upgrading strat saddles

I always thought the bridge saddles on a vintage strat were awful, but didn't realize there was a very affordable replacement until recently. As soon as I found out I ordered a set, and just installed them. It all went smoothly except they were missing a grub screw when they arrived - I used one of the existing screws, which sticks out just a bit, but works just fine.

Here's a picture of the vintage-style saddles (left) and the new ones (right):

As you can see the new ones are much more solid and have a better divot for the strings to rest in. The old ones are really just a piece of sheet metal formed into the rough shape of the saddle.

I'm quite happy with the change, it was definitely worth it.

humbucker!

After my lesson on Thursday night I had decided to stick a humbucker I'd gotten off eBay into my strat - I'd never much liked the sound of the pickup in the bridge position, so I found an H-S-S pickguard and an inexpensive humbucking pickup. Here you can see it just screwed into the pickguard (alongside a little block of maple I may someday use to fully block the tremolo):

So Saturday afternoon I finally grabbed the soldering iron and wired her up! Things went relatively smoothly - I don't like working with four-conductor cable, though. The sub wires are very tiny (especially the bare ground) and seem far too delicate. But so far everything has worked, except initially I wired the humbucker out of phase with itself because of a misunderstanding of the Seymour Duncan wiring diagram, which caused it to sound like a hilarious choked ping instead of a beefy humbucker.

All I had to do was swap red and black and everything was fine. I even wired it so that the middle + rear position on the pickup selector selects only one of the humbucker coils, so it keeps that classic strat sound. Here is a picture of me scrutinizing wiring diagrams:

Here is the finished product sans the control knobs. I think it looks snazzy, and the sound is what I was hoping for. The output levels aren't uncontrollably different, and the bridge sound is much better than the sproingy single coil pickup - it has a thick controlled sound that is much more SG-like.

Coming soon: new bridge saddles from GFS + a Floyd Rose style bar string retainer.

pickups

The pickups finally came in, somewhat unexpectedly as I had not heard any confirmation from the winders. They look very classy; I had a little trouble getting the bridge pickup to mount. The screw sockets mounted in the base plate kept popping out from the amount of pressure I had to apply; I think the mounting holes on the Barden bridge were spaced a shade too wide and caused too much extra friction.
With a little perseverance and elbow grease, I managed to finagle everything together, and it seems to be fine now, although the real test will come once the strings are on and I'm adjusting the pickup height with output.

Still searching for the perfect neck - I do know that I want a narrow nut, and a decent medium "C" shape, maple/maple with a nice vintage tint. Hopefully one will pop up somewhere. Here is the current state of things:

Telecaster Update

(I know the timing seems odd - a few minutes after the previous post - but I'm catching up on some stuff I meant to record).

Telecaster body is looking good - the weather and my health haven't been quite good enough for me to start on the sanding of the arm contour/removing the damage, but I did eBay most of the electronics, hardware and a fancy bridge.

It's a "Joe Barden" bridge, and it has a decent reputation among Tele enthusiasts. It's very thick steel and has extra screw holes for clamping it down (which I drilled and installed) as well as including brass slant-compensated saddles, which I had planned on using.

I've put together the wiring the best I can without the pickups - the switch and pots are pretty much wired, and I've hooked it up in a reverse style so that the volume knob is closer to the playing hand. I think it is a bit more useful, and I like the look and individuality.

I'm now keeping an eye out for a neck, as well as ordering some Bill Lawrence Keystone Tele pickups, although I sent payment some time ago and haven't heard back... hopefully everything is ok in that camp.

Telecaster!

So I waited and waited on eBay, hoping to find a damaged/gently used telecaster in 3-tone sunburst (or perhaps butterscotch) that was of a decent quality - and finally I snagged one, a sunburst Highway One tele that must have taken a nasty fall, as it has been gouged out as well as having quite a number of nicks and scrapes.


So here it is; one might be surprised by the severity of the gouge on the front, but conveniently, I had some plans to sand off an arm contour onto this telecaster, for a personal touch.

I would have felt guilty about "ruining" a near-mint piece, but since I need to deal with that damage anyway it's just about ideal.

Overall plan is to add an aftermarket vintage-style bridge, black pickguard, reverse-standard wiring, and a vintage style maple/maple neck. I'll update as those things are acquired and installed.

Lessons

Had my first guitar lesson with Babs since I got sick and moved a few months ago. Rusty as hell, but it felt good to play again, and I think he has improved as a teacher since then. We are tackling stuff pretty slow at first regarding theory, while simultaneously improving technique and chops to keep things interesting. I'm excited to learn some new stuff.

Strat!

With the advent of my decision to discontinue the Jazzmaster project, I've gone back to looking at my Strat and its status.

I know I can't possibly resist continuing to do mods and projects (and why would I?) but I am planning on scaling back both scope and investment. Thus, I will be doing some inexpensive (and some free) mods to the old Strat.

I'll post an entry when I finish a mod, but here are some of the things I'm planning on doing:

1. Add a switch to add in neck (or bridge) pickup in any lever setting (7-tone mod)
2. Remove the paint and stickers from the neck heel and cavity
3. Sand off the paint on the tremolo block and where the block sits on the body (Eric Johnson)
4. Add a Floyd Rose-style bar string retainer to the headstock
5. Upgrade shady saddles to GraphTech saddles
6. Block the tremolo properly (I've got a little piece of maple already for this!)

I've also got a weird strat pickup.. from a Squier Bronco Bass that I replaced the pickup on. It's a standard Strat size (or very close), but it has bar magnets underneath, like a P-90. I've only heard it when it was on the bass, but it might make for an interesting experiment in the bridge position of the Strat!

Side Note: The Strat looks remarkably like the one Ted has in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.