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Post subject: Re: The Building of a Custom Strat Plus
Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2010 12:51 pm
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Xhefri wrote:
Hey Mr Ceri, you home now? Did you read the 1st line of this thread?


Hi Xhefri: yes, I did read the first line. Then I had to leave the room till I'd finished blushing. Too, too kind! :oops:

However, I thought I was reading carefully but I somehow missed that you'd switched bodies. Got a plan for that damaged one? I bet you have... :D

And please tell us about that row of Tele necks. Interesting looking grain on those headstocks.

I have a feeling there's lots of these type of threads waiting to come from you. That's going to make your fellow Forum users very happy!

Cheers - C


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Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2010 12:51 pm
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Oh, by the way, did any of you see this picture of my dad?

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He played his 1950 Martin D-18, and slide steel with his feet, and had a set of drums rigged up to his arm that could do an assortment of beats depending how he moved his arm. Then he had a stack of harmonicas to go along. He did concerts at the local university in the town where I grew up. He was killed by two young men who hit him with their car while he was taking an elderly blind lady on a walk. They young men had been partying all night and were messing with their tape player in the car when the swerved off the road.

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Last edited by Xhefri on Fri Jan 01, 2010 8:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2010 1:32 pm
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Enjoying all your pics khefri, and great build project, great looking guitars.
I was sorry to read about your Father, thats another great pic, you must have had a great time growing up with your dad around, he certainly passed on his love of music, did he also make any of his own gear.


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Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2010 1:48 pm
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ripitup555 wrote:
Enjoying all your pics khefri, and great build project, great looking guitars.
I was sorry to read about your Father, thats another great pic, you must have had a great time growing up with your dad around, he certainly passed on his love of music, did he also make any of his own gear.


Right before he died he sold the Martin! :cry: I would have never sold that guitar. He got it for $35 from a pawn shop in Montana and had the first 5 frets refreted. You could strike the strings and hang the guitar up, then come out 5 minutes later and it would still be humming. No lie.... So a law student from the university offered him $800 for it and he took it. 3 weeks later he was dead. That was back in 1980.

I did get the Supro Lap Steel guitar. That was the first guitar I learned on when I was 6 years old. I have his old 5-string banjo too.

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Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2010 2:04 pm
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[Right before he died he sold the Martin! :cry: I would have never sold that guitar. He got it for $35 from a pawn shop in Montana and had the first 5 frets refreted. You could strike the strings and hang the guitar up, then come out 5 minutes later and it would still be humming. No lie.... So a law student from the university offered him $800 for it and he took it. 3 weeks later he was dead. That was back in 1980.

I did get the Supro Lap Steel guitar. That was the first guitar I learned on when I was 6 years old. I have his old 5-string banjo too.[/quote]

$800 must have been a tidy sum back then, who knows maybe if you had it now and was offered what it was worth you might have been tempted if it didn't hold such sentimental value.

Did you decide on a favourite strat colour?


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Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2010 2:31 pm
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Xhefri, I have to ask- are those necks Foto Flame??

I loved Foto Flame, one of the cool things that came out of Japan in the early to mid ninties :)

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Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2010 2:41 pm
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Hey ripitup555, I have not did the complete tally yet on the Strat colors. Will do so a little bit later. Ya, the sentimental value of my dad's Martin was priceless!

Ok. So lets take a sneak peek at what the setup looks like on the body. Notice there is no TBX tone control mounted yet.

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The next thing I did was polish the frets. Since this neck is nearly mint, I used a flat board with 2000-grit paper and gave the frets a good shining up. Next, I took the neck to the house and used a tooth brush with mild soap and a very small amount of warm water and scrubbed every millimeter of the neck. This works loose any grime on the fret board, around and on the tuners, etc. DO NOT GET A DROP OF WATER INSIDE THE TRUSS ROD HOLE! I do a quick warm water rinse and then vigorously dry with a soft terry cloth towel and compressed air. I also did the same thing to the bridge so it looks like new.

Back in the shop I add a generous portion of Formbys Wood Oil on the rosewood with a small cloth. Washing with a brush and mild soap opens the Rosewood grain. The oil now can soak into the wood better. I work the oil into the wood with my fingers and then let it set for about one hour and then using a clean paper towel, I wipe up any excess that has not soaked in. This neck was made in late Oct 1994 by D. Chavez. I have heard he later worked for Fender’s Custom Shop.

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When you go to install the neck, you must insert the neck into the neck socket very carefully. To force it in any way could cause the paint to chip off on those fragile edges of the body, or cause the finish to get those dreaded neck socket cracks.

Make sure you have the Micro-tilt set screw in, and threaded back away from the neck while mounting. Hand tighten the neck screws like you would torque the head bolts on a motor—a little at a time: left lower…right upper….right lower….right upper….until they are snug. THEN, use an allen wrench and tighten the mirco-tilt allen screw down against the neck snuggly. Even if you do not have to adjust this later, you do not want it coming out and rattling around under the neck plate!

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The neck needs to be mounted straight. After you string it up, you might have to slightly adjust the neck left or right a small amount to have the strings track the neck perfectly straight. The neck is now on the body ready for the next step.

