Drak

The beginnings of the finish. Notice my lack of decision for the bridge at this point, I just didn't know what I wanted to do yet. I should add that I do not own a SINGLE Strat type of guitar, this will be the single only one, as I just never really preferred stratocaster shaped guitars since that is the most widely popular guitar shape On The Planet, and I don't like that, generally. This was CA glue first coat, you can see the foam brush there, necessary for Spalt.

The neck is a neck I bought from StewMac back when they were actually Stewart-MacDonald, about 20, 25 years ago. I applied a matching Spalted Maple headstock veneer on it as I usually do. If you notice, it has a 'section' for you to router out the black 'hump' above the nut and install a locking nut, it's 'built-in', but you have to route it out.

HA! So based on Prostheta's Frankie build, which has invigorated my craven wanton lust for EVH tone, and my having a suitable pickup for the job, and no place for it to call home...I figured out a way to make all components happy and co-habitable. So the build first: This is another old build, my first pics of it date to 2010, and it has sat on the shelf for quite some time. Why? Because it's a 2-HB build, and TBH, I simply just didn't need another 2-HB guitar. The ones I already have are awesome and I love them already. I'm close to being topped out on guitars, so something really has to move me to get me to finish them anymore. I do have my limits on 'things'...The EVH 'thing' is what triggered this back into Action Jackson land. The body and neck are actually done, have Been Done, minus all the Floyd architecture, which is exactly where this thread will pick up. Where Prostheta's Frankie is (guessing) a 6-screw trem, this will be a 'Floyd', which would place it in Eddie's later years. Music Man, Wolfgang, whatevers, something like that. As I can deduce, Eddie had a somewhat hot PAF in the Frank, and moved to the hotter winds when he switched to floaters. I could be completely wrong here, but that story is working for me. So my build is a 'later' Eddie thing, and will be Floyded, which I now have to do. Invasive, yes, as the guitar is done, has been done, for years. So that's the build. The pickup is a Duncan Custom Custom I have mag-swapped with a roughcast UOA5 magnet. And its in a gold covered housing. So not the easiest thing to fit a gold covered pickup into an EVH framework, but what the hell, let's do this. The neck pickup I'm going to use (probably, as its also gold covered) is a Duncan APH-1 neck, which is an A2 at 7.2k (I think) So, here are a few pics dating back to 2010 for starters. The body is Spalted Maple over Black Limba. As you can notice, the control cavity architecture has been designed for my EMG active setup, so it should be a fire-breather combined with the customized CC.

OK, OK, so I chickened out on the leopard guard (again!) This (brown tort) guard is permanent, its mounted, mostly wired, and installed. I installed the neck as well and it's 95% wired and very close to done now. Whatever you do, Don't Touch that Black Knob!

I get that, I understand your point, but yet I don't agree with it. You would be mistaken about the wealth factor being the hinge pin difference here. If you are submitting that wealthy(-er, which I am not, and don't come from) people, simply by virtue of their wealth, have either no respect for, or value in, objects. I would submit the 'wealthy' live by their objects, that's where all their inherent value is placed, in 'things', which is 180 degrees out of order. You take all their 'stuff' away from them and they can go seriously suicidal. I would instead call it mental conditioning, or lack thereof (follow me for a brief moment here). A purposely mentally toughened mind has the ability to rid itself of old belief systems and adopt new ones. That are far more congruent and beneficial to life in the right here and now, in the present moment. A toughened mind asks questions and demands beneficial answers, and rejects old ideas if they are of no further use in the present moment. The brain, otherwise left unattended, will always naturally revert back to its old neural pathways from childhood, the basic recorded programming architecture from 0-8 years old, more or less. Especially if any sort of trauma drove those beliefs in deep (like suffering or going w/o food from being poor is a recorded trauma of sorts). So I see your point, but I would counter with the question: What benefit are those (possibly trauma-driven) belief systems serving you right here, today? To not allow yourself to throw things away? Or is the brain just playing back 50-year old messages in a non-stop loop based on conditions that no longer exist? You see, I find those beliefs a sort of self-bondage, especially if feelings of guilt are what are being avoided, where instead I choose the freedom to make new decisions that agree with me, with no guilt attached. The emotionally-programmed brain, if left unattended, will always fight against a change in the status quo, as its programmed for survival, which is serious business to it. So to say 'you're an American, where wealth just washes over everyone', would be a catastrophic mistake, it's not true and it paints with an extremely broad brush and points outward instead of inward, where change can occur. This is all just for fun, of course, I'm not drawing any lines in the sand here, everyone obviously is entitled to their own viewpoints, and everyone has their own mental conditioning, its part of human nature.

Why do you need a reason, or even an excuse, to simply throw something away? Why can't you just throw it away just to throw it away? I never understood that. It's like some kind of guilt complex...

And now I bring you up to date, as it sits here now. It's getting verry close now.

So that's where we left off, the regular Tele got finished and I needed a few Floyd-specific parts which I just got. So now we continue the story of the Super-Satch! I finished the finish on the neck, installed the tuners and locking nut. I never gloss-out the finish on the back of the neck, I go to 1800 and quit there. The headstock goes all the way to gloss tho. These are cheap lockers, but so what, its got a locking nut, hahaha!

