TeleStrat dubious record attempt

[fender3x]

I'll order some shorter grub screws. Thanks for the specs!

The pots are like a Tele. Top is master volume, bottom is master tone.

The middle is actually a 4-way rotary switch. The pickups are dual rail humbuckers (GFS Lil' Punchers). The top setting is H+H, bottom setting is both pup in single coil. The two middle settings are S+H and H+S.

On the rotary all single coil settings are north coil, so I also put a push-pull on the tone control to switch the S+S setting from N+N to N+S to give it a humbucking single coil mode.

I thought the rotary would look more natural on a Strst pickguard than mini-switches. I also thought it would keep the controls somewhat intuitive.

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[McCreed]

The middle is actually a 4-way rotary switch.

D'oh!!!
I knew that! I just forgot, and was too lazy to read back through .

Interesting configuration. How do you find the "split" sounds? I've heard people say rail HB's sound a bit anaemic with just one rail.

[fender3x]

Well I have just started to play it, and may have a better idea later on. I have heard the same thing about rail pickups, particularly the Bill Lawrence or Joe Barden Tele pups that are really trying to sound like a Tele. The Lil'punchers are supposed to sound more like a humbuckers, and so far I think they pretty much do. Singke coil mode is not as hot, but sounds more like an actual Tele. I think I will use both H+H and S+S settings.

I probably could have skipped the SC+H and H+SC modes. The SC can't keep up with the H. I could also have skipped traditional N+N single coil mode. The difference between N+S and N+N in single coil mode is barely audible.

That's a first impression we'll see how I feel after I have played it a while.



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[fender3x]

I put the new set of shorter screws in the bridge two days ago. I put a final-ish tweek on the setup. I am declaring this build complete.







I started this in the spring of either 1986 or 1987 in my mother's driveway with a can of some sort of satin finish that I put on the neck and body before storing it away until I could get back to it.

I believe the record is now set at 33 years.

One semi-interesting detail, is that the color of the neck was as white as the raw PB maple neck I got recently, and I really did not notice a change when I sprayed a very light clear finish on it. The yellowing is entirely aging. Not sure it's the way I recommend getting some color on maple, but effective.

[fender3x]

One nicest things about the guitar visually is the lovely bird's eye figuring in the fingerboard and the abalone dots.



Aside from that it is very simple. It is not a lefty because I wanted "Hendrix string tension," as one of my friends observed. It is a lefty neck because that's what was on sale. If you look closely you can see the treble side dots on the neck. Those are original. I added dots to the bass side, something Hendrix probably did not need to do.

I can't remember why I got a hard tail. It was either to keep things simple or because they had a poplar hardtail body on sale.

I wanted to keep things as simple and clean as possible. The only exception is the switching. The middle "pot" is actually a four way switch which puts the rail humbucker pickups in H+H, S+H, H+S and S+S modes. There is push-pull switch on the tone pot that switches the S+S mode from traditional to humbucking mode.

Deets:

-- Bone nut from DB
-- Gotoh vintage (Kluson-style) machines
-- GFS Lil' Puncher (Modern Vintage) pickups
-- Oak Grigsby 3-way blade switch
-- Bourns master volume and tone pots, the latter with a DPDT push pull switch
-- 4-way, 3-gang rotary switch that somehow made it into my box of parts, I know not when or how, but it looked like decent quality...
-- Dragonfire custom cut pickguard
-- Pure Tone jack
-- Not sure on the brand of the string trees, bridge, strap-buttons or jackplate. I know they were inexpensive and nothing fancy, but seemed like decent quality.


It was originally going to be dark blue with a drawing of a spaceman on it that my oldest daughter made. I had logo drawn to make this an "Astrocaster" but she could not find the drawing I remembered. My son, meanwhile liked the "Bali Green" color...which had more of a surf vibe. So my youngest daughter, who is practicing her graffiti style made me an "Aquacaster" logo. Not sure I am crazy about the way I got it aligned, but my daughter thinks it's cool. After three daughters, my experience is that when your 15 year old says something is "cool" you should stick with it, because you may never hear that again.

[Simon Barden]

So have you poured lighter fuel over it and set it alight yet, Mr hendr3x?

Well done for persevering. Looks great. I can't say that it's totally unique, because Fender/Squier have done so many mash-ups of different guitars in limited runs in recent years and it looks like a couple of them (IIRC), but you did get there first, so you can stick your flag on it and claim it for fender3x.

[fender3x]

My youngest daughter thinks this is cool. Definitely not setting it on fire.

I think you are right, Simon. I am not sure there is any configuration starting with a Strat body that hasn't been tried by someone. If you look at one of the early McCreed posts on this thread, I am not even certain this one's all that unusual.

That said, I suspect there are so many variations because it's hard to improve on the combination of comfort and cool of this body style. You really have to hand it to Leo Fender for coming up with something timeless.

[McCreed]

Looks great! And the "Anachronistic" is a nice touch!

That said, I suspect there are so many variations because it's hard to improve on the combination of comfort and cool of this body style. You really have to hand it to Leo Fender for coming up with something timeless.

Yeah, it's because of this (or maybe lack of imagination) I have not strayed very far from the conventional. I also have never been attracted to odd shaped or pointy guitars. I must be boring...

[fender3x]

Thanks!

Yeah, it's because of this (or maybe lack of imagination) I have not strayed very far from the conventional. I also have never been attracted to odd shaped or pointy guitars. I must be boring...

I don't think it's a lack of imagination so much as that it is really difficult to improve on. I can't think of many things that have been sold virtually unaltered for 66 years. Even less where 15 year olds have looked at it and said "that's cool!" in every one of those years.

[fender3x]

Correcting a couple of profile issues...

I really liked the Raytheon knobs that I used on this build. I used Raytheons on the my first build (an ESB-4) to give it a little different-than-the-rest look. Plus the Raytheons are really high quality. I had the same thing in mind for this build. I liked the look, but I kept whacking the volume knob when I strummed. So I started to look for more traditional, low profile strat-type knobs. I found some chromed metal ones on eBay with set screws. You can see the difference in profile here.



Old knob is on the left. New knob is installed. Actually needed to file off a bit of the tops of the shafts to get the knobs to sit right--a process that took about 15 min. Now I understand why strats have the low profile knobs! It doesn't completely eliminate the issues of the knob getting in the way of aggressive strumming, but it is quite a noticeable improvement.

The other profile issue is with the switch. In my case, since I used Tele pups, so it's a three-way Oak Grigsby. In the bridge position I found it annoyingly easy to hit the switch. On the interewebs I learned that hitting the switch and changing the setting unintentionally is a fairly common thing among Strat players.

I noticed that if I took the tip off the switch I stopped hitting it unintentionally. So I set about lowering the profile of the switch. I noticed that the slot in the tip was actually longer than the tang on the switch. A few minutes with some sandpaper on the bottom of the of the tip allowed me to lower the tip by a good 5mm or so. This makes it both shorter and lower (closer to the pickguard) in the bridge position. Here's a pic of what an original tip looks like and the one I sanded down.



In the closeup the bottom of the sanded tip looks uneven, but this is not noticeable in real life.

Taken together, I think I like the look of the new knobs, and there is no noticeable change in the look of the switch...so mission more or less accomplished ;-)