~Maxx

Is there any reason that you seek to replace this one that you have modded? I believe you can get spares for them like the rollers if the thing is starting to wear out.

Thanks for the info psw. My reason for replacing this nut is purely cosmetic. The "mod" I performed was more an act of desperation than a modification. If you could see it in person it is quite sloppy. Also I'm switching all the hardware with black replacements. I suppose if I could find a black replacement for this model I wouldn't have a problem filing it down again.

Is anyone familiar with the Wilkinson rollers? (I think that's what they're called) I have one in my tool box, but the rollers slide back and forth on the axis slightly, so it allows the string to move and makes a "ping" when I bend. Are these just badly designed? Or might I have better luck if I order a new one?

Thanks again for any advice...

Hi folks. Hoping someone can help me out with this, as I haven't found much in the way of useful info on the net...

I want to replace the nut pictured below (on my '89 Jap/Am Strat) with a new roller nut. I'm really interested in the LSR nuts, but from the info I've read they're designed for 8 or 9ga. strings. However I use 10's with a 20ga. wound G, so I'm not sure if the LSR will be a possibility for me. As you can see in the pic below I had to file away the slot to make it work with my strings. Obviously I don't want to have to do this again. Any chance the LSR will work for me? Or do I just need to forget about rollers all together?

Thanks!

Do you mean these?

Those are the ones! Funny... I checked another switch I had in my tool box, and that one seems to work fine with the standard pickup screws. This one that I want to use, though, must be some sort of aftermarket replacement (not sure where I got it from). It has different screws, and (in my opinion) better action.

Has anyone used the Megaswitches from StewMac? I'm curious about them now. Not sure how I missed their "screw" section. Thanks Doug!

I'm starting to think this is a cruel joke within the industry. I've been able to replace nearly every bit of hardware on my Strat with a black colored equivalent - right down to the input jack and even the trem springs. But for the life of me I can't seem to find a set of switch screws, or even a whole new switch in black. I'm pretty sure someone up there is laughing at me!

Anyone have a source?

Okay... After a bunch of reading it seems that a polyurethane clear coat is really the only that will hold up on a painted fretboard. From what I've read it will apply fine over the lacquer paint (and I'm assuming it won't effect the fret dot stickers), and I can tung oil the rest without incident. Of course this means that I either have to buy some serious painting equipment, or find an auto garage that will do it for me. Decisions decisions...

In any case - my only remaining question is how many coats? I've read figures at stewmac for finishing an entire neck with their spray can products, but I'm not going that route. I'm also concerned about the raised portion left behind by the fret dot stickers. Should I do 3 coats or so, then sand flush, followed by three more coats? That seems like a lot to me. But if I knew for sure I wouldn't be begging for help!

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance!

The fretboard is maple if I remember right. It's been a couple of years since I painted it over, but I know it wasn't rosewood.

Hey folks. I'm nearing the end of a Strat refurb (reconstruction is more like it), and could use some guidance concerning the top finish...

The body and neck have been colored with a black water-based stain, and the fretboard has been painted with gloss black lacquer. Obviously this put me in a bad situation with regards to the fret dots and side markers. But after a bit of searching I found a website that sold nice looking stickers that could be applied for both. The site (and customer testimonials) claim that the stickers will stay put no matter what. But I still think that they should be finished over with some sort of clear coat.

Now this is where I'm getting stuck... I really wanted to use tung oil on the body and neck, and a gloss clear coat on the fret board. But in order to get the tiny side marker stickers covered I'm going to have to go off the fret board a bit with the clear coat. Is there any reason that this wouldn't be okay? Can I assume that it would be best to clear coat first and then tung oil the rest of the neck? Or am I way off base with this? I suppose I could go with a satin clear coat on the neck if I had to. But I'm thinking that might be a bit too odd with a tung oiled body. maybe I'd be better off just going gloss clear coat on the fret board and satin clear coat for the rest of the guitar?

Anyway... I'd sure appreciate some direction and suggestions on this. Thanks in advance!

Hmm... Thanks guys. Sounds like I just need to order the thing and see what happens. I'll make sure they have a return policy too.

Hi folks. I'm getting ready to order a new pickguard for an '89 Japanese Strat, and got the idea from several sites that the standard replacement guards may not fit properly on imports. I haven't been able to find any details, however, as to how I might figure out weather or not my particular model requires something out of the ordinary. Is it the positions of the screw holes? Mine's an 11-hole, and seems to match up with the standard. The only other thing I could think of is that it has something to do with the neck and/or bridge cutaways.

Any wisdom on this would be much appreciated...

Thanks!

I'll take the pickups & wiring harness......

Sorry friend. I think it's just going to hang on my wall for now.

silvertone/kay

http://www.vintagesilvertones.com/forsale_...one1411.html#U3

Huh! Thanks Wez! I guess this one's the deluxe model? Interesting to have a bit of info on it. Much appreciated!

