tasty

2x4, because the entries would be far greater in number than say plastic or metal. Low cost, plus easy accessiblity for even newbs. Lets do it!

3 mm is the standard for the tremolo on RG series. You can usually luck out pretty good at the dollar store for tools like that. I just bought a set of metric allen keys for $1 and a set of jewler's screwdrivers for $1

You are somewhat correct, the bridge pickup on a Strat is angled to get more bass out of the bridge pickup. If you play with your pick closest to the bridge, it produces a very high pitched twangy sound. Because the Fender's already have quite a twangy sound, the bridge pickup is angled in order to get more bass. Hope this clears it up. You should position the second humbucker somewhat in line, in order to get more signal. If it is angled without being in proximity of the strings you will not be getting some of the signal from the strings. Hope this helps.

Gonna have to go Godin on this one. Fantastic job! Very professional. Kind of a Cigar box uke, if you will.

You may want to try drilling a piece of scrap veneer (if you do have some lying around)....not sure if you glued it on yourself? Otherwise the block of wood/masking tape idea sounds pretty good.

Unless you were planning on frying some chicken parm on about the 14 fret don't use olive oil.

The more I think about the config, perhaps that guitar was something like this.... UP = single coil MID = Tapped 1/2 Humbucker DOWN = whole humbucker This way you won't have any blending issues, and the need for a volume is not entirely a must have.

Well, at minimum most guitars have at least one volume knob. You could get away with none and just a switch, but your pickup selections would be limited. What I am saying is that with no volume you are just going to have full blast neck, full blast bridge, and full blast combined. What if the combined position sounds too bassy ...you just can't roll down the volume on the neck..its stuck. There is quite a lot of debate whether not installing volume/tone control will make you have a better, louder tone. Personally I can live without tone knobs, but you probably should put at least one volume in. If you play a tube amp, you will lose the "backing off the volume" sound...you know with slight breakup in the overdrive. That link should have plenty of info for you.

A 3 way switch is the same as on a les paul or sg. It would appear that there is no other wiring (tone/vol controls) so you just need to wire up the 3 way. Here is a site where you can find information regarding wiring. Guitar Electronics.com

whats acid cat? -meow?

Thanks for your response! Um...i went to the Sherwin Williams in my area and they had no idea what that part#/stuff was....Hmm.. I ended up buying a gallon (which i promptly returned unused) of thier moisture-resistant lacquer. You see, I am refinishing an american std strat in metallic silver. I want to..sanding sealer/primer/metallic/clear. i had pretty good results with 1. minwax sanding sealer 2. bin white primer 3. krylon metallic nickel silver 4. clear (from my spray gun rig) I was going to go with nitro, but hoping for something else that would be clear/polish well/be hard. Any advice..or should i just suck it up and get a quart of behlens nitro from stew mac?

Thanks for all your responses! I hardwired up the X-Bridge last night and was delightfully impressed (even with no preamp straight into my a crappy crate 10w amp). The blend pot sounds like a good idea, but I think I may go with one mini toggle. The reason being is that i could be playing a soft acoustic passage, then flip the switch and have full-out distortion/overdrive. With a blend pot i would have to swell the volume up. Anyone know where to get the new fender (s1 switches)?

I am finishing the electronics/paint on my major redone Am Std. strat project and had a question. I would like to see if there is any other type of swtich rather than a mini toggle that will get these 3 positions (in addition to the 5 way of course) 1. Mags 2. Mags + Piezo 3. Piezo It would be extra cool if there was a way to install this type of switching without adding a visible switch (toggle)...i was thinking s1 switches in the first two vol controls. The three knobs are going to be 1. Mag vol 2. piezo vol 3. tone (for mag only). Where does one get s1 switches and knobs? Thanks!

Not to burst your bubble, but this one sold for about half of what you are asking on Ebay, complete with front logo and in great shape! http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...&category=10171

Soapbar, those are awesome! Where did you get the hardware for the threaded inserts?

