Dub's Wacky Project Guitars Thread--we're baaaaaack

[coldbrightsunlight]

Oh nooo yeah that would bug me on the strat too. good luck with the repair! Fun story and classic philosophical question included with that one

[dubkitty]

while waiting for the body to be ready i decided to go into my bag of Strat tremolo parts in the parts box and revamp things. the import Fender plate i used is much better-made than the Gotoh plate i was using, better bevels and nicer chrome. happily the Gotoh block fits perfectly.i had some extra saddles as well and changed out the more tired-looking ones as well as swapping out length adjustment screws with chewed-up heads and changing a couple of the height adjustment screws for shorter ones that don't chew up my hand when i strum. the bottom two saddles are visibly different and i notice the new ones are a bit narrower which is good for string spacing over the pickups, so perhaps i should do the others if i have them.

revamped bridge.jpg (87.21 KiB) Viewed 3416 times

[dubkitty]

everything's back together now. i didn't get it exactly right, but it's better than it was and i guess i'll settle for that. it's pushed over a bit to the bass side, which was inadvertent but is good because the high E string is too far from the polepiece on the bridge pickup. taking a break before i do the intonation/string height/pickups.

bridge remounted.jpg (94.42 KiB) Viewed 3411 times

i'm sure there's old photos showing how much worse it was, but i don't care enough to dig them out. looking forward to having this guitar in good shape again. i'm not as much of a Strat Guy as i used to be, but i still love 'em.

[dubkitty]

set everything up and it's just lovely. sounds like i remember it sounding 20 years ago. i just love when my projects come out well.

[dubkitty]

i got out the Guild Jetstar because it was close by when i wanted to do some pedal evaluations and got a better idea of its issues. one unpleasant surprise was that the A and D strings rattle on the second fret when played on the first fret; this is where the impact that broke the neck occurred, and i expect the second fret got misshaped when the neck was glued together. so a bit of judicious sanding with a small block will be required to get frets 1-3 consistent.

i think i should sand the repaired part of the neck rather than trying to fill the places where the paint was separated….seems like a consistent wood (and glue presumably) surface would be best for touchup painting.

the large-ish ding in the left lower bout needs wood filler to create a smooth surface for paint.

i may do the bits that don’t require spraying sometimr soon, but as noted i need to wait to paint till it gets warm. it’s playable as is, so i’m not terribly motivated here.

on consideration i’m going to work on the Hopf next. it’s getting pickups i really like, and with the Falcon i
have a Filtertron Gretsch in active service so the Double Jet is somewhat redundant at the moment. i also need to order new pickup rings because none of the ones i have are correct.

then there’s the Galaxiemaster, which will likely be the last finished because it’s the most complex. i need to polish out the body, finish sanding the fingerboard, design the wiring, and design a pickguard for the 3 Höfner staple minihumbuckers i’ll have Pickguardian do. certainly the most complicated of all my guitar projects.