Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Tech => Topic started by: MrBump on June 20, 2009, 07:45:02 AM
-
So, I've managed to acquire a Strat body.
It's beaten up but looks OK, so I've going to base a project around it.
It's currently drilled and routed for a vintage 6 hole strat trem. I'm now wondering if I should stick with the vintage style trem, or fill the holes and drill it for a more modern two pin trem.
Anyone got any opinions?
Mark.
-
I prefer vintage style looks-wise, but that's just me :)
-
Ever only use a vintage six-hole trem or a vintage-style hardtail on a Strat.
This will help you score with chicks. Eschew anything else.
-
depends how much you want to go to town on it i guess. bkp vintage trem is great - but you may find the fixings are in a different place/routing needs to be done anyway. not all vintage 6 point trems are the same dimensions.
-
To be fair, I'm not that interested in scoring with the chicks, although any guitar hardware that adds to my general, ambient sex appeal can't be bad thing.
I'm not sure that the guitar is worth a massive investment... the BKP trem looks lovely, but I'm not sure I could justify it.
-
Ever only use a vintage six-hole trem or a vintage-style hardtail on a Strat.
This will help you score with chicks. Eschew anything else.
Hmmm. It has never worked for me. :|
But I don't gig..... Maybe I should just wander around coffee shops, art galleries and seedy-but-fashionable-in-a-bohemian-sort-of-way parts of London with a Strat in my hand.
Anyway, FWIW I think the six-screw trem looks, feels and sounds better. And it's easy to screw it down flat and turn into a pseudo-hardtail if you don't like it.
-
But I don't gig..... Maybe I should just wander around coffee shops, art galleries and seedy-but-fashionable-in-a-bohemian-sort-of-way parts of London with a Strat in my hand.
I was once in mid-town New York on my way back to my hotel, mildly gothed up and with a V case... got wolf-whistled by a medium-hot girl and ending up having an entertaining afternoon with her (no sex, so obviously my luck wasn't that in)
-
OK, the project is a dead duck.
Got out the B&D workmate in the garage yesterday, and had a go sanding down the body in question; then I realised that there was a large part of the body near the input jack that seemed to be rotten; the guitar was in a shed at my mums place, probably standing in a puddle!
The more I I sanded away, the more rot I uncovered. I even tried cutting it back severely with a jigsaw - got rid of most of the rot, but the body has ended up looking like something BC Rich might make, which definitely isn't what I was aiming for...
Bugger.
But I've got the bug, and I'm hankering after a strat. Maybe I'll check out Ebay for some bodies...
Mark.
-
But I don't gig..... Maybe I should just wander around coffee shops, art galleries and seedy-but-fashionable-in-a-bohemian-sort-of-way parts of London with a Strat in my hand.
I was once in mid-town New York on my way back to my hotel, mildly gothed up and with a V case... got wolf-whistled by a medium-hot girl and ending up having an entertaining afternoon with her (no sex, so obviously my luck wasn't that in)
Usually it works something like this for me...
Chick sees me with nonchalantly displayed Stratocaster case: "Ooooh! Whaddayagotinthecase?"
Me (smooth operator): "Hey, how's it going?"
Chick (getting impatient): "There, is, like, a guitar in there...right?"
Me (trying to decide if she is hot enough for this to be worth the trouble): "Oh, yeah, an old Fender...."
Chiquita (eyes light up): "Wow, really, can I see it?"
Me (I have a free afternoon, so why not?): "Well, let's move away from the coffee machine...this guitar is just a magnet for jealous haters..."
Case is opened, just enough to show her a taste of what I have to offer...
Female (sensing danger, and liking it): "I like that bridge...hard. tail."
Me: "Want a coffee?"
-
But I've got the bug, and I'm hankering after a strat. Maybe I'll check out Ebay for some bodies...
Mark,
I'm the process of returning a Squier Strat to stock and will have the guitar plus some extra parts available:
H-S-S scratchplate
Pickups
Knobs/covers
Wilkinson trem
etc
Drop me a PM if you want first dibs on anything.....
-
The hipshot trem is really worth looking in to when you get round to considering bridges again.
