they won't drive the input into mild distortion if you don't turn the guitar volume down). So you are reliant on distortion giving you those high frequency harmonics back, which with the output they have, isn't a problem!

[Rabbit]

It would be sacrilegious to play an Explorer without distortion .

[seancoyle1980@gmai]

Thanks Simon thats great info