A Strat-o-Stang?

Talk about modding or building your own guitar from scratch.
User avatar
solfege
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 544
Joined: Sat Feb 10, 2018 5:05 pm
Location: Philly

Re: A Strat-o-Stang?

Post by solfege » Wed Sep 15, 2021 5:21 pm

guitalias wrote:
Tue Sep 14, 2021 1:07 am
solfege wrote:
Mon Sep 13, 2021 1:30 am
guitalias wrote:
Mon Sep 13, 2021 1:08 am
I've thought of doing similar. Won't your bridge have to move 3/4 inch toward the headstock to intonate?
It’s a conversion neck. So nope!
I see. Is the conversion achieved with a fretboard overhang? Noticed how close the heel of the kneck is to the pickup.
Basically with math. But yeah you get a 21 fret neck with 24" scale when you do this.

User avatar
solfege
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 544
Joined: Sat Feb 10, 2018 5:05 pm
Location: Philly

Re: A Strat-o-Stang?

Post by solfege » Sat Sep 18, 2021 2:38 pm

So I got shellac done.

Image

And then I mocked it up with the neck. A bit darker than I'd hoped, but no biggie.

Image

And then I mocked it up with the pickguard and realized that we might have a problem, Houston.

Image

The issue is that the overhang and the pickguard are interfering. This would probably not be a problem at all on a JM, which this neck was originally created for, b/c shimming would get things up where they need to be. But strat necks need to be pretty flat. So it looks like my options are pickguard surgery or a new neck.

There's a part of me that's very tempted to just go with the standard Strat neck and save this neck for another project or move it on.

User avatar
guitalias
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 148
Joined: Mon Apr 20, 2020 10:04 pm

Re: A Strat-o-Stang?

Post by guitalias » Sat Sep 18, 2021 3:39 pm

I would modify a cheap pickguard & play till next string change. If you like it mod the tort guard.

User avatar
solfege
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 544
Joined: Sat Feb 10, 2018 5:05 pm
Location: Philly

Re: A Strat-o-Stang?

Post by solfege » Sat Sep 18, 2021 4:22 pm

guitalias wrote:
Sat Sep 18, 2021 3:39 pm
I would modify a cheap pickguard & play till next string change. If you like it mod the tort guard.
That's not a terrible idea, actually. I ordered a neck off Reverb, but I could cancel it and do that instead.

User avatar
solfege
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 544
Joined: Sat Feb 10, 2018 5:05 pm
Location: Philly

Re: A Strat-o-Stang?

Post by solfege » Sun Sep 19, 2021 6:16 pm

Ok, so the plan is shim the pocket a bit and see if that works. If not, mod a cheap pickguard. I got some very cheap unfinished adler shims, but I might start with a bit of cardboard for experimenting purposes. The thing is to see whether the geometry is going to work at all -- and whether the carve on this neck makes me happy in the first place. This is all a big experiment and an allparts neck is an easy fallback.

User avatar
solfege
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 544
Joined: Sat Feb 10, 2018 5:05 pm
Location: Philly

Re: A Strat-o-Stang?

Post by solfege » Wed Sep 22, 2021 6:11 pm

No pictures, since I'm not done, but I made the executive decision to sand the shellac back. I was using super blonde (so very light), but it just wasn't working with the adler of the body. Dulling it too much, darkening it too much, and not really looking awesome. I'm aiming to sand back to bareish wood, leaving whatever shellac is in whatever pores there are in the body (not many) and then go for a tru oil finish, which should stay lighter with any luck.

User avatar
Horsefeather
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 468
Joined: Tue Jan 10, 2017 9:47 pm

Re: A Strat-o-Stang?

Post by Horsefeather » Thu Sep 23, 2021 1:18 am

I dunno... Tru-oil does tend to darken wood. I don't think it's going to come out any lighter than what you had.

User avatar
solfege
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 544
Joined: Sat Feb 10, 2018 5:05 pm
Location: Philly

Re: A Strat-o-Stang?

Post by solfege » Fri Sep 24, 2021 6:17 pm

Horsefeather wrote:
Thu Sep 23, 2021 1:18 am
I dunno... Tru-oil does tend to darken wood. I don't think it's going to come out any lighter than what you had.
The last time I used it, I found it didn't darken it very much. but it's also true that the adler is a bit different than the ash and pine I've worked with before. The tru oil didn't darken the ash much at all, and I even did a bit of transtint dying on it first. I was surprised by how much the light shellac darkened it. I might try a bit in one of the cavities to see.

But if it doesn't go in a direction I like, I might have to reorient some more. Either move in the direction of spraying something on it, or go for @epizootics' india ink shellac thing, which I'll admit I've wanted to try.

User avatar
solfege
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 544
Joined: Sat Feb 10, 2018 5:05 pm
Location: Philly

Re: A Strat-o-Stang?

