The assembly of this strat has been documented over 4 blog posts. This blog post is to show the final product and go through some thoughts on how it performs, what I could have done better, etc.
First some shots of the final product:
I am very pleased with the look of it...I think it is by far the best looking Strat in my collection. If I had to change one thing it would be the look of the knobs and pickup covers. I think they need to have more of a yellow tinge in order to contrast with the pickguard more. No biggie, I'll do that if I get the time.
Tone-wise: it really is brilliant. Acoustically, it is probably the second most resonant strat that I have (the first being another project guitar that I'm working on). I think the Klein pickups do a great job in bringing the best out of the materials. Sound samples to follow.
I'm also impressed with the Gotoh bridge. It's not the first Gotoh vintage strat bridge that I've owned, but this one handles trem duties really smoothly and without any spring noise. Plus, in the past I've had issues with the saddles on these bridges not staying in place (wandering sideways rather than front to back, for lack of a better description) but these exhibited no such issues. The trem arm also sits nicely away from the body, which I prefer.
Things I would do differently
Nut
String spacing is too wide, and the outer strings lie too close to the fret edge making playing uncomfortable and precarious. I will replace this nut with a new one and instead of buying a pre-notched nut I will cut the nut myself.
String tree
As documented in one of the blog posts, the string tree screw broke while I was installing the string tree. It was probably my fault – I should have drilled a bigger pilot hole and I should have lubricated the screw.
Capacitor
I stand by my decision to try a 0.1mF capacitor, because at least now I know what effect that value of capacitor has on this setup. That effect is a little too much midrange roll off than I need. Anything below a value of 4 just sounds totally muffled. I will probably change this out for a 0.025 mF capacitor.
