Continued from Sonic Blue '62 Part 2.
Same caveats as before...this is simply how I put my strats together. I may be doing things wrong, or maybe there are better ways to do it.
Plastics
The plastics for this project and respective manufacturers are listed below:
Knobs: Allparts
Switchtip: Gotoh
Trem tip: Gotoh (came antiqued with the MJT bridge)
Pickguard: Fender ’62 Mint Green
Pickup Covers: Klein (came with the pickups)
I did not do much to the plastics, opting for a subtle approach. I put most of the smaller parts (everything except the pickguard) into a UV EPROM Eraser that I have at work. A few hours and they come out slightly more tanned:
For the pickguard I widened the bevel using a craft knife. I just used it manually as a scraper, at an angle that was narrower than the existing angle. I was going for 30 degrees (shown here marked on my sliding bevel) but I didn’t quite get there. Please note that if you’re going to attempt this, be responsible and wear the proper safety gear.
In the past I've used abrasives (metal polish, toothpaste) to lightly take some sheen off the pickguard but I skipped that step this time.
Electronics
Now for the fun part!
I selected 3 pots to use: 300kΩ volume and the two tone pots as close to 250kΩ as I had in my supply. For regular CTS pots there is a 20% manufacturing tolerance so you can get 1 or 2 300kΩ when you order a batch of 250kΩ pots. I chose the 300kΩ ones to try as volume pots as an experiment.
For the capacitor I got a 0.1mF PIO from a local supplier. I thought I would go for that value because I had never used it before. It may roll off too much midrange for my liking and I may change it out but at least I’ve tried it at that point.
Other than that I just used black and white pushback wires, and copper shielding for the back of the pickguard. Pickups were Klein Jazzy Cats - I'll do a review on those in the future.
Wiring was pretty straightforward – Vintage wiring except that the lower tone knob is wired to the bridge pickup instead of the middle pickup.
Finishing Touches
I sanded down some of the pickguard screw heads and put them in a gun bluing solution. This caused it to lose its shine and take on a darker appearance – more in line with the rest of the guitar.
The strap buttons, string tree and jack assembly were both from the Gotoh Aged series. With regards to the Gotoh stuff, I do like them but my only gripe is with their screws which seem to snap off quite often (going by reports on the forums, and the one time it happened to me). Jack was a Switchcraft one – good quality jacks that will last a lifetime. It was the string tree screw that broke on me - it was probably my fault as I failed to follow my own advice and drill an appropriately sized pilot hole. The pilot hole was probably too small and I should have stopped when it required a little force to screw in. Again, always use some wax to lubricate the screw as well.
For the headstock decals, I ordered some ’62 Strat labels online from oldfret.com. I’m not ever going to sell this guitar but even if I did, I wouldn’t pass it off as a Fender to an unknowing victim (if I wanted to do that I wouldn’t have made a blog post about it!). This is a Fender replica for my own use and so I didn’t see an issue with getting labels made for it. I decided to place the decals on the headstock without a coat of nitro over it after the installation. This is the way they used to do it in ’62, and that suits me fine because that’s less work for me.
To be continued...