The Project - Complete

On March 9th 2013, I began this photo and journalistic blog documenting a project, to salvage what was an unplayable guitar of my friend Scott's - a guitar that really hasn't been played in 20+ years. The purpose was first, to see if I could adequately clean up and make the guitar playable as well as to get the guitar to look and play similar to how it used to play.

I'm happy to announce both goals have been accomplished. (yay!)

The finished guitar was put together about a week ago, and today I've completed the wiring, had to route out a bit more wood from the inside of the pickup cavity for the pickups, and then performed a setup and intonation.

Some observations:

First thing is, no guitar will go together easy-peasy, especially when buying after market parts. There will always be something that won't quite fit, that needs a bit of a shave to get it to fit properly or to get it fit at ALL. In this case, the aftermarket parts were manufactured to fit an American made Stratocaster and not a mid-1980's Japanese Squire Stratocaster. Yes, Jules from Pulp Fiction was right, the difference is the metric system.

The pickguard needed a bit of a shave in a few spots, but, the pickup cavity was approximately 2mm too small to fit the humbucker and the neck pickup, which required me to modify the cavity with a Dremel to get them to fit properly.

Also, the neck angle - when I initially pulled the neck off, I noticed a paper shim near the body of the neck/body joint. Probably there from the factory as it looked like a piece of construction paper about 1/4 inch wide. The "micro tilt" neck function Fender created for these guitars should not be used if at all possible. I mean in drastic circumstances maybe but that's it. I needed to shim the neck with a .5mm wood shim ($6 off Amazon), and with an Exacto knife, trimmed it and the neck angle was perfect.

The other part I did but failed to mention last time (in Part 4) when I worked on the finish and lacquer overspray. Because the neck has lots of dings and chips, which I attempted to at least hide a little - the body could not look perfect. Having an almost brand new looking white body on a well worn neck just would look - well, silly. I decided to look up a few different methods of performing a "light relic" look that would go along with the neck. There are apparently hundreds of ways to do this, but I decided to skip the finish checking and left scratches, and put a few indentations into the guitar without going down to the wood. I also decided to put in a few minor areas of discoloration, and I left a few of the paint imperfections during sanding. This is going to let it look a bit less new and more used - for a 43 year old guitar, one would think it should have at least a few dings on the body to go along with the neck.

Of course this is nothing like the amount of wear that was initially on it. Remember?

Next once I got it all together I tested all the electronics (the middle pickup wire slid out of place, so I had to put it back in, (more firmly this time) - a final test and polish and she's ready to go. Lastly I set the pickup height to nearly the standard factory height - but because the pickups are a bit hotter than a standard Stratocaster, I left them around 9/64ths instead of the standard 6/64th's.

There is still one thing bugging me and that is the string tree. Because the guitar originally had string locks on the guitar headstock, no string tree was ever needed. Once modifications were done and the string locks and original bridge removed - a string tree was added but, the break angle of the string over the nut didn't quite cut it on the B and E strings. The string tree should hep this, but the once I have for the guitar barely does anything to help the break angle, so the treble side E string has maybe a 4 degree break angle over the nut which doesn't put enough downward pressure on the string to let it ring very well. I'm going to order a new string tree (probably a Graph Tech) replacement. Otherwise, the guitar is tip top.

I can't overstate how easy the electronics were, with the Obsidian Wire solderless setup. It saved many an hour of cursing and kicking chairs. Highly recommended!

This brings up, the next project which I will hint at here:

I will be putting together a unique looking Partscaster - standard Tele body, neck, with some very high output single coils. I have all the parts picked out already and it should be a very vibe inducing guitar once it's done. This will keep me busy until Fall, if I can get the parts sooner, I'll work on it sooner. This will also be my first attempt at using amber shellac as a finish instead of spray lacquer.

Enjoy the finished pictures. I'll be presenting it back to Scott on his twitch stream today, which I hope someone will clip so I can add the clip here.

Peace yo!

The Project (Part 4)

Over the past two weeks, the 1985 MIJ Squier Contemporary Strat body has seen it's last coat of lacquer. In total, 4 coats of lacquer sanding sealer, then 3 coats of color, and lastly 15 coats of gloss lacquer. The last coat put on May 7th - so now it must cure and harden for the next two weeks. Apparently lacquer VOC's need to dissipate before any final sanding can occur. So by May 21st, I can start wet sanding starting with 800 grit, moving to 1000, 1200, 1600, and finally 2000. This is because spray lacquer has a texture to it, similar to the rind of an orange, and to get that smooth and glass like finish, wet sanding and then compounding must happen, unless you like the orange rind finish - in which case, DONE! I like the glassy finish myself so I'll have some sanding, sanding, sanding to do. I've decided to use mineral spirits for the wet sanding instead of water - but either works fine.

So while the body cures and hardens, the neck and electronics need to be done. As mentioned before, I decided to go with non-Fender pickups, though Fender does have some nice pickups for strats. This is because I wanted a bit of a modern sound for this older guitar - something a bit more hip.

The neck and middle pickup are single coil Bareknuckle Mothers Milk pickups, which still have that strat sound but a modern version. I purchased these directly from Bareknuckle who wound them specifically for my HSS setup, which I thought had a very "custom" feel to it, with no additional charges. They even wax dipped and put a bottom zinc plate on them which really does make them a "custom" strat pickup. A little bit about these pickups:

They're alnico 5 (alnico stands for Al=aluminum, NI=nickel, Co=Cobalt) and the 5, being the strength of the magnetic force of the rods in the pickup. There are Alnico 2 (being the least magnetic) to Alnico 5 (the strongest most magnetic). If you want to get more info on Alnico the Lindy Fralin website has a decent amount of information.

