Clockwise from top left: Custom EQ pedal project (my first design/build ever), Dime Crybaby from Hell, Russian Big Muff Pi, Marshall footswitch (just for the channel on my amp), Mid-80's Boss Chorus CE-2 (analog chorus), Marshall Edward the Compressor, Vox Brit Boost Tube Overdrive, Hugh Thomas Custom 3rd Rail Overdrive (my design), And an old Washburn distortion torn apart and turned into a double killswitch pedal (just for fun)
It now contains only a couple pieces that originated at the factory.
The body is original Squier basswood, but the neck pickup cavity is cut out to fit a PAF humbucker. It retains the hard tail with a GFS bridge.
The pickups are ultra cheap PAF humbuckers that sound excellent.
The neck is a Mighty Mite maple lefty strat neck.
The nut is a graphtec, the tuners are locking units by Grover.
It has a gold control plate, jack plate, and neck plate. The screws have all been changed for a combination of black and gold. I removed the pickguard and filled all the holes with black screws.
The knobs will soon both be Gibson speed knobs, but for now I only had one extra on to put on it. (still waiting on the other one in the mail) So the volume knob is right, the control knob still needs to be swapped.
This was my first ever guitar. I started modifying it within weeks of buying it. I picked it up used on Ebay for cheap with a hard case in pristine condition.
It's a standard MIM Fender Stratocaster.
I got tired of the single coil hum, and wanted some more agressive pickups with definition (seemed like the stock MIM pickups made everything kinda mushy and run together)
So I installed a set of three Seymour Duncan 'Lil Humbuckers.
Thats a JB Junior in the neck, Duckbucker in the middle, and Little '59 in the bridge. This is backwards from how the SD kit sells, and that only comes in white. I wanted to put the bassy JB in the neck, and the vintage treble screaming '59 in the bridge... so I bought the pickups accordingly. It has a very abrupt change in tone from pickup to pickup now. The Duckbucker, when played in 2 or 4, brings back that Strat sound with a bit of quack.
I also threw in a set of Dimarzio 500K pots, with a push-pull on the volume for splitting to single coil. The '59 and JB play really well as single coils. However, I spend 99% of my time in humbucking mode.
Here's the copper sheeting I laid in to shield the body. The pickguard was originally white, as were the pickups & knobs. I swapped it out for a black 3-ply with copper shielding on back. I also added the Gibson speed knobs because I don't like top-hats. (and those Gibson knobs are just sweet)
The rest of the hardware is stock MIM parts, and I'm pretty happy with it.
Sorry its dirty and not a show-queen... but I play the hell out of it.
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zeroyon's blogs, last updated : January 15, 2008
