It's Alive !

Just in time for April 29, the 40th Anniversary of the release of Fair Warning (the best VH album), I've got my Frankenstrat up and running. Here's some of the WIP pics and some geeky details.

As I've said before, I wasn't going for the replica so I didn't hand wind the pickups and dip them in paraffin like EVH did. I just went to Easy Music and asked if they had any Seymour Duncan pickups.

  Salesman was like, "hmm, actually we just got some in today"....they only had one in the order that was gonna work, and that was sign enough. 

Wasn't going to be able to get all of the other hardware upgrades in town so had to go online for the replacement hardware: 

• volume pot (500K low friction); 
• new nuts, washers, and locking nuts; 
• super fast action arcade button for a kill switch; 
• pickguard material blank so I could custom cut a new one; 
• string retainer bar;
• EVH D-Tuna to allow fast access to dropped D tunings
• and a Tremol-No which makes the Floyd Rose tremolo a tamable beast.

Traced out a new pickguard pattern and digitized it. Sent it to the laser cutter at work and tried not to be in the same room while the plastic was burning.

Millimeter accuracy. Super fast and works on all sorts of materials.

Had some spare holographic material sitting around and figured the guitar needed a holographic sticker in the SRV and EVH tradition so had another go with the laser cutter.

Had a brief primer on soldering and circuits and got to it. Not pretty but when I plugged it in, circuit worked.

Shielded the cavity and back of the pickguard with copper tape. Even though there's only one pickup and it's a humbucker at that, and noise shouldn't be an issue, figured better safe than sorry. A lot easier to to it when it's all in pieces. Plus kinda looks cool even if nobody will see it.

With all that done, neck could go back on as all the next steps required strings to be on for pickup placement and tremolo set up.

Since I wasn't really starting from scratch, but just disassembling a perfectly functional guitar (though with crappy hardware), I wasn't too worried about the neck pocket fit or the profile of the neck. And sure enough, went on with no issues and looked good and true.

Had to offset the pickup since the strings are slightly differently spaced than the bridge (you see this on a lot of guitars). Put on a couple spare old strings to make sure I had the pickup in just the right place and fashioned a shim to get the height just right. Fugly but effective.

Only one more component to deal with. The dreaded Floyd Rose. 

Got familiar with the back cavity with all the springs and claws and screws and OWWWW !

Yes. That's human blood (mine - don't worry). Officially a heavy metal rock and roll machine now.

Only a couple more hiccups along the way but mostly smooth sailing. 

Turns out replacing hardware means replacing fasteners, and sometimes having to get newer longer ones if the replacement doesn't match the original exactly.

Learned that Leo Fender really did put the volume knob in the right place on the Strat so had to move mine back to a more traditional location. Oh well, hole in the pickguard means you can see that sweet copper shielding.

In the end, got the FR balanced, strings locked at the nut, and stickers on....

One detail that did want to copy from Eddie's Frankenstrat was his fail-proof strap locks. Went to Home Depot and picked up some #8 screw eyes and in a nod to our dearly departed Sally Sparkle, I'll be using her old leash as the strap.

Stickers are a nod to both SRV's famous #1 as well as Eddie's 5150 guitar, both sporting super cheesy holographic stickers.

To the inevitable question "2020 ?!? Why celebrate that shithole of a year ?"

Simple. Dreaming / planning / building this guitar got me through that shithole (which, let's be honest is stretching out kinda far into 2021 as well). Can't get back Sally, or EVH, or all those too too many people. Can't have all those events we've missed out on (like Jacob having a proper senior year and high school graduation or Lily having 25% of college spent in lockdown) but this thing happened during that shithole time. A little bit of hope.

Next - so how does it sound?