IMHO you will never get a MT2 to sound like a bogner. Thats like asking someone to hot rod your pinto to perform like a lamborghini. Just not gonna happen. IMHO the MT2 sounds like an angry hive of bees, thats about it. We are talking about tubes vs. solid state here and no solid state device will sound exactly like a bogner. Not totally shooting down your idea, there may be some mods out there that will make an MT2 sound less "buzzier" but not like a bogner. You may want to save your money and sample some other pedals such as the RAT, Fulldrive, MXR dist + etc. You may find one that works for you. What type of amp do you use? If its a solid state 1 x 10" ibanez or something, no pedal will help you in your quest. A great amp can make a crappy guitar sound great, but a crappy amp can make a super guitar sound like ka-ka. my 2cents. hope this helps, and welcome to the forum!

Exactly. Sometimes the pots will be stuck in the finish from many years of being set in there. It may seem like they are stuck (even after the nut is taken off) but they can be carefully tapped/pryed out. Keep in mind if you hit the shaft too hard you can destroy the pot if you were thinking about re-using it. If you are replacing them all, then go to town.

I agree with all the above. Temp is not a major consideration, except with condensation/moisture when dealing with Tube Amps. You also want to try to let your amp warm up to room temp before turning on the power to the heaters because anything stressed from extremely cold to extremely hot takes a beating. You may cause stress fractures/cold solder joints that sort of thing. I store some of my tube amps in an outside shed type of thing and have had no problems, but you do want to be careful of moisture and condensation problems. The same would apply when shutting down your amp. Try to turn it to standby for a few minutes. Then shut down the power/pack up the rest of your gear and then after the amp cools it is better to move it then. A hot amp doesn't like to take a lot of hits, as does a cold amp. Indeed you are correct, the hot/cold cycles will most likely affect tube life. Peace!

Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. 1 x 12" really loud 40 watts. I have had many modeling amps/modeling processors and i feel... IMHO, the Line 6 are alright, but tends to sound artificially the same after a while. I mean the sounds are decent, but when compared to natural tube overdrive there is still not the same nuances of natural tube overdrive. You hit it on the head as far as i am concerned when you said "I'd rather have 2 or 3 usable sounds than 30 or so not as good ones." Since most gigs will be miced up anyway (Sennheiser 609 or 906 are good choices) then you really can't beat a small tube amp. 6L6 for smoother overdrive (rock, blues, country) or EL34 for a crunchy Marshall sound (which IMHO gets old after a while). I am very pleased with my Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, after experimenting with different tubes and bias settings. Why model when you can have the real thing? Get a real tuber and you won't be dissapointed when your Line 6 sounds start to sound all the same/stale. Pair up a tube amp with some true bypass effects (OD, Chorus, Delay) and you will be a happy guitarist. Legendary Tone, bro.

Check this out Pre Cat Lacquer I heard this stuff is really great for fast drying, good gloss and durablity. I was going to go with Deft quart can or some other Nitro, but was turned off by long dry time, and limited scuff/abrasion resistance. I am not that concerned about resonance because this is a rebuild strat job, not an acoustic. I was really curious how this stuff sands/buffs out during the final polishing stage. It seems like a winner product because of the fast dry time and such, but I want to know how it polishes/buffs. I just may pick some up today because of what limited good things I have heard about it. Just wondering if anyone has any experience about this Sherwin stuff. Thanks

You can find this stuff at Home Cheapo, as i found out yesterday.

interesting

Yes, Russ is correct. I also have an X-Bridge now, recentlyThe trick is that you would want a seperate amp for the magnetics and for the piezo. Piezos sound like crap through tubes, and mags sound like crap through solid state. If you ever plugged an ovation into a tube you know what I mean. The control-x is a piece because it doesn't take any of the above into consideration. The idea is good but it doesn't work well. You really need an external preamp for the acoustic. I have mine with an on-on-on switch and the stereo jack. Insert a regular guitar cable, its a full fledged strat. Insert a TRS cable and split it at the ends, you have the best of both worlds. Mags, piezo or both, blended...properly. give it a go you'll be surprised

Cool, thanks man. I see why people don't buy it in gallons....$22 surcharge! Quarts seem to be no problem however....ill probably just pick up a few quarts then. Thanks!

I know that results may vary, but how many coats can you get out of a quart of lacquer if you spray with: 1) Gravity fed (HVLP) gun? 2) Regular ol' household spray gun?