unexpected kinda NGD, let's clean a cheapo strat copy !

For guitars of the straight waisted variety (or reverse offset).
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Flurko
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unexpected kinda NGD, let's clean a cheapo strat copy !

Post by Flurko » Fri Aug 26, 2022 10:14 am

A musician friend of mine dropped by the house the other day, having sent me a text before saying roughly "I got my first guitar back from my parents place, it's a kinda fucked up strat copy, would be interested to tinker on it ?"

The main reason he got this guitar back was because he ran out of gigbags, so the guitar was more like some dead weight taking room in a bag he could use for helping one of his cool guitars survive the dry heat of August. Of course I said yes, and he arrived at our place with this beauty :

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What we have here ? A pretty dirty Jim Harley strat copy, with old crusty strings, no setup, some grime but nothing really bad, etc. He hasn't played it in years and it shows, but its in better shape than I thought at first.

So, after throwing the old strings in the bin, I went to take it apart. Nothing special going on with the neck, the tuners are rough but in working order, they also left some tan lines on the back of the headstock :
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Speaking of tan lines, I removed the pickguards and took out the pickups, and two things I've never seen before : tan lines so marked they look like duo-tone pickups, and strat-style pickups with some sort of weird metal baseplate ?
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I also had never seen a switch like this, but I'm not well-versed in strat switch variants :
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The pots are standard import mini-pots, I never had any problem with these so they stayed in, after a good glug of contact cleaner, same for the switch.

It looks like I was the first person to remove the knobs, the underside was grimy af and they still had some of the protective plastic that came with the pickguard left around the shafts :
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I had nothing against the sound of the stock pickups, but as I wanted to have three pickups there I had a go in my parts box. The problem is, the holes in the pickguard are to narrow for standard strat covers, so I put the pickups in without the covers. I chose 3 pickups with matching resistance to have something somewhat coherent, and I choose ones with magnetic rods for the neck and bridge, and filled the middle position with whatever worked, as I picture it as "less important". I'm not a strat guy, but that's the direction I went in based on "common wisdom" that magnetic rod pickups are better than ones with a magnet underneath.

Something fun : the body is routed throughout, so with the backplate removed you see the underside of the bridge pickups. It's see-through :w00t: :

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I wonder how it would work with translucent pickguard and backplate, but I'm pretty sure nothing is standard on this guitar, it's something you rarely see nowadays with cheap guitars, you don't get as much copies with nothing matching the specs of standard parts, like these narrow pickup routes, weird hardware, etc.. It also has a sidejack, which I don't think is really simpler to make than a typical strat jack ? Maybe just to avoid using one more metallic part !

Something funny : after looking online for infos about the ok-ness of running strat pickups without covers, someone mentioned on some messageboard that it was how Schecter did it with some of their strats.
After a quick image search, I found some red schecter strats with a sidejack, white pickguard and black pickups ! (I couldn't see if they had covers or not).
So to do some kind of a nod to this (80s hot rodded guitar maybe ?) aesthetic, I put on some chrome tele knobs I had laying around, and voilà :

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Like my sister would say, "your guitar needs a haircut !". I put on the only new-ish set of strings I had, which is a set of 12s tapewound which didn't work out so well on my jazzmaster. I quite like it on this strat, it tames the shrillness a bit, and it's still easy to bend, it's a really nice compromise between ease of play/softness under the left hand and kinda fighting back against the pick. I cant trim the ends at the headstock because it unravels immediately if you cut below the silk ends, and I already ruined one of these expensive sets like this.

So, was it worth the time ? Yes ! It's always fun to clean up an old guitar and get it playing nice, some frets are not great especially in the higher register, the action would be nicer if it's lower but on these guitars I never know if it's the guitar or my limited setup skills that are at fault. The five positionshave a distinct and unique sound, it looks like the neck pickup is out of phase but it gives a different sounding guitar in the neck+middle position. I would like to get the trem to work, but that would mean either sourcing a compatible arm or replacing the whole thing, and I'm well aware that getting a cheap vibrato to behave is a complicated errand. I'll stop now, let's see if my friend wants his guitar back next time he comes round the house to talk gear !

