I’ve been neglecting the documentation on my strat build. I spent a lot of time working out the wiring and final parts list, and basically wrapped the project up a couple week ago. Once everything was here I had to do the wiring, which was a bit intimidating. Luckily my friend Chad is a ninja at it, gave me a few tips and loaned me one of his pimp digital soldering stations. After using that thing I couldn’t imagine using any of the junk soldering irons radioshack sells. I’m totally spoiled now.

I could bore you with all the wiring schematics, but for now here’s the basic rundown of the wiring:

• Pickups – Seymour Duncan P-rails, which have 3 modes each. Can be run as a humbucker, p-90 or a single-coil.
• Controls – each pickup has its own volume, its own 3-way mini-toggle that selects the pickup mode. there’s a single tone control that covers both pickups, and then a 3 way blade switch that lets you either run the neck pickup, bridge pickup, or both.

There is really quite a bit of wiring involves in this. It took me an entire afternoon to do the work, most of it was spent stripping and tinning the little pieces of wire I needed everywhere. I was so busy I really didn’t take any pictures, except for a few quick shots with my iPhone.

The only issue I currently have is that when you run both pickups at teh same time, the volume controls are not independent. My friend Chad is pondering this issue and I’m planning on emailing Seymour Duncan for their input. It may not be possible to do it that way with a 3 way blade switch, but its really the only problem. I wasn’t quite happy with my soldering job on the mini-toggles so I’ve since taken that apart and re-done it, and its much cleaner now.  I don’t think its a bad job for a first time eletronics job. I did a lot of metalsmithing soldering in college, but that’s way different than this.

I haven’t been able to play the guitar much since I completed it. It is in need of a serious setup job, so I’ll be hauling it down to Louisville soon to get a pro to do the setup and intonation work ( I could do it, but I don’t have the proper tools, and don’t have the desire to spend hundreds on tools I may use once). Once that’s done it will be ready to rock.

Speaking of rocking, I got a new amp. My neighbors already know this, but it is freakin loud. It’s a Vox AC15 tube amp. I always knew tube amps were more powerful, but it’s really insane how much MORE powerful they are. I had a 20w solid state before, and this 15w tube is just in another league. I can turn it to about 1.5 at the most without rattling the building. No joke.

Now if I could only play worth a damn…

There’s not a lot to update on right now. Mainly been planning and figuring out the pickup and control setup for the guitar. I knew the neck and bridge position would be occupied by a set of Seymour Duncan P-Rails, but I was going back on forth on whether I wanted  a center pickup, and what exactly that would be. For now I’ve opted to just for for bridge and neck positions and eliminate the center pickup. The wiring setup and options were becoming too complicated, so for now I’m going to keep it pretty clean. Each p-rail will be on its own 3 way toggle, and have its own tone control. Going for a single volume control and a straight forward 3 way selector switch to control which pickups I’m using.

I’ve also done the final attachment of the bridge and ground wire for that. It’s nice to have that all done and everything lined up properly. I’ve also taken apart my black strat and used its pick-guard to do some test fits and verify clearance. I was a bit concerned about the pick guard fitting with the bridge adjustments I had made, but luckily that all fits nicely. Here are a few photos of the bridge after mounting, the pickups and pick guard swatches and the headstock with the Fender strat decal applied.

The other strat.

With all of my attention being put on this surf green custom strat, my other black strat was getting kind of sad. It needed some cleanup and since I had taken it apart for some test fits on the surf green strat, I opted to do some changed to the black strat as well. The shielding was pretty much non existent on this guitar, so I’ve started the process of painting the body cavity with the carbon paint I used on the surf green strat. A couple coats of that, plus some additional pick guard shielding should quiet the pickups a bit. I’m also replacing the old white pickguard with a black one. Going for the David Gilmour ‘black strat’ look.

That’s it for now. I’m getting the pick guard ordered so I can start attaching all the parts and I’ve ordered a bunch of parts to help get the electronics work started. All the pots, capacitors and switches should be here next week. The pick guarts is coming from a custom place, so that may take a bit longer. Once that’s here I can attach all the components and start figuring out the wiring.

with the bridge repairs/modifications done and the neck attached i’ve moved onto prepping the body for the final attachment of the bridge. step one of that is to get the area of the body that is routed out for the electronics shielded. once shielded i can run the ground wire for the bridge and get the bridge mounted.

for shielded there are two options. actually line the cavity with copper tape/sheetmetal or use a conductive paint. for the body i opted for the conductive paint, since it is easier to apply. once i get the pick guard i will shield that with copper.

there isn’t a whole lot to applying it. i masked off the body and using a foam brush liberally applied the paint. 3 coats will be applied in total, with 24 hrs in between coats.

tuner install

i also decided to install the tuners tonight. to do this i had ordered a tuner pin drill jig from stewart macdonald. this allowed me to get the pin holes lined up correctly so that all the tuners lined up perfectly.

basically i put the jig into one of the tuner holes, then clamped a straight edge down and made the measurements were all equal. once that was checked and double-checked, i made it was clamped tight and used it as a guide for the jig and started drilling. the pictures are pretty self-explanatory.

up next will be the grounding and final mounting of the bridge. from there i’ll have to start working on the pickup choices and come up with a wiring diagram. still quite a bit to do. i ordered a bunch of misc parts earlier today, various little pieces i will need along the way.