My Black, “Partscaster” has been subjected to quite a bit more physical abuse over the last several weeks.
The Black Beater-Caster
It went from a tradition SSS format, 50’s inspired Strat to a more contemporary, all black HH format and now, hopefully long-term it has reached what I think is the best combination of elements to my tastes.
It looks close to a vintage 50’s style Stratocaster, but takes the higher output bridge pickup and the vintage style single coils from both previous formats.
In this case the single coils are unbranded, supposedly Alnico 2 (but who knows?) pickups I got from Ebay a few years ago. They go very well with the Vanson ’59 PAF-style humbucker (which is a neck version – 7.3k). Overall this Strat, while similar to my Bullet hardtail, has a slightly more aggressive, overall tone.
I fixed the hole I accidentally drilled through the neck at the 17th fret and I did a little structural repair inside the control cavity thanks to the wonder of superglue mixed with baking soda.
One more physical modification I did was remove the 22nd fret because I prefer the look of a 21-fret neck.
I wired it up with my current, preferred switching setup, which is basically the exact same as a bone-stock original, vintage Strat (except the pickup choice and a 5-way instead of 3-way switch). That wiring is:
A master volume and a tone control for each of the single coils (middle and neck), combined with No tone on the bridge pickup and 250k pots all round balances things out beautifully. I set up the amp tone for the bridge pickup, so it’s bright enough. Then I can dial in the tone controls on the single coils if they are then too bright. The tone pots share a 0.01µF capacitor.
This is a great guitar to play in spite of it being made from dirt-cheap parts, having been hacked to pieces for the last few years and for all the bumps, grazes and blemishes all over it. It’s a solid guitar and I still love it! I feels very comfortable in my hands.
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