The reason I know about Alnico magnets, amazingly, isn't because of music or guitars, but dairy farming. A short story:

I grew up on a dairy farm - and cows aren't the most attentive eaters. Cows could and do eat all sorts of things they shouldn't. For example, we had to keep the tractors away from cattle because for some strange reason, cows love the taste of grease - the petroleum kind used to lubricate farm equipment. They love the stuff, so if you left a tractor or piece of equipment where the cows can lick off the grease, they get sick and could get bloat, in which case, a vet needs to punch a hole into the side of the cow to let out gas trapped in one of it's four stomach areas, or it can die.

Back to magnets - cows eat lots of grass, hay, feed, silage, etc. Sometimes nails or metal pieces will be unwittingly near their food and the cow will swallow metal. That is also, as you can guess, not a good thing. So, farmers found out that if a cow was to have a magnet at the bottom of their first stomach area - it would catch and hold the metal objects, saving the cow from a possibly nasty demise. Pure bred cattle also are quite expensive especially when used for breeding. Pedigrees and birth documentation of a highly judged cow or bull can be in the hundreds of thousands for just one animal. So safeguarding them by putting a bolus magnet into them, saves not only the cow but lots of money.

Didn't think I could or would pivot to dairy farming from guitar pickups did you?

Back to the Bareknuckle pickups: Both neck & middle pickups have a very classic 5.7 kΩ DC resistance, making the output on the moderate output side for a classic stat yet, can drive an amp for both a blues, funk and rock sound.

For the humbucker I again went away from the classic Frailin, Seymore Duncan or Fender/Gibson, and went with a Railhammer Hypervintage pickup. Railhammers have an interesting composition in that, the 3 bass string use a rail bar magnet, and the 3 treble strings use the traditional pole pieces in the same pickup. This unique voicing allows a tighter bass tone and a very airy treble in one pickup. These pickups I've played in a few different guitars, and one I own a Reverend Sensei. Needless to say I'm a big fan. The Hypervintage version has a very familiar PAF Gibson tone, yet can really drive distortion with a creamy tone. The Hypervintage pickup is 8.5 kΩ at the bridge position and also uses Alnico 5 magnets in a medium power humbucker. This will be the pickup used for most distorted and lead tones. A bit hotter than a standard PAF, it will really push the distortion.

The neck frets were all removed and replaced. The frets at some point were replaced as the fret wire on it when I got the guitar was closer to a Dunlop 6110 - very wide. I decided to go back to a fret closer to what would have been on the guitar when it was new a Dunlop 6150 nickel - a little taller and less wide - more like the "medium jumbo" Fender says they put on their guitars.

I temporarily hooked up the pickups to the Obsidian wire 5 way switch - I'll need to tie these down before final installation with either zip ties or shrink tubing. The great thing about the Obsidian wire is no soldering.

Here's a few more pictures of the neck and electronics / pickguard. Next up will the result of final sanding and hopefully the guitar fully put together.

The Project (Part 3)

Since March (the last blog post) I've been sanding, sanding, filling, sanding...

A few minor details and things I found out about working on this guitar. First, while the specs for the guitar body from 1985 stated it was basswood, it was all sorts of basswood pieces glued together. The body is in 3 main parts, 2 of which are the same color and consistency - the third a much darker part of heart wood. The treble side of the body including the treble horn and part of the lower bout was a 4th piece of wood glued onto the other 3 parts. And while basswood does not have pores, say like, mahogany or alder, which Fender loves to use in guitar bodies, basswood doesn't have these pores - meaning the wood does not require a sealant to be used before painting. Regardless, I used 3 coats of sealer with a 400 grit sanding before starting the paint. Before getting into the painting - some other things I found out.

1. The guitar seems to have been modified by one of our friends a long time ago, Joe Vadala, who for a short time in Karma Factory history, managed the band and who founded and plays in a tribute band Best of the Eagles. The modification was to the bridge pins and since I cannot find a new bridge with these same specs which doesn't use string locks, the old bridge will have to do.

2. The Obsidian Wire harness went into the new 11 hole pick guard no problems. The HSS and 7 way switch will hopefully make this solderless electronics a no brainer.

3. White paint apparently shows every single slight flaw and ding - so after the first coat of paint, I had to do a little more filling and sanding, sanding, sanding...

4. I opted to spend $8 on new springs and spring plate. A little work on the screw holes but there were 3 different springs on the guitar and since Scott nor I really bother with dive bombing notes these days, it should be a good option.

5. I purchased lots of wet/dry sandpaper up to 3000 grit for the finish as well as some Maguiars automotive compound and polish for the finishing touch.

Following the finishing guidelines from Oxford Guitar Supply has been great. So far, their stuff has been top notch, instructions very easy to follow and their kits are better than anything else out there.

So for the past week, I've been alternating the color and as of today, put the last color coat on. Next will be the 3 cans of finish, of which about 12-15 coats will be put on over the next week. The color has to cure for at least 24 hours, so I'm going to give it 48. The lacquer however, once all coats are done, needs to cure for 2 weeks before final finish and buffing can occur. This is to let the lacquer harden properly.

Once cured, I can put on the hardware, and do a dry fit to make sure everything is sitting just where it's supposed to. As well, I'm mixing my own conductive shielding paint for the pickup pockets and switch area out of powdered graphite and ink similar to this example instead of paying $56 plus shipping from Steward MacDonald for a 1/2 pint of the same thing. The graphite cost me $6 and the ink/paint $1 on Amazon. Enough to do at least 2-3 guitars. Stew-Mac is SUPER expensive so I try to avoid buying things from them as much as possible.

Below are a few pictures and how it's going. A little after Mothers Day I should have all the lacquer on and nearly ready for the hardware to go on.