New cheap strat day

[dezb1]

Bought this for £30 has a few dings, body is made of Paulownia, unbelievably light weight; so light I actually weighed it! (Not somethibg ive ever done before 4.7lb).



Haven't played it yet spent about 15 minutes trying and failing to tune it only to find there's bits missing from the trem so decided to change the guard and clean it up - will get new strings tomorrow



Sorting the trem and going with a black guard I had in my spares box

[aliendawg]

Nice!! I dig cheap guitars. Also black guard sunbursts look sick

[HNB]

Looks great! I am also a fan of cheap guitars.

[dezb1]

Cheers chaps

Finally got this thing in playing condition today.

My ideal Strat sound is basically Nile Rodgers / David Byrne... Did a bit of research a while ago on the 'Hitmaker' strat - apparently it's incredibly light and has a really thin neck - attributes it shares with this Cheapo which has lead to me playing a lot of Chic and Inxs songs all day - not sure if it's a keeper but it's fun for the moment... Defenetly has the funk.

[aliendawg]

Nice!! More pics maybe? Hehe

[dezb1]

Nice!! More pics maybe? Hehe

Have decided I need to try a different set of pickups in it as these guitar tech ones are too hot.

[jvin248]

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Before swapping pickups ... Lower the pickups you have level with the pickguard. You can also push the tone around by changing pots and caps (tolerance ranges on these parts can be 20%).

When seeing the missing trem claw springs, I was going to suggest you block the trem with a wood block, Eric Clapton approves so it's ok. I get distracted with whammy tricks and tuning fixes otherwise.

For some fun ... wire this up with the Armstrong Blender mod. That is my other common Strat mod. Second tone pot blends between stock SSS and series HSH for a stealth Les Paul. Wiring only change so it's super cheap and leaves you with the stock SSS which I like.

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[dezb1]

I've tried lowering the pickups they're still overly loud brash and icepicky (and that's coming from a Telecaster player) - so they're defenetly out I'm going to change the pots and wiring at the same time.

[dezb1]

The more I played this the less I liked the pickups, so I bought a cheap set of low output alnico pickups... What a difference now it sounds as good plugged in as it does unplugged.

[JSutter]

I'm not much of a fan of sunburst but it looks much better with the black guard. Nice job.

[JVG]

I must be a boring traditionalist, because I preferred the original guard. Looks like a bit of fun

Isn’t it amazing (but not surprising) what a difference pickups can make!

J.

[Maggieo]

Nice!! More pics maybe? Hehe

Have decided I need to try a different set of pickups in it as these guitar tech ones are too hot.

That is utterly brilliant!

[dezb1]

Cheers chaps, aye totally different sounding guitar since the pick up change - it's also amazing how little a decent sounding set of pickups can be bought for these days.

[mbene085]

Man that looks great. Cannot go wrong for that price of entry!!