Hi all...

Well, one thing led to another on ebay today and I ended up winning an auction for a candy apple red Blacktop Strat body. I've never been a huge fan of the swimming pool rout... I've never had a strat with one before. I know a lot of people don't like 'em but I've heard others say it really doesn't impact the tone much...any thoughts?

I subsequently ended up bidding on and winning a maple board HWY 1 neck soon thereafter. I have a bunch of odds and end of parts I'm going to be using...nothing too fancy. This one needs to be a low-budget project. I'm thinking of taking advantage of the "pool" and wiring it up H/S/S... I have two MIM single coil standard pickups...any suggestions for an inexpensive, tame, vintage toned, humbucker?

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Dust off those rusty strings just one more time...

For more info on my gear, visit my blog at http://www.jgsguitargoodness.blogspot.com

If you still want an SSS look I have a Seymour Duncan Little '59 singlecoil-sized humbucker lying around, plus a couple of Vintage Noiseless, all in a parchment or pearloid pickguard... just saying.

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'01 American Deluxe HSS Strat.
'87 Japan HSS Strat.
'11 Custom Shop FMT HSS Strat.

"Without music, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines and dates by which bills must be paid."

A common 4 wire Seymour Duncan may do the trick.
How you wire up the pups, will be the controlling factor.
I would consider Master Vol. Master Tone. and a split coil switch for the humbucker placed in the hole for the 2nd tone pot.
A master TBX pot would also give you the ability to dial in the trebles and bass on the bridge.
for more versatility, switch the 82K cap to a 220K cap on the TBX pot.
Finally as a 5 way switch I would use a super switch which will give you a myriad of pickup positions...

Martian or Ceri or ZZ-Doc or the Big Hairy One... could probably help you with a wiring diagram....Heat up the solder.

Have fun

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"C'est parti mon Kiki "

The issues people tend to have with there swimming pool routing is that the lackb of wood caused the bodies to twist. Tone wise, there could be arguments for them being better or worse. You could cut a piece of wood and put it in the routing to reinforce it.

Tame humbucker? I use low output PAF type. I have Fralin Pure PAF's on all mine, with 7 ohm neck/8ohm bridge in one. 7.5 neck/9ohm, in another, and 8 neck/10 bridge in the last one. They are a bit expensive. You can go with a 59 duncan, though I find them to not be very PAF like, the alnico V magnet makes it a bit more aggressive. I've heard the Gutiar Fetish puts out decent pickups for the price though. You'll want to stay with Alnico magnet humbuckers, ceramic will be too aggressive, and will overpower the single coils. But you could get a pickup with 10-11 ohm reading, and as long as its got a 4 conductor lead, you can put a coil tap in it, so you can get a single coild tone if you want.

I've opted against the humbucker... I'm going to try a set of Fender Tex-Mex pups. They seem to rank favorably in most reviews I read, and for less than $60, they seem like a bargain. We'll see how I like them. I also a ordered a GFS trem complete w/ steel block...cheaper than used MIM trems and this one has a solid block vs. pot metal. I don't really care that the saddles aren't stamped "Fender". I had all the rest of the hardware scraps except for tuners (I opted to spend a little extra and get Fender locking tuners) so this ones a done deal... I'll get some pics up once it starts coming together.

Hi JamGuy: there's few people on this planet who know Strats better than Jeff at Xhefri's Guitars:

http://www.xhefriguitars.com/

In case you weren't aware of it, Jeff ("Xhefri") is a regular here on the Forum. I'd value his opinion as highly as anyone I can think of, and he just loves Strats of the "swimming pool" era. If they're good enough for him, they're good enough for the rest of us.

Don't sweat that route - but by all means take advantage of it for an HSS or an HSH (hey, or even an HHH) pickup harness. That's what it's there for, after all!

Way to go.

Cheers - C

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Good to know...

I've already got a HB in the bridge of one of my strats, and another s/s/s with vintage wiring (no tone for bridge) so was just going to wire up this one s/s/s but with a shared middle/bridge tone knob.

Not as adventurous, I know. It's more like wearing water-wings in the shallow end rather than doing the humbucker cannonball in the deep end of the pool ...

