Guitars, Gear, and Open Source
Following up on the success on my tele and bass neck refinishes I decided to do the same to my strat. The major difference with this one is I bought this one with a factory finish from Warmoth in 2011. It begs the question, why would a refinish be needed seven years later?
The following combination of strat mods is simple to install and greatly increases the tonal palette of the instrument IMO. This requires giving up the traditional 3rd position (middle pickup), but that’s a small price to pay.
Tonight I finished the following:
Thanks to Amazon and Fedex my pickups arrived on time today. I decided on the Area 61 for the bridge and the Area 58 for the neck and middle slots. These are fully hum-canceling and have the standard six poles on top.
Looking at the bottom of the pickup reveals nine magnets in the pickup. I assume the extra three magnets are reverse wound to cancel the hum, but that’s only a speculation.
Continue reading “Dimarzio Area 58s & 61”
i’m really liking how the strat is coming together. The pickups should be here in two days and I hope to have the guitar fully up and running this weekend.
The strat neck came in yesterday afternoon, and it looks great! I ended up going with a birdseye maple neck/fingerboard. It’s also a fatback cut, which is pretty thick but not too much. Other specs are stainless steel 6155 frets, abalone inlays, Schaller locking tuners, and a Tusk nut. Warmoth did a much better job with the frets on this one than my previous two; there isn’t a single high spot on the neck. The wood grain is also just what I wanted. My only complaint is the inlays don’t look as good as my other necks, but everything else makes up for it.