Work on the neck, which I gave a slight V shape.

And just a few of the Oak body, which was covered in the 'Two Oak Builds; thread.

So I've been playing musical chairs with the various Floyd builds I have in progress at the moment. Swapping guards around, swapping pickups, etc. I decided to take the pickguard from what was going to be my Satch build (from 3 years ago, never completed) and swap it over to my Oak Floyd build. I absolutely Adore the yellow leopard guard on the Oak body. Why is it a Super-Satch? It has a Fred in the bridge and a Satch Track in the neck, so that establishes the median line of a Satch build. Where I blow the doors off and race to the victory line to claim my prize is: This is an active EMG harness build, so it has mids-boost function and clean-up function tone knobs. We'll take those harmonic overtones of the Fred and just push the hell out of 'em, right on board. Super-surprise No. 2: The middle pickup is a Fast Track 2, the absolute hottest rail-type HB DiMarzio makes. Around 17k worth of hawt. So, I'm changing the functions of how most people look at the middle pickup. I'm making it an alternate secondary bridge option, not a secondary neck option. I've got it wired to a push-pull knob for series/parallel operation, so in series, it's like having another (and tonally different) Lead Tone from the Fred. And in parallel, it blends with the Satch Track neck and performs the more 'normal' function of a middle pickup. Incredibly, ridiculously versatile instrument. The Super-Satch. So this was the first body for the pickguard, which I still have, and I still like.

I have an Eddie question. I know the SC in the red Frankie was just there for show, it wasn't connected, so he only ever used the bridge pickup. But when he started having his own guitar line, like the Ernie Ball or the Wolfgang, that did have neck pickups... Did he ever use them? Did Eddie ever use neck pickups?

Reading these two lines, I was a bit amused at the implicit irony contained, ...being the dungeon master of the W.O.D. as I am. For all the work I see you readying yourself for, why not spend the time on a well-thought-out project that is Quality 1 from start to finish? You are allowed to change your mind occasionally... Many guitars you might associate me with over the years have been disassembled, gutted, sawn in half, and trashed. They had their day in the sun, it was good when it was good, but life moves on and so do I, to bigger and better and fresh projects. Projects that hold my interest and are generally better quality at every new interval. I look at your GOTY win, and I look at this, and I say to myself...'really?'

I decided to build a de-constructed Eddie with my roughcast UOA5 CC, ...like chef's do de-constructed dishes. Which means it won't look anything like a Frankie, but it should sound like Eddie. My CC has a gold cover on it, so I had to find a way to 'make that work'. Oddly enough, I've been watching all of the Pete Thorn YT's about Eddie lately, all of them, he has several. I'm sure it's because I'm in the middle of three Floyd builds and maybe four. And I'm always influenced externally by whatever I happen to be building at the moment. Like, when I was building the two Garcia things, all the sudden I was researching Garcia and Dead music. Now they're both done, I'm not researching that much anymore. When I was building the Buchanan Moonshadow, I was listening to Roy constantly. Now ...its all about the leopard pickguards and hair metal. I actually saw VH on their first national tour, they were 'all the buzz' at high school back then, we all knew something special was coming...

My dear, dear K...I have a single-word reply for that. Carriburst. The posts attached to that unfortunate thread which probably still to this day clog up the arteries of ProjectGuitar. Have a wonderful day .

Bowneck Guitar

Thank You kind sir. Here is where it came from, seemed to have the most 'bang for the buck' color-wise.

Pickup theme change. Was working on another project where the yellow pickups were more required. So I switched up the cover on the neck (still Satch Track) And the bridge is now a DiMarzio Gravity Storm I had in the drawer. Rough-cut the truss cover out. Cleaned (Naptha'd) the neck, dyed it black, wiped that off, and hit it with fretboard finishing oil.

Hmmm, guess he ran out of tape right there at the top of the horn, or that was the starting point. Tell me, how many pics do you have of that guitar for research purposes? If it were me, I'd have dozens...from every angle I could get...but I'm like that. Your build is really starting to bug me... I keep thinking about that Duncan CC with the roughcast UOA5 in my drawer... And now I'm like 'Dammit! I must put it in something!' But I only have 2 Floyds going at the moment, and both bridge pickups accounted for...it's driving me crazy I tell you...

And here is a pic of the pickguard cutoff pieces from which the truss cover will come from. Will probably pull one of the more blue sections out.

OK, updated pics so you can see the properly oriented pickguard 'paint dripping' effect. And the neck, so far. I'll probably blacken out the Floyd cavity soon. Just have to decide what switches I want for the pickups and drill them. Probably not doing a slide switch here, either a 3-way toggle or 2 mini-switches I think.

Thank you for that layup. The pickups going in it are a DiMarzio Fred (bridge) and Satch Track (neck). Both Satriani-approved.

No way, he's the perfect muse for Les. Those things don't happen by accident. Even Metallica wouldn't take Les. Too cliche, too perfect hair metal for Les. This always leaves me completely on the floor laughing. Paul

You'll be pullin' the chicks off you like pulling bees off a honeycomb with that one. Hope you're not married.