Finally built a guitar...

[duhvoodooman***]

...not that I can take much credit for the effort involved. It's your basic partscaster or Frankenstrat, or whatever you want to call it. I was amazed at how fast & easy the assembly process was--once I had the parts assembled, I knocked it off in an evening. If you can drive a screw and make a decent solder connection, you can handle one of these. The genius of Leo Fender deserves all the credit.

The project started when one of the regulars over at the BYOC forums put a loaded Strat pickguard up for sale. Nothing special about that, per se, but the pickup set caught my eye. It's a mixed set of Duncan single coil-sized humbuckers that they call the "Everything Axe" set. It consists of a Little '59 for the neck position, a "Duckbucker" for the middle, and a JB Jr. for the bridge. I didn't have anything like it and he posted it at a bargain price, so I jumped on it. Now, what to do with it??

While mulling this question, I happened upon a body from a Squier CV '60s Strat posted on my local CL. Everything had been stripped out of it--nothing but wood & finish, but obviously never used/dead mint. Perfect! The guy was asking $80, I offered $65 and we settled at $70. What he did with the rest of the guitar, I have no idea. Since the guy is located 30 miles away from me, a coworker of mine who lives right near him picked it up for me last weekend, so I never got a chance to chat with him about it.

The rest of the guitar consists of a Squier CV '50s neck and a full CV hardware set, both of which I got from The Stratosphere, with whom I've dealt on several occasions in the past for Strat and Tele parts. I think the owner must buy Fender & Squier guitars new and just parts them out. Anyway, the neck & hardware were all brand new, as well. So between the loaded p/g, the CL body and the Stratosphere parts, I've now got what's essentially a brand new Squier Classic Vibe '50s/'60s Strat hybrid with a killer set of Duncan aftermarket pickups. Total of everything came to $400, not including shipping. I've also got a set of white Strat knobs coming, and some Schaller strap lock buttons, to finish it off. I call it the "Humcaster".

The p/g assembly originally came with just a volume control, but I added a master tone control using a push/pull pot, and wired that to switch the middle "Duckbucker" pickup to run the coils in series or parallel mode. Duncan actually recommends that this pickup model be wired to run the coils in parallel "for vintage Strat tones", but I wanted the flexibility to run in series as well. Certainly has a lot more b@lls in that mode, and the output matches the Little '59 (neck) and JB Jr. (bridge) a lot better.

After I assembled the guitar, one "operational issue" had to be addressed, though. As is often encountered when matching up different necks & bodies, the neck angle was a bit too low and the guitar fretted out something awful on the upper frets, even with plenty of relief in the neck and the saddles up as high as they would go. So the neck had to be shimmed to raise the angle a bit. Two business cards inserted between the neck and body at the top of the neck pocket did the trick. I was even able to take out some of the neck relief and lower the saddles back down to a normal height. The Humcaster is playing perfectly now! The humbuckers sound great--they retain more Strat character than I thought they would--and the guitar looks pretty good, too, IMO.

Coupla pics:

[tonebender]

Beautiful guitar!!

[marnold***]

Pretty cool! I've changed an awful lot on my Squier '51. By far the hardest part was the new saddles. Getting the height just right and the intonation took more trial and error than I was anticipating.

[Robert****]

Congrats! Hope you like your creation!

[Monkus]

very nice!

[tjcurtin1]

Looks great! - and sounds...? Compared to your other strats?

[Tig***]

Very cool!

I've stayed away from doing the same since I have no experience with neck pocket adjustment problems.

[Jipes***]

It looks nice and glossy Congrats !

[duhvoodooman***]

A couple of months ago, I came across a neck from a Squier Classic Vibe Simon Neil '60s Strat at The STRATosphere and thought I'd try it on this partscaster I built a while back. For some reason, I just prefer rosewood fretboards on sunburst Strats. Being a Squier CV neck, it wasn't very expensive, so I figured what the heck? Turned out that it fit the body like a glove--no shim needed on this one--and it's very comfortable to play. I thought it was a great looking guitar before, but I like it even better now.

I'd never heard of him before, but apparently Simon Neil is the singer/guitarist for the Scottish band Biffy Clyro, whom I'd likewise never heard of before. Don't know anything about Simon's music, but I sure like the neck on his Strat!

Of course, this change left me with a spare maple CV Strat neck. Seemed a shame to have that just lying around, so THIS HAPPENED.

New pics: