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Hotrodding a Stratocaster Part 2 - Modifications To Hardware & Setup |
I recently decided that I needed a real Fender
Stratocaster to get the traditional Strat sound. I ended up buying a relatively
inexpensive second-hand Mexican Strat which felt pretty good to play and sounded good
acoustically. I replaced a few of the parts with higher quality components and did some
work to set it up and the resulting instrument is wonderful. It sounds good, plays well,
stays in tune (even with abuse!) and is inspiring to play.
A lot of these tweaks and mods apply to most Stratocasters
(and many other electric guitars too), so I've decided to share them. Not every tweak will
be needed - or wanted - for every Strat, but it's usually easy to decide what you want.
Where I could have made an alternate decision, I'll mention the other options, and why I
specifically chose one over the other.
Part 1:
Choosing a Guitar to Customise | Part 2: Modifications To
hardware & Setup | Part 3: Pickups, Wiring &
Control Hotrods | Part 4: Other Wiring Modifications
| Part 5: Refinishing
Part 2: Modifications
To Hardware & Setup
OK. Now I had a good guitar to hotrod, so
let's get to it:
Setup
Refer to other in-depth articles on this site
on setting up your guitar. If you replace a nut, set the nut action, if you replace
saddles, set the bridge action and intonation, etc..
Strings
Sounds stupid I know, but strings are by far more important than anything
else in determining the sound and performance of any guitar! Whenever you buy an
instrument, you have no way of knowing how old the strings are. Even with a guitar
"out-of-the-box", they may look shiny, they may sound bright, but usually they
have been on that guitar for at least a year and will have stretched. They were installed
by a human (with sweat glands) in the factory and then endured months at sea, may have
been warehoused for a few months locally and may even have been hanging on the shop wall
for a year or more. You should always factor a new set of strings into the price of any
guitar.
Most guitars come standard with an extra light gauge (.009 - .042) string set on. This
makes them feel softer to play, but affects the tone and sustain adversely. Swapping up to
the more common light gauge (.010 - .046) will immediately make a Strat (or indeed, any
guitar!) sound a lot better. A set of .011s will improve the tone still further, but then
you are braver than I am!
Nut
I want to use the trem on my Strat and want to stay in tune, so a Graph Tech Trem-Nut was
essential. They are made with an ultra-slippery polymer material which prevents strings
from binding (sticking) in the nut. Tonally they are also a vast improvement over the
standard material fitted to most models of guitar. There is a slight 'softening' of the
attack sound on the open notes compared to some of the harder materials, but this is all
but unnoticeable to most people - especially with a warmer sounding Strat (like those with
hotter pickups and/or rosewood fingerboards). Even with a bright sounding maple
fingerboard, you need very good ears to hear the difference.So I fitted a Trem-Nut and
tweaked the nut action so it is now half the height it was, which was still the original,
conservative factory setting.
If tone is your primary quest rather than staying perfectly in tune, bone is the best
material. As with wood, bone is a porous material and every piece is slightly different,
so if you are a tone nut (sorry!), you may end up trying dozens to find that perfect one. |
The Graph Tech Trem-Nut
|
Saddles
The guitar I bought already had Graph Tech String Saver saddles on the bridge, saving me
from having to buy some - bonus! String Savers help the strings sustain longer than the
pressed metal saddles of some Strats, but if you have the solid saddles of an
American-style two stud trem, they make less difference. They also virtually eliminate
string breakage, and so pay for themselves very quickly. Once again, there is a
slight softening of the attack of each note, but once again it is minimal. Graph Tech now
also make the FerraGlide Saddles, which are standard stainless steel saddles with polymer
inserts - a hybrid between the String Savers and the newer Fender saddles. The idea sounds
great, but I have not tried a set yet.For true vintage Fender Strat tone, the pressed
saddles are essential - nothing else sounds quite the same.
