ok - orders placed at GFS and Guitar parts resource… hopefully I see them before the long holiday weekend next week..
I have to say, between the STL50 and the SST Ash I own, I lean toward the SST for playability. I think the STL 50 sounds better and looks nice after the recent mods, but the SST just “feels right†to me – of course my mood might change also.
Anyway, since I’ve already replaced the nut and tremolo, I’ve ordered new GFS Premium Over wound Alnico Strat Pickups, Wilkinson Ez-Lok locking tuners,and stainless steel saddles.
From Guitar Parts Resource I’ve ordered the STANDARD 5 WAY WIRING KIT FOR STRAT. I like the fact that it comes with CTS pots, an orange drop capacitor, and a CRL 5-way switch (not the cheaper “circuit board†switch). It also comes with hookup wire and a Switchcraft jack. If i would have stumbled onto this sooner I would have bought the kit for the tele here also. The total price is right and the components are quality.
So… I guess when this stuff arrives and I drop it all in, all I’ll have to do is play…. that wont be so bad….Although it would be nice to have a super strat again…..
Posted in Misc..
Tagged with capacitors, caps, gfs, guitar, hack, mods, Rondo, SST, stainless steel, strat, SX, tremolo, tuners, wilkinson.
By John
– November 19, 2009
I’m going to call this one “done†( for now anyway:)
Before:
Just a plan stock stl50 in vintage white – SX STL50 from Rondo Music
After:
Here’s the break down of what was done along with a breakdown of the price and parts used. Most of the parts came from Guitar Fetish, but there a few exceptions
It sounds good, plays well and I like the overall look. there were a few small mishaps though.
Replacing the pickguard was fairly easy, but required that i fill the old screw holes with quick wood (an epoxy wood putty, but any wood putty or even wood glue would have worked) and that i trim the guard up here and there with the Dremel.
The neck pickup didn’t quite line up right when I drilled the holes in the new pickguard. I based my holes off the old stock pickguard. The result was the 6th string ( low E) had hardly any of the pickup under it and the 1st string had more than enough.
Instead of trashing the new pickguard I tried to fill the holes with epoxy and re drill. The epoxy worked but the the holes to mount the pickup would be just too close to the pickup opening. Finally it dawned on me to do what was likely the reason the holes weren’t drilled in the first place – mount the pickup to the body. Which I did and left myself with 2 unnecessary dots on the pickguard. ( I can live with it..)
Shielding the body cavity seemed pretty easy and I didn’t think I thought I could do this without doing any research. I was right, but I did run out of copper tape before i was done.( there probably would have been enough but I trashed some along the way – don’t ask!)
I’m sort of glad that I did because it led me to the Guitarnut guide to shielding. Shielding a telecaster is much less complex than a strat and there is a ton of info to be gained from this site. The end result was I finished shielding with good ole aluminum foil. The guitar is quiet and well grounded.
Posted in Projects.
Tagged with caps, gfs, guitar, hack, mother of pearl, music, project sx, puncher, Rondo, stl50, SX, wilkinson.
By John
– November 15, 2009
This was “almost†easy…
I went to replace my stock SX tremolo on my SX SST Ash ( this one) with the GFS MIM import strat upgrade. (here)
I’ve seen it mentioned on numerous forums, numerous time that this is a "drop- in". I can tell you this… it dropped right in perfectly – UNTIL – I noticed the steel block sticking out the back of my guitar past the body about 3/16" of an inch..
Turns out the Ash models are thinner than the standard SST.. I’m told the other SST models will take the import bridge, without the back cover, but they do work – but I don’t speak from any of my own experience.
I dug around an saw mentioned that someone took a hacksaw to this block to make it fit and came out with good results.
So I cut with a hack saw… filed smooth..
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I didn’t take pics during the cutting process, but as you can see – it fits and seems to be working fine.
I haven’t finished tweaking the setup since adding the new saddles so I haven’t spent a lot of time determining how much the tone has changed. |
As it turns out, I probably wont spend a lot of time doing that just yet as I’m thinking I should have bought new saddles for this trem also – the ones that come with it seem kind of cheap and made me consider dropping the old stock ones back in. ( I didn’t)
2 things were "lost" so to speak in the cut.
The first would be that the holes where the springs connect to the block are now much shallower. I could drill these a little deeper if I need to, bit I opted for grinding the spring ends a little with the Dremel. They seem pretty secure to me..
The second you can easily see in the pics, is that the ball ends of the springs no longer sit down inside the block. i suppose this may affect tone or sustain or something, but not sure if its marginal or not. in any case, I could always bore the hole a little to make them drop in – and maybe I will later.
BTW – Thanks to the guy (dabbler) at the Agile forum for posting this solution.
Posted in Projects.
Tagged with ash, bloc, bridge, dremel, gfs, guitar, hack, hacksaw, holes, Rondo, saddles, slot, SST, steel block, stl50, stock, strat, SX, trem, tremolo, tweaking, wilkinson.
By John
– November 15, 2009
Unlike the tuners on my SX SST Ash strat copy, the stock tuners on the STL50 are not so hot. Granted, once they’re in tune the guitar stays in tune pretty well ( probably attributed to the Tusq nut), but getting there is less than satisfying.
Replacing the old tuners will be Wilkinson EZ-LOK locking Tuners from GFS.
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These are easy drop ins for the SX. The existing hole diameter is 10 millimeters |
| Easy install with a small Phillips screwdriver and a 10mm socket |
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Looks nice right? Not as pretty as my green basement walls I’ll grant you, but nice just the same.
Since I’m moving on to additional upgrades immediately, I didn’t string it up yet to try it out, but the machines seem very smooth and I cant imagine them being anything but way better than the stock machines. |
Posted in Projects.
Tagged with ash, gfs, graphtech, guitar, guitar setup, lok, nut, series parallel, SST, stl50, stock, strat, SX, tele copy, telecaster, tuners, tusq, wilkinson.
By John
– November 10, 2009
I’ve just sent off what i hope to be the last of what Ill need to complete the STL50 project. Impatience got the better of me..
The order was just placed with Guitar Fetish and here’s what I got…
- Wilkinson EZ-LOK locking Tuners 6 inline for Fender Headstocks
- White Mother of Pearl Telecaster Pickguard
- Copper Guitar Cavity Shielding Kit
- 3 Way switch with Free Tip, Screws, EZ Diagram
- Switchcraft Style 1/4" Mono Jack
- Chrome Tele Knobs Real Pearl Shell Tops
- Calibrated Pickup Set "Modern Vintage" Lil Puncher Import Telecaster
- Full Sized 500K Audio Pot- Super Quality!
- Push-Pull DPDT Pot- 500K Audio- Genuine Alpha Quality
- Sprague Orange Drop Tone Caps- .022uf
I’ve decided to go with the GFS Lil’ punchers and coil tap.. pretty excited and am looking forward to getting this underway!
Posted in Projects.
Tagged with alpha quality, capacitors, caps, copper, gfs, graph, graphtech, guitar, lok, mods, mother of pearl, pearl shell, pot, potentiometers, puncher, punchers, replacing pickups, Rondo, SST, stl50, SX, tele copy, telecaster, telecaster pickguard, wilkinson.
By John
– November 8, 2009