Last question : Is Jim Harley a french-only cheapo brand, or is it also present in other euro countries or in the US even ? I have a les paul custom copy of this brand, and it's the same level of awfully cheap corner cutting, like the plywood body, and cool things you wouldn't expect on something this cheap.

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GreenKnee
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Re: unexpected kinda NGD, let's clean a cheapo strat copy !

Post by GreenKnee » Fri Aug 26, 2022 11:03 pm

Nice work, the guitar looks great :)

I've had a similar thing happen when I first cut flatwound strings and the way to do it is to put a hard 90degree bend in the string first and then cut it. Hopefully this would work with tapewound too?

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badform
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Re: unexpected kinda NGD, let's clean a cheapo strat copy !

Post by badform » Thu Sep 15, 2022 7:33 am

Flurko wrote:
Fri Aug 26, 2022 10:14 am
Speaking of tan lines, I removed the pickguards and took out the pickups, and two things I've never seen before : tan lines so marked they look like duo-tone pickups, and strat-style pickups with some sort of weird metal baseplate ?
Image
I've had pickups like that on cheap, starter guitars (Synsonics, a Gretsch sub-brand I think) you'd get at Toys-R-Us in the 80s. I kind of love them! I don't know if anyone else appreciates them, but I find they have a unique special something going on. Not harsh, not smooth, just... different.

The pickup covers aged exactly the same as well.

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raphaël
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Re: unexpected kinda NGD, let's clean a cheapo strat copy !

Post by raphaël » Thu Sep 15, 2022 8:40 am

I just bought the very same guitar in july on an attic sale. Dirt cheap (25€). With the plan of flipping it for small profit.
Now I can't sell the guitar : it has clearly been loved and played a lot since the last 80s/early 90s, the body is excessssssssively resonant, the neck is fine (even if I've planned a neck swap actually) and, you are right badform, the pickups are great.
On mine they are warm and punchy as hell. They + the resonant body kind of make all my other guitar lifeless :wtf: (except my Ekos perhaps). I really can't put the guitar down.
It's hard for me to write this but this extremely cheap starter guitar is the best sounding Strat I've played since I sold my beloved '73 one. And I've played a fair amount of Strats.
Sure the tuners are crap. So is the trem unit. Easy fix !

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raphaël
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Re: unexpected kinda NGD, let's clean a cheapo strat copy !

Post by raphaël » Thu Sep 15, 2022 8:41 am

Oh ! And my pickups covers have aged exactly the same as yours ;)

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Flurko
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Re: unexpected kinda NGD, let's clean a cheapo strat copy !

Post by Flurko » Thu Sep 15, 2022 8:45 am

That's cool to read ! Yeah, the build is weird all around but the neck is pretty good, I should learn to work on frets to correct the two that are too tall.
Maybe the klusons-style tuners on my jazzmaster will trickle down on this when I upgrade them, I should look on how to adjust the bridge if I want to use the trem., but it's fine as a hardtail.

Too bad my friend threw away the middle pickup, I'm one of the few osgers who like all five positions on the strat, so for now i'm stuck with what i had in my parts box and i cant really put back the two original pups without a matching middle one.

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Flurko
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Re: unexpected kinda NGD, let's clean a cheapo strat copy !

Post by Flurko » Wed Mar 15, 2023 5:31 am

So, remember when I said I didn't want to spend money on this cheap strat ?
Well, not having access to my workbench during and after our move made me antsy, so I just got a brushed grey aluminum pickguard in the mail, because I love the one that's on my Jazzmaster.
And after Jeff Beck's passing I ordered a used Wilkinson two point trem. Now the office/tinkering studio is almost done, so I will soon see how to fit all of this together, I expect site a lot of corners to be filed and holes to be plugged and re-drilled ! I might also order some vintage style tuners, Aliexpress has a 15€ set that I was curious to try...

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