Sorry I didn't see your post right away.

Hmm... You're right Crusader. There is indeed a slight radius. My mistake. I swore I checked that out while I was cleaning it up. But that was quite a while ago.

It could well be a home job. But I'd really have to wonder why someone would go to all that work, and then put a plastic nut and crappy pickups in it. That just strikes me as retail cost-cutting somehow.

Anyway... It's pretty much a wall decoration. The nut, frets, bridge, and tail piece are shot - and it's really not worth the money or effort to do all that work to it just to make it playable. I had an idea that I might use it as a guinea pig to learn how to do fret work someday. But haven't been too ambitious about that. I do like the pick guard though!

Oh - Why was it taken out of the trash? My friends brother worked for a trash collection service at the time. Apparently garbage men still believe that one man's trash can be another man's treasure. He thought I'd appreciate the gift. It's the thought that counts - right?

Hey folks. I've got this ratty old guitar that was given to me several years ago by my friends brother (who found it in a dumpster). There's a spot of gunk on the headstock that appears to be the remains of an embossed metal (aluminum?) sticker, which I assume had some sort of brand label on it. Based on the overall quality I assume that it's a department store brand, or similar. Some other details: Plastic nut, wood bridge, 3-bolt bolt-on neck, flat fret board (no radius).

Anyone care to take a guess at this? Just trying to satisfy my curiosity...

Thanks in advance!

So who else is in the midst of this ice storm? Sheesh!

I've gone ahead and sanded down the fretboard - which, by the way, was entirely too much work - and lightly primed it. I managed to get two coats of paint on today before the weather got bad. It seems to have done the trick. There are still a few flaws right up against some of the frets, but I'm willing to live with that. It's black after all, so they're not likely to show as much. I read somewhere that taping off the fretboard and applying some auto wax will make the frets easy to clean off after refinishing. So once the paint cures I'm going to do that before proceeding.

A couple of things I'm wondering about though... I've decided to go with a satin clear coat on this one in hopes that it might help prevent my hand from sticking on the neck when I play. Can I assume that I'll need to clear coat the fret board with a separate treatment of glossy finish? Or is there some chance that I'll be okay using satin all the way around? I'm also wondering how best to go about replacing the fret dots on the side of the neck. I allowed them to be covered on my other guitar, and (while I get by without them) I've often wished I hadn't. I still haven't come up with anything regarding the pickup housings either (changing them from white to black).

Thanx a million for any advice! If I get a new camera for Christmas I'll post some pics. All the best!

~Maxx

I've been using the Ernie Ball Earth Woods (extra lites) on my Strat for years. The G, while still wound, is only 28 gage - so it can still be bent easily. Pierce is right about the way they sound, but I've found that beneath the missing higher frequencies are other tonal qualities that are otherwise covered up. They go dead pretty quickly too when you play them hard.

Heh... This reminds me of a junker I fixed up for my brother years ago. I wish I had a picture. I never did figure out who the manufacturer was. Anyhow - it was a 19 fretter with a plastic nut (which had cracked in half - go figure ), and a wood bridge with some kind of stop tail piece (I think that's what they're called) rigged with springs for a tremolo. The bridge was chipped right where the B sat, so the string would slip out of place when you played it. I almost replaced it with a tune-o-matic. But after showing it to my father (a veteran cabinet maker), he said he could make a new one. I didn't believe him, but figured I'd let the old fart take a crack at it. A week later he brought me the new one. Cut by hand from a scrap of Babinga (<---I'm sure I butchered the spelling there - saw a bass made of this stuff once - super dense wood!). Perfect from top to bottom! Obviously I was worried about the intonation, but the old man nailed it. It really brightened up the tone too! I wanted to get rid of the tail piece too and get some ferrules for a string-through set-up. But my brother liked it the way it was. He put a set of acoustic strings on it and hung it on the wall in his office to collect dust.

Anyway... I'll never get over how that bridge came out. I'm pretty sure I witnessed a miracle!

~Maxx

This is the second time I've been here asking about this subject (see my thread from several years back ---> here ). You guys steered me right the first time - and I thank you. No doubt someone can help me with this as well...

So I have another Strat which I'm prepping to be refinished. My goal is basically to make it a copy of my current Strat, which is going to require stripping the fretboard in order do paint/dye it black. Last time I removed the frets which allowed me to get all of the finish off the fretboard before staining it. Then i just had new frets put back on. It was worth every penny and came out better than I thought it would.

This time however, there are a couple of new obstacles. First off my uncle just had the frets replaced not six months before he traded the guitar to me (for a really old PC - I came out on the better end of that deal if you ask me!). He had the jumbo frets put on, which I love - so I'm finding it hard to justify a refret. In addition my fiance' seems to think that any significant amount of money we spend should go toward our upcoming wedding. So she'll really flip if I dump more than a few bucks at a time into this thing. Go figure!

