'5461' Praiseworthy Strat revealed

[5F6-A]

Specs:

Neck:
1961 style dimensions / lush rosewood slaboard fingerboard of unknown origin
Fretted with medium jumbo frets
'Praiseworthy' logo
Corian nut ( to be changed for bone at one point! )
Nitro relic finish
Rolled-off edges
Reliced Kluson style tuners
Worn-off back of the neck
7-25" radius

Body:
Aged and abused Olympic white body. Nitro lacquer, naturally
1961 dimensions
Callaham single ply, 8 hole, 50s style scratchplate
Aged BKP p/us covers
Fender aged knobs
Dunlop Straplocks
Distressed Callaham neck plate with serial number (# 62615)
Raw Vintage saddles and springs (well worth the money IMHO)
GFS solid steel block

Electronics:
Bareknuckle Apache pickups handwound by Tim
RS Superpot 280k pot (volume)
Fender No-load pot 250k pot (master tone)
Fralin Blender pot
Megaswith (Schaller) 5 pos switch
Sprague NOS ceramic cap. 0.1 uF. Gorgeous!!
Switchcraft / Callaham output jack
No shielding whasoever!

[Telerocker]

Looks like the dogs bollocks! Great guitar in every way.

[Andrew W]

Love that guitar; pretty much everything I would want in a relic Strat. Top drawer stuff.

[38thBeatle]

Lovely looking guitar.

[Mr. Air]

That looks superb. I want one  :D

[Philly Q]

Looks great, but I must admit I did prefer the old scratchplate.

[5F6-A]

haha... cheers Phil.  :lol: Horses for courses, really.
the tortoise gave it a hot-rodded look and the plain white gives it a classy 50s vibe a lā Jimmie Vaughan

[Philly Q]

I hadn't thought of the Jimmie Vaughan thing!  :D

I used to have one of those Jimmie Vaughan signature Strats, I was going to put a gold anodised scratchplate on it to make it look like Dave Gilmour's white Strat (but of course I never got round to it!)

[5F6-A]

Ever since I watched this video maaaany years ago I was determined to have a beaten to death olympic white / white scratchplate strat. Mine has a rosewood board though but I think it makes look unique.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MXwCta6rd4

[5F6-A]

Through the process of putting this guitar together I have learnt a good few things about guitars in general and Strats in particular. I knew some of some of them but there's no substitute to finding things out for yourself, really.

Discovery 1: hardware matters.

I realised -finally- that the problem of feeble, wimpish bridge pickup is not due to a flaw in the pickup design but rather a consequence of using a cheaply made bridge. Swap your bridge for something made by Callaham or Raw Vintage and you'l see what I mean. Fenders from the 50s and early 60s used good quality steel. Callaham and other top people in anything Fender simply reproduced a winning formula. In fact, so much so that the current standard of winding the bridge pickup hotter to compensate the lack of lows and mids is almost unnecesary if you have a top-notch bridge.

Discovery 2: Your tone knob is your friend (sometimes)
I wired the guitar so instead of having two tone knobs I had a master tone knob. The pot is a 250K no-load CTS and the cap is am old NOS Sprague ceramic 0.1 uf ( although it read something like 0.080 uF). No-load pots have a notch at the end of the travel of the shaft so it basically it takes itself completely off the circuit when set at 10, preserving all the high end that normally bleeds off to ground.
This proved to be a great idea.
Why? Well, positions 2 and 4 sound best and at their "quackiest" when "freed" from the load of the pot and cap which darkens the tone somehow, even at 10. Positions 2 and 4 are great and a favourite amongst Strat aficionados but they can sound a bit dull compared to the pickups by themselves so you really want all the highs and sparkle you can get, especially in alder/rosewood strats, to fully enjoy those tones made popular by people like Clapton in the 70s.
On the other hand, positions 1, 3 and 5 often benefit from a subtle high end roll-off. By turning the knob in the 5461 down to 9 I can add some really subtle sweetness to the tone.
So for 2 and 4, knock the tone pot out of the circuit.
For 1,2 and 3, dial in some high-end rolloff for great tone.
Highly recommended.

[Andrew W]

That's really good info, thanks. And cats don't get any cooler than Jimmie Vaughan.

[AndyR]

Nice one, very nice one :D

I'd have gone for a 3-ply, but I can see the Jimmie Vaughan thing.

Love the look of the fretboard.

And that no-load thing sounds like a very good idea. I've wondered about them before, but never with regard to 2 and 4 like this. I might check it out...

[5F6-A]

The no-load would be really good if you donīt mind tweaking yout knobs. AS I said positions 2 and 4 really benefit from it.

[Philly Q]

I've had the no-load pots on a couple of Fender guitars.  It's a good idea but I found the actual physical operation of the pot annoying - when it's "locked" in the notch position, it's hard to quickly tweak the tone (if, like me, you like pots which turn easily with just your little finger)

[Telerocker]

Thanks for sharing. Good info!