In addition to setting the intonation (which was slightly sharp across all strings),
the radius of the saddles was virtually flat, making the first and last strings too high
and the middle pair buzz against the frets. Once I had finished these tweaks the guitar
was already a real pleasure to play. |
A Graph Tech String Saver Saddle
|
String Trees
String trees (sometimes called string
retainers or butterflies) are the small devices on the headstock that pull the strings
down so that they wind correctly on the tuning machines and so that there is enough string
tension on the nut. They do these jobs admirably, but can introduce tuning problems as
strings are quite likely to bind. Yet again, Graph tech came to my rescue with the polymer
string trees, which allow the strings to easily move through them with no binding. They
come in sets of two, as many older Strats use two - although personally I would remove the
second one completely. At this point my Strat played really well, and it stayed in tune
- apart from a small degree of slippage at the... |
The Graph Tech String Tree
|
Tuning Machines
The stock tuners were obviously not made to last, while the guitar is only two or
three years old (from the serial number), they already had a slight amount of play in them
and do not quite hold in tune when abusing the trem. This kind of behaviour only gets
worse!I ordered a set of Sperzel locking
tuners for this guitar. As with other locking tuners, they lock the string in place,
eliminating excess windings. Where the Sperzels are theoretically heads above (again,
sorry!) the other brands is that the posts (that the strings wind around) are of staggered
height, getting shorter the further away from the nut they are. This eliminates the need
for string retainers entirely and ensures that the strings push down in the nut with
enough force. It's worth noting that the Fender branded locking tuners are Sperzels, but
are not staggered.
Sadly the set I of Sperzel tuners I recieved were defective,
there was a huge amount of play and there were areas of extreme tightness in the rotation
- a sure sign of badly made gears. The nuts were not even all the same size! I was sent a
second, replacement set which were just as bad and also had sharp edges around the string
holes that broke two new strings before I realised what was going on. I don't know if
Sperzel have changed manufacturing to somewhere cheap in the East, but these are not the
Sperzel tuners I know. So much for pecision tuning machines. I've now got a set of locking
Schaller tuners on order - hopefully the legendary German engineering is not being
outsourced to Lower Mongolia (or wherever this month's cheap manufacturing country is).
I got a set of the Planet Waves locking tuners a few weeks
ago for one of my other guitars. They are good design (by Ned Steinberger!) locking
tuners, 18:1 ratio and even cut the string neatly when you get to pitch. They hold tuning
well, but have a fraction more play than other precision machines. |
Sperzel Tuning Machine
|
Strap Locks
Fit them immediately. Essential equipment for any guitar you own that is worth more than
these babies cost (you get my drift). Fit them immediately. This was a lesson hard learned
for me when I broke the 12-string neck of a very beloved doubleneck guitar due to
catastrophic strap button failure. Fit them immediately. The Schaller models are the best.
Fit them immediately. You can probably tell this is personal. Fit them immediately.Other Tweaks
I removed the surgical tubing Fender uses for pickup mounting and put in some steel
springs. Regardless of how well potted a pickup is, it still picks up some sound
microphonically via the springs and screws. The guitar immediately gained a discernible
amount of resonance and some added presence.
I also tuned the tremolo springs to E by tweaking the claw screws and fiddling with
different tension springs. They are always going to resonate sympathetically and add some
reverb to the guitar's natural tone, I'd rather that when this happens it isn't too
dissonant. I have damped these springs entirely on some guitars by putting a single strip
of draught excluding tape (which is a foam rubber strip with a sticky side - used for
sealing doors) across all three springs (which reminds me - I use three springs),
which then pushes lightly over the cover of the trem cavity.
I considered replacing the standard vintage style six stud trem with a two stud
Wilkinson trem I have. The Wilkinson is a better trem, both by design and in the materials
it's made from. It's not exactly traditional though, so I'm managing to restrain myself...
for now. |
Schaller Strap Locks
|
Next: Part 3: Pickups, Wiring & Control Hotrods |