70's-era strats, nah. Swimming pool? Depends on what you're goind for I guess. Figure it must have a more open sound, no pun intended. But, in car sales there's a saying; there's an $@!(rear end, they're going to censor the word $@!) for every seat. So I'm sure there's a segment of people who love them. I mean, Billy Gibons has Les Pauls with hollow necks!! I'm not quite sure how that'd work out, I know he uses 7 gauge strings, id feel like I was playing with thread with 7s. I did a reffret on this British guitar, can't remember the name. But it had 2 single coil pickups, but unusual ones. It had a "swimmimg pool" like body. The section where the pool was had clear plastic over it instead of a typical pickguard, and a metal plate in the route that the pickup mounting was. The plate sat about an inch into the body. I didn't mess with the electronics at all, so I don't know if it had any function at all. I wish I could remeber what it was. It was an unusual guitgar, 1 id never seen, in person or even a piture of. Just remember it was a VERY expensive refret due to the lack of fret meat, and the weird binding that not only ran along both sides of the fretboard, but both sides of each fret. The binding reminded me of a ladder, and of course it was a maple neck with the thickest clear coat ive ever seen. It makes the bowling alley-thick clear coat look like thin skin. It was natural finish, with extremely thick clear coat that was cracking, and it looked like cracked glass. I remember it had an emblem in the headstock; it was round, and was glued to the headstock. If anyone know what it was, let me know because now its killing me.

My sincere apologies......

I did not list Xhefri in my reply....Sorry Jeff...

I must admit I have been spending a lot of time on the Audizine forum...

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"C'est parti mon Kiki "

Quick question about necks... the HWY1 & American Specials are the same necks right?

I think so; 70's headstock, jumbo frets. You know it's a damn shame they made the changes to the body that they did. The HW1's body, with the thin matte nitro finish made for a fantastic project body. I used a buffer on one, and LIGHTLY buffed it to a semi glossy shine. They were pretty light, and with the thin skin; once you buffed it, it would wear in pretty fast. Just playing with long sleeve sweat shirts would wear the finish down, and it was a very natural looking "relic". Even if you didn't want to do that, it was one of the least expensive nitrocellulous finished bodies you could get. And if the vintage look was your thing, it was better to do it yourself with the buffed nitro body than it is to get a road worn that can be spotted a mile away.

It's been a busy day in guitar land... prior to my tele coming home from the shop, I had a chance to wire up some of my assembly for the strat build. This one may end up getting sold... the new tele is outrageous and I can't imagine that this one is going to get much play time.

Anyhow, had some used CTS pots and a CRL 5-Way from something along the line...man, does fender goop on the solder! It took twice as long as expected to get thing wired up trying to remove excess solder... I kinda gave up and just wired around some of it. Kind of a mess but oh well...

It's a plain ol' white guard and knobs, CTS pots, CRL 5-way, and .022 uf SoZo capacitor. I followed the Jimmy Vaughn wiring diagram...the pups that are on the way are Fender Tex-Mex so it'll essentially look like an American Special with a JV assembly. Enjoy the pics...

_________________

Dust off those rusty strings just one more time...

For more info on my gear, visit my blog at http://www.jgsguitargoodness.blogspot.com

Well, the body arrived today... CAR always surprises me, it always looks darker than I think it's going to but it's a gorgeous looking body. Well finished and nice and light (probably cause it's missing a chunk of it's guts ) Anyhow, got the bridge installed. The GFS trem claw screw spacing was off but I had an extra MIM claw so used that one. Put felt spacers under the strap buttons and finished work on the trem arm. I took bolt cutters to the arm just below the plastic end and gave 'er the chop. I had to dremmel the new plastic end a bit to get it to slide on and while it was tight, I placed a little glue in there for good measure. Only had an aged white one kicking around so it doesn't match but oh well...so it goes. I'm not sure what actual length the "Gilmour" arms are but it will be fun to see how I like it this length...I'd guess it's an inch and half shorter than stock. Anyhow, she's coming along nicely.

_________________

Dust off those rusty strings just one more time...

For more info on my gear, visit my blog at http://www.jgsguitargoodness.blogspot.com

Howdy y'all!

Things are coming together quickly. The Tex-Mex pickups arrived today so I was able to finish up the wiring. Just waiting for UPS to deliver the neck...it's supposed to be here later today. Here's a few more pictures

_________________

Dust off those rusty strings just one more time...

For more info on my gear, visit my blog at http://www.jgsguitargoodness.blogspot.com