The Watering Hole

I'm calling this the first guitar, because it's the first body and neck I bought - august of 2001.  The body is a Warmoth I got on ebay. The neck is a Warmoth I custom ordered (only time I've done that).  The neck is incredible--birdseye, CBS headstock, standard thin profile, brazilian rosewood fretboard, paua dots. It's my favorite one so far... plays incredibly well and I haven't touched the truss rod yet.  

This one took some work... the body I got on ebay had been pres-sealed, poorly, by the previous owner.  I sanded as long as I dared but couldn't get it down to the bare wood.  No bare wood=no spraying dye on the wood for the burst, so I had to troubleshoot.  I ended up spraying the burst mixed in waterbased sealer which took a very very long time and required a lot longer to build up.

The pickups are a GFS neck pickup, a bg-pups middle, and a GFS bridge.  Pickguard and rear cover are made by artisan guitar creations. The electronics are pretty unique and interesting, courtesy of my buddy Joe, a master with all things circuitry.  The switch is wired standard, with hum cancelling in the 2nd and 4th positions--the 4th position uses the white coil of the zebra humbucker. The front knob is volume, the rear knob is tone. The middle knob controls the level of the rear (black) coil mixed in with any of the pickups. When the knob is all the way down the switching works normally, but as you turn up the knob it blends in the rear black coil.  When it's full up, in the last position, the bridge humbucker is a single coil, turn it down and its a full humbucker.  There are all sorts of interesting interactions in all positions.

Anyway, here she is...

and another one

and the full shot...

Wow - that looks very different and very cool!  What kind of trem is that?  :)

It's a Wilkinson WVP--basically a two-post trem along the American standard lines, but with some nice refinements.  I like Wilkinsons because of the push-in arm mostly, also has the longer knife edge on the right, makes it easier to fit different post spacing, and the taggered string holes in the block.  Nicely constructed and I think it was like $35...

Classy + a nice dose of hipness, I like it.

edit: just noticed the strings, it could be the camera angle but they don't look lined up quite right, especially the high E!

very cool!  

Yep Kabala, you are right, I am working on getting the string spacing right, I love the bridge but I think the string spacing is 1/16" too wide. I may end up filing and sanding the saddles.  Since the body was pre-drilled from Warmoth, I didn't get to line it up myself.  

The WVP has a string spacing of 54 mm--I may change it up to a VS50mkii, which has 52 mm spacing.

Nice guitar

Very sexy.  That body is awesome.  Good job bro!  Hope you get that string spacing thing worked out soon.  Clips motherfucker?!?!  I'm also interested in this single to humbucker knob.

I got a new trem to try on it... the older-style wilkinson, which has 2mm narrower string spacing.  Unfortunately, it was 2 mm narrower all the way around, so the strings were still off--the low E was even further in, and the high E was not much better.  

So, drastic steps... I pulled the bass side post, and I'm filling it with a dowel, glue, and wood shavings.  After it dries, I'm going to re-drill the left post 2-3 mm over.  I don't have to change the right post because it's a Wilkinson, so the right side of the trem body has an elongated knife edge.  I have some clips already and I will post some soon...

I can't for the life of me figure out why this thing was drilled the way it was, it's an older body so all I can guess is that the actual American Standard strat trem has a different post configuration in relation to the body... maybe 15 years ago cheap replacements weren't available?

All right, filling and redrilling a trem post is not necessarily for the faint of heart, but I did it, and here are the results. Infinitely more playable.  Definitely still less space on the high side than the low side but I am okay with that.

And close up.  I'm not gonna show a closeup of the nick I put in the body on the drill press--totally stupid move...

Wow. Very sexy for sure.