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[rabidgerry]

I believe I have not shown this axe before.  Got a new scratchplate and decided to try running the Dimarzio D ACTIVATOR-X BRIDGE wide open with no pot and it really makes this guitar sing!  Sounds incredible now I think.

[bunkyloo]

Thats a nice one Gerry. I didn't know you had that one as it is not in youre gear list.

[rabidgerry]

  It is it's the MIM Fender Fat Strat

I have to say I left this guitar by the way side for a long time, I wasn't happy with things but not it has come together and I forgot how good the neck is!!!  I will need some black magic bestowed upon it though as it will choke out at the butt end of the neck when trying to bend more than 3 frets.  Common issue with that radius I hear.  It's probably the second most expensive axe I own!  Some of you are laughing right now 

[bunkyloo]

Ok now I remember you talking about that fret issue and yes I remember the fat strats now I was confused with the early 90's metal version that just said strat on the headstock.
But that's a cool guitar.

[Dante]

Nice axe!

I will never get used to the placement of the volume knob on Strats 

[Peter H. Boer]

I will need some black magic bestowed upon it though as it will choke out at the butt end of the neck when trying to bend more than 3 frets.  Common issue with that radius I hear.

Have an experienced luthier make it a compound radius for you.
Keeping the existing radius on the nut end, make it flatter towards the body end.

Peter 

[rabidgerry]

Ok now I remember you talking about that fret issue and yes I remember the fat strats now I was confused with the early 90's metal version that just said strat on the headstock.
But that's a cool guitar.

Oh no that was a different guitar.  That was a Squier Stagemaster and it's still not been fixed.  Haven't been able to go anywhere to get guitars looked at.  I wonder why the luthier did not do compound radius on the stagemaster like Peter has suggested??  He chose to lower the frets slightly which didn't work and made it really hard to fret the note at all.  I have to press really hard which uh is shit if you play a lot of legato like me.

Nice axe!

I will never get used to the placement of the volume knob on Strats 

Really?  Man, that's really weird.  Where do you want your volume knob then?

I will need some black magic bestowed upon it though as it will choke out at the butt end of the neck when trying to bend more than 3 frets.  Common issue with that radius I hear.

Have an experienced luthier make it a compound radius for you.
Keeping the existing radius on the nut end, make it flatter towards the body end.

Peter 

This is what I will do thanks for that    I haven't seen my guy since last year so lets home he has survived the pandemic.

[Dante]

Nice axe!

I will never get used to the placement of the volume knob on Strats 

Really?  Man, that's really weird.  Where do you want your volume knob then?

Nowhere near the pickup, where my strumming hand is flying up & down...I keep hitting that dang knob. Honestly, I have a fat Strat with the volume in the same spot. I put the volume knobs in the Vol & Tone holes and stick the Tone knob in the control cavity. The original Vol hole is just empty. Do the same thing with my Steinberger

[rabidgerry]

Interesting.  I don't have this

strumming hand is flying up & down

.  Then again if I do strum I still aint anywhere near the volume pot.  Gripes I have are sometimes my pick hits the mid pickup through the strings.  Depends how high it is on the guitar.  Haven't done it lately but it used to be an issue.

I think I used to when I was starting out playing guitar knock the volume down accidentally, literally just occurred to me there.  Strange it doesn't happen now.  I must play completely differently or something 

[Kim]

 Now that looks KILLER, Gerry!

I have the same problem as well with knobs being too close to the strings.  Strats are the worst for that.  Lol

[rnolan]

Hey RG, nice guitar  .  I screw the middle PU all the way into the guitar coz that's where I pick, then I use the middle PU as a tone suck combined with the other PUs for clean sounds. Blackmore used to remove the middle PU coz he hit it all the time.  I remember playing a left handed strat strung right handed and I had issues with the vol pot.  The up side of the vol pot placement is if you like to do volume swells, you can loop you pinky around it easily on a strat, but as others are saying it's easy to accidentally bump it when your chugging hard.  I was never that plussed about the vol/tone/tone layout so when I rewired my bullet strat I went for 2 push pull vol pots (one for bridge and one for neck PU) and an overall tone pot.  It's got a SD little 59 in the neck and SD hot rails in the bridge and I do series/parallel on them with the push pull pots.  Also wired the bridge PU out of phase to the super switch copying the JP LP wiring, so switch middle position is neck and bridge, and in between settings combine the middle PU (screwed down as low as possible) with either bridge or neck for tone suck.  If you get the compound radius done (good idea IMHO), then you can go for some stainless steel frets  , maybe use SC's idea of using same height thinner frets from 13 up 

[rnolan]

Hey RG, is this the strat you had trouble getting a scratch plate for ?  I just remembered that when I put a Schaller FR on my profile silhouette tele (which has a tight radius FB) I had similar issues.  I solved it with a FR shim set as the saddles aren't individually adjustable so you have to use shims to set the string heights. IIRC Mike B had to do the same on his "mungral" strat as he had the same problem.

[rabidgerry]

Yes Richard that is right I had issues getting a scratchplate for, but mainly because A) I wanted a mirror one and B) because it had to have Floyd Rose width where the trem cutaway is.

I have since found out the the MIM and American standards must be the same because so many Scratchplates state on them fits American standard and MIM.  So I probably could have found a mirror one for an American standard and floyd rose and got that fitted.  However a lot of the times I might have found one suitable but the shipping to UK was insane and I just wasn't willing to pay for it.

There is a flaw with this (the trouble I had getting the guy to make this for me was untold!) and I'm kinda mad about it as this was the second go from the guy making it and he had my original scratchplate to copy and still managed to f*ck it up.

My original had two screw holes at the low E side.  Fenders have this so two screw hole humbuckers (which fender makes) can adjust angle of the pickup in relation to the strings.  Pretty genius actually.  Anyways the guy said did I want the two hole copied and I said no and what has happened is he has drilled the bottom hole as normal and the top hole of centre as he must have copied the hole closer to the neck so what has happened is now is the humbucker is not exactly straight in that hole!  It will do for now but seriously talk about incompetence?

It will do for now but in the future I'm going to change it.

[rnolan]

I can see that now you mention it (or I wouldn't have noticed it in the pic)  though if I saw the real thing I would have noticed.  Man what a dufus getting that wrong 

[rabidgerry]

Now that looks KILLER, Gerry!

I have the same problem as well with knobs being too close to the strings.  Strats are the worst for that.  Lol

Thanks man, it turned out pretty cool looking I think.  There seems a lot of chrome hardware on that axe so I figured mirror scratchplate would look great!  And I was right.