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Now let’s get that TBX wired up and installed. A TBX is a stack set of pots (potentiometers to be exact). It is a passive, split-shaft, 250k/1 Meg tone control which extends the treble and bass frequencies when it is turned either way past "5". The detent is “5” which is considered to be “tone neutral.”

I like to slightly bend out the lower left lug and the upper middle lug to make it easy to slide the end of the resistor through to be soldered. Trim after you solder, and bend the other end around and up to the top. Push the capacitor through the upper left lug and pin it under the resistor wire. Now you can solder it easy and trim the excess. Add a white wire to the lower middle lug and it is ready to install on the pickguard.

Image Image Image Image

Once on the guard the wire from the TBX is twisted together with the wire from the mini-switch and soldered to the first 3 lugs of the 2nd half of the super switch. Black ground wires are added to connect each pot and the right lug on the volume control. I do not have a presentable wiring diagram for the 5-way switch, or I would post it. Mine is hand written chick’en scratches that would be pretty confusing to you. The pickguard is now ready to install.

Image Image Image

Now I will solder the input jack wires on to the setup, a ground wire t the body cavity and the tremolo, and screw down the pickguard onto the body. Next we will install the tremolo, trim setter and get the guitar set up!

Image

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Last edited by Xhefri on Fri Jan 01, 2010 2:52 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2010 2:45 pm
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Blertles wrote:
Xhefri, I have to ask- are those necks Foto Flame??

I loved Foto Flame, one of the cool things that came out of Japan in the early to mid ninties :)


Yeppers, those are Foto-Flame Tele necks. I have a bunch of them and use them to build those 96 Ann Telecasters. See: http://xhefriguitars.com/page8.html

I will be doing a custom wiring job on the Telecaster forum sometime soon. It will be a rewire of the Jerry Donahue Tele.

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Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2010 2:52 pm
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The necks on my 2 Strat Plus' and the strat plus deluxe are all D. Chavez.


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Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2010 2:59 pm
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Xhefri wrote:
Hey Roadie, Thanks for pointing out the mistake on my website. To be honest, I was even confused on the mini-switch middle postition for a long time, even though I was wiring them up. So here is the answer: The Lace Dually is in SERIES in the middle position. Here is a diagram of what how it is wired:

Image


Thanks for the update. I'm really getting the guts to actually modify some of my Ultra, especially the pickguard. I own a soldering iron, but I havent used it much. This thread may get me started.

I see you haven't been on the site for very long; I welcome you, and I gotta say 'What took you so long?' My pseudonym is qblue; My level of messages is 'Roadie' usually >200 messages.

Now I see no extra shielding is needed with a pickguard change.

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Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2010 3:02 pm
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JasonSD wrote:
The necks on my 2 Strat Plus' and the strat plus deluxe are all D. Chavez.


Cool! What year Plus' do you have? i have noticed that it seems Fender issued a ton of N1 (1991) N3 (1993) and I rarely come across N4, N5 guitars. Maybe some years they ramped up production more than others? Not sure.... It is funny, after taking apart so many guitars it is like you get to know the builders, such as Chavez, and others..

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Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2010 3:04 pm
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I have a 88 pewter strat plus, a 91, but with a 93 neck on it, and then the deluxe is a 91.


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Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2010 3:07 pm
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qblue wrote:
I see you haven't been on the site for very long; I welcome you, and I gotta say 'What took you so long?' My pseudonym is qblue; My level of messages is 'Roadie' usually >200 messages.


I have been a member of the Forum since 2007 but have not really started posting until recently. I had several kind emails coming to me asking me to get involved with the Fender Forum since my website was often discussed on here. I have enjoyed the good spirit (most of the time!) and camaraderie of those on the Forum.

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Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2010 3:11 pm
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that guitar is gonna look great when it is completely finished.


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Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2010 5:56 pm
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Ok, let’s try to get this finished up. Next the bridge and the tremsetter needs to be installed. Screw in the two spring claws and mount the tremsetter mounting plate. If you looks closely you will see a small hole in the back side of the Tremolo cavity for the tremsetter wire to poke into. Some people, who have a standard spring system see this hole and wonder, Umm, what’s up with that!

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Set the bridge in place, connect the two springs and then carefully string the guitar. Make sure the tremolo block is seated properly on the 2 trem posts. Tune the guitar and then play with the spring tightness—tuning and adjusting the springs till you have about ¼ inch gap between the top of body and the bottom back of the bridge. Pop the tremsetter in. Setting up a Tremsetter is a little tricky and there is a good YouTube video that shows you how to do it step by step. NOW, let the guitar settle I for at least 24 hours before doing any more adjustments.

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After settling in, the next step is to adjust the truss rod. Having the right tool make this much easier. I have .10s on this Strat so I set the gap between the string and the 8th fret at about .09, while pressing down on the 1st and 22nd fret at the same time. Adjust the intonation and string heights. I did not have to raise the heel f the neck with the micro-tilt adjustment.

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OK: Here is the finished product! And by the way, this guitar plays really sweet. it was one of those cases where it fell into a very nice setup without a lot of adjustments. Sometimes that just happens!

Image Image Image Image

ANY COMMENTS?

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