I successfully modded my Strat last week. I think it awakened a sleeping giant inside of me - the Mad Tinkerer. I want to do more, and do it now. There's just one thing I'm missing:
Money. Dinero. The long green.
So I needed to find something good and free to satiate the craving to completely screw up my guitar. I decided, after almost no deliberation, to de-hardtail it. I saw a video on YouTube recently from Rob Chappers explaining how he set up his tremolo and I wanted to try some of his techniques. And that's how it was that on Saturday morning, I grabbed my trusty Phillips head and got to work re-tremoloizing (that's a real word) my Strat.
I started by putting the roller string tree back on. I have an extra one left over from my Hondo project and it fits perfectly using the stock screw, but there's one glaring problem with it - it's black, not chrome like the rest of the hardware, so it sticks out like, well, like a black roller string tree on a guitar with chrome hardware. I'm sure I can get used to it in time, but now it's all I see when I look at the guitar.
I then got to work on the tremolo. I decided to combine the techniques I learned from Chappers and from Carl Verheyen on trem setup. I raised the four middle screws on the six-screw saddle (a la Chappers) to make it more like a two-point tremolo, as it now pivots on the two outside screws. On the back, I put the three springs on straight instead of in a W shape so I could angle the trem claw once I got the height set (a la Carl).
After much fiddling, I finally got it set up with the proper height and claw angle. Once it got settled in, it kept tune fairly well. I think I nailed the setup this time. I tested it out by abusing the trem much more than a standard fulcrum tremolo should be, and it snapped back in tune with a quick upward tug of the bar. It was the best trem setup I've ever done. So what happened after that?
I didn't feel like playing it anymore. After fiddling with it all Saturday morning, when Sunday came around I got my new Tele out of its case and used that to practice. It's quite telling, actually. I think it proves that I just don't like tremolos. Even though the setup is pretty good, I still worry that it's going to get knocked out of tune at any moment, so I think I just don't play it so I don't have to worry. I think it's always in the back of my mind and I just want to have fun playing. This coming weekend, I'll be putting it back the way it was. I'll keep the roller string tree on, though. My Tele has one, and it's a hardtail.
One thing I noticed going from the Strat to the dual-humbucker Tele is how weak the Strat's bridge pickup really is. The sustain is much better on the Tele and pinch harmonics are a lot louder and more defined. New pickups are definitely in the Strat's future. Who knows, maybe I will decide to take the HSS pickguard assembly from the Hondo project and put it on the Strat after all.
No comments:
Post a Comment