a few months back i got my hands on this 1995 USA (american)standard stratocaster ....... with already a few mods done............ the neck is awesome and a pleasure to play .... but being a jazz player and wanting a guitar specifically for jazz...... a strat is NOT a great choice ....... but the neck was worth keeping it for ......... so it has become a project ...........
in last 18 mnths i bought and got rid of several jazzy type guitars i hoped would "do it" for me but was bitterly dissapointed by a few despite them being on paper excellent instruments , so when i found this "modded' strat i thought well i love the neck and why not just go ahead and basically mix and match my own guitar to my liking rather than buy off the peg
so .... 1. the strat had an awesome neck ............ so a biggie out of the way
2. the strat has brushed metal locking tuners which are top end
3. the strat had a seymour duncan 'pearly gates" in bridge position so i had a really rich sounding pup (but to move to the neck )
4. the start had a good nut fitted
5. and as far as i know(and according to the previous owner) is fitted with graphtec saddles
6 and the strat came with a stock skb type flight case
so without a doubt i had the key ingredients of a good guitar here
whats been done to date
1. i fitted flatwound jazz strings
2,i had the neck ...fret dressed and the nut cut for fat flatwound strings and had the neck/trussrod adjusted for them
3.. the tremelo system was blocked to make it a hard tail
4. i had a new scratchplate cut out of wood , spruce ..it was cut from the top of an old acoustic that had died
5. i stripped out the 2x fender single coils and moved the seymour duncan "pearly gates" into the neck position
6. i had an acoustic guitar contact pickup (a schaeller) attatched under the spruce top
7 . the wiring is set up like a less paul with the seymour duncan humbucker getting a push pull volume pot to split the coil , and a tone pot
and the contact pickup also has a volume and tone
8. changed the shape of the scratchplate to give a retro/less typical strat and more unique look
the result so far is very promising ...... the guitar has awesome tone and the contact pickup adds a woody/semi acoustic tone to the sound which thanks to independant volumes i can blend in with the seymour duncans tone ........great woody jazz tone ..... that idea of the contact pup was an experiment that paid off....
here's some pics so far
strat as i got it before mods
same guitar now ....... as a "Jazzcaster" a name i gave it as "Keiracaster" sounds horrid
to this point the whole experiment/mod is 100% reversable except for the money i paid ? as even the altered scratchplate is fastened with same screw holes and the extra bit extending up the neck is double sided taped in place .........
the plan is to play it for a few weeks then to step up and do some more if it's a keeper.........
mods to come
1. is strip off paint and see if the natural wood grain look will work if not a respray in a transparent honey like an archtop (not sunbusrt though)
2. route out body to create a more chambered body ........and if that does not work or sounds bad i want to have a new chambered body made for it
3. alter the headstock to make it a 3 a side or 4-2 tuner arrangement
so some serious irreversable mods to come but no rush ......
at the moment it's a way cool jazzcaster ........ as it stands...........
and it cost next to nothing so far..... barre the initial price of the strat ......and some labour costs ... but even if i push thru and it becomes a solid body jazz guitar and is routed and refinished it'll still work out affordable
btw JD (Joachim) from JD custom (his workshop is upstairs at marshall music woodmead) has done all the work so far and all in just 2 days ... thanks JD
