gwem visits wez - 23 fret strat and union jack steinberger content

[gwEm]

i'll put some decent pics of the guitar (especially the neck) itself up in the next few days, but i must write about my newest toy :)

so as some of you may remember i scored a MIM classic 70s strat. it was in nice enough nick, but feeling sorry for itself.

barely playing it i immediately took the guitar apart and fitted:

slowhand set, with baseplated bridge
rewired middle tone control to work with bridge too
BKP vintage trem
straplocks

was sounding pretty alright at this point, but i hated the feel of the poly finished neck.

inspired by uli jon roth, and a conversation with wez at the bkp christmas drinkup i quickly sent my strat to him for a replacement neck - and its marvelous:

birdseye maple fingerboard
23 frets (you know, 21 or 22 frets just isn't enough to express my art using 3rd eye techniques :P :P) like uli jon roth
cbs-like headstock
gotoh height adjustable vintage locking tuners
graphtech nut (i might go for an LSR one day)
9.5" radius
cheap fender decal
3 bolt fitting - actually fitted properly this time ;)
moderately chunky feel - perfect profile actually

i can't wait to try it with my treble booster and NOS curly cable, though a bit busy, so that might have to wait a few days.

[gwEm]

might rewire for two volume controls and a tone, might also go for said lsr nut... but not just yet, i want to get the feel of it like this

edit: although the string trees are fitted for the look, they aren't touching the strings due to the cool tuners

edit: also, the positive tonal improvement due to this neck is quite noticable

[FernandoDuarte]

:) Seems cool, but will need more pics to know :P

All the neck is birdseye or just the fingerboard?

[horsehead]

and here comes another convert ;)

[WezV]

All the neck is birdseye or just the fingerboard?

Just the fretboard - its acrylised B/E maple so as hard as ebony, somewhere between the two in tone.  Also it has my usual dual Carbon fibre bars and two way truss rod so its very stiff compared to the average strat neck

[WezV]

one other thing to note... the MIM body had a silly amount of paint in the trem cavity - particularly around the front opening of the route

not sure if this was a problem when it had the original trem (smaller trem block maybe) but it certainly was with the BKP trem and it was catching quite badly... a few minutes with the router and a scr@per sorted it nice and neatly,  but its worth noting that you may need to remove some paint if upgrading a MIM fender.  Having said that i think it was a totally worthwhile upgrade

[Johnny Mac]

Sounds good gwEm 

[gwEm]

one other thing to note... the MIM body had a silly amount of paint in the trem cavity - particularly around the front opening of the route

not sure if this was a problem when it had the original trem (smaller trem block maybe)

it was also a problem with the original trem

[gwEm]

ok! heres a load of images of the neck:

http://www.preromanbritain.com/gwem/temp/wezneck/

[Johnny Mac]

ok! heres a load of images of the neck:

http://www.preromanbritain.com/gwem/temp/wezneck/

Looks like lovely bit of wood. Miles better than my Strat neck.

[Roobubba]

As a guitar, it doesn't do a lot for me, although that is a lovely hunk of wood that Wez has put on, there! Looks, as ever, expertly set up, too :)

BTW, nice gurning :)

Roo

[gwEm]

As a guitar, it doesn't do a lot for me, although that is a lovely hunk of wood that Wez has put on, there! Looks, as ever, expertly set up, too :)

BTW, nice gurning :)

Roo

as wez says, the fingerboard is as hard as ebony, and feels different from maple - naturally it has the cool maple look  8)

theres only one strat i tried which i prefer to this one - and thats philking's white 50s v-neck.

it sounds pure stratocaster - even unplugged ;) wez has set up the pickups really well for perfect sounding in-between positions.

vintage radius boards always make me gurn, but at least i've done so in an aggressive rock way ;)

[FernandoDuarte]

Truss rod bottom adjustment?

Nice birds :D

[PhilKing]

I guess another fret wouldn't fit - there isn't much room between the neck end and neck pickup - in this case it is almost a neck pickup!  The whole thing looks great, the birdseye really sets it off.  If you wanted a good Fender decal, check Glenn Ellard at artyfarty1@blueyonder.co.uk.  He does the Fecker ones but also does the correct replacements too.

[WezV]

we did consider a 'good' decal, but really i didnt want to make that part too good - i also changed the headstock shape subtly just to avoid issues.  tbh we went with something that was a similar shape just because nothing else looks right on the big headstock - but i do get uncomfortable making anything like that too close

a fecker one would be a good alternative - its an easy change if gwem wants it,  the current one is a vinyl sticker and could be removed easily without damage