Messin around with the Strat

[Endtime]

I’ve done just about everything possible to modify this from an actual sStrat. Lol, really wasn’t my original intent. Just sorta happens. Anyway the OG neck on this is plenty fine for my tastes. It’s got an Ebony board. But the headstock was natural. I didn’t hate it, but with the rest of the aesthetic I really do think it’d look better black. So I have some gold metallic logos on the way, and I’m gonna spray it black and still have the Fender logo. I also refretted this awhile ago with vintage small stainless steel frets. That’s the current EVH thing and I actually found I like em as well. But on this one, I don’t know. I see a lot of Strats doing tech work, and I just refretted another strat with the medium jumbo and it felt great. So I also decided I’m gonna swap the frets out again for a bit bigger size. But I’m the meantime, I didn’t want it just laying around and I made this neck for my OWN strat build years ago. 2017 too be exact. And it’s always been one of the most comfortable necks I’ve built. I nailed it on this one and still use this as my shooting point for most builds for myself but the OG always just has that perfect feel.

So I thru it on the Yellow strat in the meantime. And as usual, it feels great. Not sure I’m gonna keep it on once I finish up the Original neck, but what’s your opinion on the maple on yellow? The whole reason I got into yellow was the OG Ibanez 550 in desert Yellow. That’s a bit more vibrant if a yellow. But this is close enough. And that had a maple board… aesthetically I do like both, and I’ll decide based on what is best feel and tone. But this neck is hard to beat!!

[Guitarbilly]

Absolutely killer!!! The black headstock made a huge difference!!

RG550 vibes for sure.

[Spaced Out Ace]

Definitely has Ibanez vibes. What are the pickups?

[Endtime]

Definitely has Ibanez vibes. What are the pickups?

Duncan blackouts. They just sounded great in this. This guitar has a deeper low end than most. It’s heavy too. Which I love but I think it’s rare for alder bodied Strats. Pretty sure it’s 9lbs. If not more I’d have to check again. But the blackout single coils might be their hidden gems. Surprisely good. And very close to a “real” single coil. They have this “shunt” that comes installed that basically adds even MORR power. With that on they were just too much. But with it off and in lower outpu mode, they sound really good.

And just for comparisons sake. Here’s the Original neck. Again I’m painting the headstock black. And getting proper logos etc, so it’s still all “fender”. It’s gonna be a tough call. I just figured while I had the guitar apart might as well play it with this maple neck and see what changes, if any, I hear. And as usual there is a change. I fully believe the neck makes a bigger difference than the body. But it’s still similar enough, that I don’t believe one is better than the other tone wise

[Guitarbilly]

Looks WAY better with the black headstock and the HSS pickups IMHO.
The fretboard could go either way. I think I like the maple better but ebony looks great too.

[Guitarbilly]

On a second thought, the ebony fretboard with the black headstock will look great. Maybe even paint the entire neck black for that old MIJ " contemporary series" look.

[Spaced Out Ace]

Looks awesome, man. I've always heard that the Blackouts were crap (mainly, because they are far too compressed/saturated, so they sound muddy). The Blackouts single coil could be interesting with the EMG EXG+SPC controls, but I like the pickups I have in my guitars currently. I need a body/neck that I can put some EMG 58s or 60As in (with either an SA or SLV), but I kind of also want to put an EMG HZ H3A in something as well.

Any thoughts on what guitar I should get that either is a partscaster (ie, separate neck+body), or has pickups that need replaced?

[Spaced Out Ace]

On a second thought, the ebony fretboard with the black headstock will look great. Maybe even paint the entire neck black for that old MIJ " contemporary series" look.

Hahaha, nice! That guitar is so stupid. As in "passing this up would be stupid" level of stupid. Not "wow, that guitar looks stupid (awful)" level of stupid. That is a cool guitar from Fender's weird period. I don't know that Fender really got it together until the HM Strat. Otherwise, they just sort of looked like the meme of Steve Buscemi.



EDIT: Interesting. You changed the photo to a different guitar. My comment is for the original image.

[Guitarbilly]

Yeah I had copied the wrong link.
I think contemporary series Fenders look great. Fender MIJ was on fire in the 80s. Lots of great guitars.

[Spaced Out Ace]

Oh, by the way. I'm semi-banned from buying a yellow Stratocaster. I have a few Strats that remind me of a few of my favorite 80s wrestlers (Hartcaster, Warriorcaster, Rowdycaster). Bonus points if you can guess why my girlfriend has semi-banned the purchase of a yellow Strat body.