So does anyone know how I might go about refinishing this thing without refretting? The neck and body will be finished with a black stain (two or three coats to makes it nice and dark, but still leaves the relief of the wood grain showing), but I wouldn't be opposed to actually painting the fretboard if it would hide the areas around the frets that I won't be able to sand completely. Perhaps a coat of primer might help as well? One thing that would be nice about painting as opposed to staining is that the fret dots would be covered this time (you can still see them through the stain on my other Strat - bugs me sometimes).

Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Thanx a bunch!

By the way - It came with the Lace Sensor p'ups with the white housing. I figured I could just spray paint them black for now - but does anyone have any other suggestions?

~Maxx

I always seem to make things more complicated than they actually are! This apears to be a much better schematic lovekraft. Keeping the initial signal closer to the capacitor makes more sense now that I see it drawn out for me. And aparently I can leave that last post empty, huh?

You've been invaluable lovekraft!

All the best...

~Maxx

I went ahead and wired one of these up (just the initial connections between the posts on the pot. based on my crude diagram from above) and, according to the multimeter, the signal is doing exactly what I wanted it to do. I can only assume that the connection opposite the capacitor will go out to the jack (even though there will be no signal going to that connection when the pot is turned down). That's what makes the most sense to me anyway. I just have to wonder if I can get away with leaving it empty though.

I'll let you all know what I come up with...

All the best...

~Maxx

you'll be able to turn down the volume or the tone, but never both.

That's exactly what I was shooting for lovekraft! Sorry I didn't make that very clear in my initial post.

So I'm back in the game! but what to do with that 3rd connection on the top row? surely it can't be left empty. Ground? That doesn't make sense either since the opposite poll is also grounded through the capacitor. Or maybe my entire schematic is off by a mile! It wouldn't be the first time!

Thanx for all your help lovekraft!

~Maxx

Thanx for the reply lovekraft! We're pushing the boundaries of my wire-monkey vocabulary a bit here - but I'll do my best to keep up...

For starters, this is what I'm working with (at least it looks the same). Pretty much what you described from what I can tell. I've had these lying around for several years. I'm really not sure where they came from or how I ended up with them, but I needed 3 pots for my guitar (doing a full tune-up - new wire, toggles, pots, jack, the works!), so I figured I'd put them to use. I only have room for 3 knobs, so I have to either choose between vol. & tone, or find a way to achieve both with one pot. These were readily available, so...

So... Since this type of pot will not do what I want it to I'm left with a choice to make. Buy new pots (which certainly wouldn't upset me in the least), or figure out some other excuse for using these babies on my axe. I was honestly hoping to use what I had just for the sake of getting them out of my parts box. It seems such a shame to not use them for something.

Now... If I do end up going the dual-concentric route (those are the stacked pots with a seperate control - main shaft and outer shaft - for each pot, right?), I'm going to end up buying new knobs as well. Unless there's some magic knob trick that I'm unaware of. So that's another expense that I could avoid by sticking with what I've got. But at the same time - what can I do with these things? There must be some remotely practical use for them...

Comments anyone?

Thanx a million for your words of wisdom lovekraft!

~Maxx

Hello all. I'm working on a little mod for my strat and I've come across something that has me a bit stumped. I won't go into the "why's" or "what for's", but I'm attempting to creat a combination vol/tone pot. with a "stacked" (I think they're also called "piggy-backed") knob that has a center position, rather than using the "push/pull" type knob. What I'm shooting for is the following: Knob turned down=no vol., knob at center=full vol./full tone, knob cranked=full vol./tone down...

I'm pretty sure I'm on the right track with the diagram below (pardon the crudity - I'm not schooled!), but I need someone to get me that last step of the way!

Greatly apreciate any advice!

"stacked" pot schematic...

Thanx a bunch...

~Maxx

No stripper - refret. Gotcha. Out of curiosity, why would I need to refret as long as I'm careful about the sandpaper? It makes sense to do so if the frets are damaged by the refinishing process, but wouldn't it be possible protect them somehow? Which brings up another good point - should the frets be covered somehow when I have the clearcoat put on? My fathers friend will be taking care of that at his shop, so I should really have it ready to go before I take it there.

Thanx for the input folks. I just don't want to end up fixing something that's going to end up costing more time and money. You all know how it is I'm sure...

~Maxx

Hello all. Newbie here (on this forum anyway). I'm rebuilding my first custom Strat, which I want to finish with a black stain or dye. I was wondering how safe I would be striping and refinishing the fretboard. Am I likely to make a huge mess of things? The problem is that it's a maple board, and I don't think it would look very good if the rest of the neck and body were black and not the board. Any advice would be much apreciated. Thanx in advance...

~Maxx