Martin Booth's guitars use them amongst others.
Really smooth operation and stayed in tune depite some heavy abuse on the ones I tried
-
I don't like using any Fender trem, for that reason I prefer the six screw. I press the bridge down just flat to the body with the two outside screws, then bring the four center ones down just 'til they touch. Poor man's hardtail.
-
Poor man's hardtail.
:lol: Nah... don't do it down... it's the other way round: a hardtail is a poor man's flattened strat bridge... :lol:
I'm probably wrong, but all that extra wood, and no springs or tremblock, a hardtail just don't quite sound/feel right to me...
(not that I can actually hear a difference :lol:)
-
Poor man's hardtail.
:lol: Nah... don't do it down... it's the other way round: a hardtail is a poor man's flattened strat bridge... :lol:
Hmm, we'll have to agree to disagree! :wink:
-
I'm probably wrong, but all that extra wood, and no springs or tremblock, a hardtail just don't quite sound/feel right to me...
+1 Hardtail strats just don't sound like strats!
-
We're not ganging up on you Philly, honest! :lol:
-
I'm probably wrong, but all that extra wood, and no springs or tremblock, a hardtail just don't quite sound/feel right to me...
+1 Hardtail strats just don't sound like strats!
We're not ganging up on you Philly, honest! :lol:
:lol:
You're right, I suppose, hardtail Strats don't really sound like Strats in the true, classic sense.
They're more like a halfway house between a Strat and a Tele - in other words, pretty much perfect! :D
I just love the simplicity of a hardtail. And I like the fact that they're relatively rare, so when you see one there's something a bit "special" about it. I must admit I get quite excited (in a non-sexual sort of way) every time I see a Strat and there's no backplate, just that nice little row of ferrules... :oops:
I know you can block off a trem but I find myself wishing those springs and stuff just weren't there to even think about. Another of my OCDs, I guess. :roll:
-
I got my girls a MIM Special Players Deluxe or whatever... All gold hardware and cherry burst, pearl pick guard. Just all blingy and girly, y'know? Anyway, I screwed the vintage bridge down flat..... and this guitar seriously rocks! I play it all the time at home. I would probably renege on the whole deal and claim possession to it, but for the 21 fret neck. At least with a 22 I can bend for D# and "fret" on the neck pup somewhere for E, but on this neck I just run out of real estate.
Anyways, the vintage bridge nailed down solid to the body sound great.
-
Out of interest Copperhead - and completely off-topic (although I can blame Philly, he has used the word "tele" above, and you for talking about 21-22 frets... :lol:) - you're a tele man as well aren't you? Have you ever used the neck pickup as an extra fret? I saw video of Roy Buchanan doing it, and it works!!
-
One of my Strats is a hardtail and I love it. It most definitely sounds Stratty.
-
Out of interest Copperhead - and completely off-topic (although I can blame Philly, he has used the word "tele" above, and you for talking about 21-22 frets... :lol:) - you're a tele man as well aren't you? Have you ever used the neck pickup as an extra fret? I saw video of Roy Buchanan doing it, and it works!!
LOL!!
One of the first things I do on any new guitar is to figure out what part of the neck pickup I can get which notes on!! I will raise the pole on the high E string a bit if it helps! :D
-
I bought a Vintage V6 strat recently and was really impressed with the trem on that, a lot of time has been spent finding little features that make it stay in tune and believe it or not they work. JHS have a bunch of alternatives too from traditional styles, lower friction models, PRS style bridges etc. These are as far as I understand the budget models however Trev Wilkinson also has a website ( http://www.whamster.com/ (http://www.whamster.com/) )where he sells his top of the range GOTOH made models it's definatly worth looking at.
Mine is the basic WVC model and it is IMO fantastic, stays in tune, even with heavy dive bombing etc. Time will tell how it resists the corrosive chemicals that exude from my hands though. I can only imagine Wilkinson's higher spec models are even better (and more rust resistant).
Here's a link to a demonstrator giving the trem some stick (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpl5SMJf2zA&feature=channel_page (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpl5SMJf2zA&feature=channel_page)), if you can't be bothered with the whole video it's at about 3mins in.
Hope it helps.