Post by solfege » Sun Oct 03, 2021 4:45 am

Ok! Now we're cooking with gas.

So I ended up going with the tru oil, and while the color is about the same, I'm much happier with the way the grain and depth of the finish looks. not sure how well that's coming through in the pictures, but it's much nicer.

Image
Image

With that done, took it all upstairs and started playing with the pieces of thin adler veneer I got to use as shims. Between a few of those and some sanding under the fretboard extension, I got things to a point where at least temporarily the geometry works. I should be able to get the action set well, and the neck mounted without cutting any pickguards.

Also, mocking things up, I realized that I might prefer the white guard I ordered to be the test mule. The tort might appear in the for sale section shortly (I need to do a general 'extra orphaned parts' cleanout) if this pans out.

Image

Image

Getting close now. No pictures but I got the pickguard populated (and the switch slot extended for the six-position switch) last night before I went to bed. I might take a crack at the wiring today. And I need to do some shielding.

User avatar
solfege
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 544
Joined: Sat Feb 10, 2018 5:05 pm
Location: Philly

Re: A Strat-o-Stang?

Post by solfege » Mon Oct 04, 2021 4:55 am

And Done!

Wired everything up. I used a push-push pot on tone 2 to switch the neck pickup in and out of phase, and got a 6-way slide switch so the farthest 'up' position is neck + bridge. Basically I can get all the strat sounds + all the mustang sounds + the bonus (and not very useful) n-m out of phase.

Image

Tim's pickups are, of course, glorious. They always are.

Image
Image

And of course we need the beauty shot. I have to say I like the white pickguard a lot. Enough that it might stay.

Image

So far I'm liking it. I've got it set up enough to play, but lots of fine tuning to do. Neck is *very* D shaped and a little shallow. I have some shims in the pocket now but it's a bit of a janky solution. Will think about something more permanent down the line. For now it's a pretty great couch guitar.

User avatar
solfege
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 544
Joined: Sat Feb 10, 2018 5:05 pm
Location: Philly

Re: A Strat-o-Stang?

Post by solfege » Sun Oct 17, 2021 5:05 am

Ok so made some more progress toward a final setup with this thing -- and I've run into another problem [wiring gurus: see the question at the end.]

First off, I had to do some more work with the neck. The original guitar that ADH and Stereordinary made -- an esquire -- only had a pickguard below the neck, so this thing was overall too shallow for the pocket on the strat with the pickguard. My original solution was thin shims just to get it set up, but stacking a bunch of them wasn't making a consistent angle (they were maple veneer and were disintegrating as I was trying to shape and drill them) *and* the screw holes weren't in the best shape on the neck.

Long story short, after a couple times on and off, the neck screws gave out completely. Time to plug and redrill. And come up with a better way of dealing with the neck in the pocket of the strat body.

So I ordered a 1/8 in thick slab of maple and a several sizes of birch dowel (ended up using 3/16) from Woodcraft (grand total like 15 bucks), then busted out the ancient drill press and followed Dan Erlewine's instructions for plugging the neck holes, which worked great. That done, I traced the heel of the neck on the maple, busted out some chisels, a utility knife, a hand miter saw, and some sandpaper to shape a thick shim that followed the neck heel exactly. This done, drilled some holes a bit bigger than the body holes so the screws would pass through, and plopped it onto a piece of 60 grit sandpaper to hold it in place and took my sanding block with 120 on it and started thinning it down. A bit of trial and error later, I got to a thickness about that of the pickguard and figured let's give this a try.

And voila!

Image

Image

Obviously I need to finish off the end, and I will the next time I have the neck off, but for the moment it's great. Not only does it work (and the guitar sustains beautifully), but the angle I happened onto means I can get the bridge saddles nicely in the lower - middle of their adjustment range. I might fine tune the angle a tiny bit when I shape the bit that's extending out now, but I might just leave well enough alone too.

Image

Generally I'm really happy with how it plays. I was seriously considering abandoning this neck, but this new solution is working really well and the thing is a blast to play. The d-shape of the neck carve, which I was unsure about when the neck was off a guitar, turns out to be really comfortable.

And I'm more and more convinced that I'm leaving the white pickguard on there. It doesn't hurt that this thing now sort of matches my Jag.

Image

In any case, the only thing wrong -- and here's my question! -- is the tone control wiring is still messed up somehow. The six way switch I'm using didn't have any really good diagrams, and I had to add the phase switch for the neck pickup, so I was flying by the seat of my pants. It makes sound in all switch positions, and the volume works correctly, but the middle tone pot does either nothing or very little to the middle pickup, and the bottom tone pot works normally, except it controls the bridge pickup not the neck.

I've reflowed all the solder joints I can reach, but now I'm sort of stumped as to where I might have gone wrong. I can make a wiring diagram if that would help anyone figure out whether the problem is my wiring, or my circuit design.

Post Reply