Building a parts Stratocaster and why you might do it...

Coming soon.....I'm getting to this if anyone's interested. I've owned a lot of Fender Strats over the years - some good some not so. I have two stratocasters at the moment and both were assembled by me from parts that I wanted to use. They're both superior to any Fender I've owned (including 2 '63 L series guitars) and cheaper to put together than a current Fender Deluxe. Go figure.

Current Equipment

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GTRS:
  • Gibson ES339 semi-acoustic with stock pickups (57 Classics)
  • Warmoth Stratocaster#1 - Black Korina body, all rosewood neck, Callaham bridge assembly with Stringsaver saddles, Sperzel locking tuners. Pickups: Seymour Duncan little '59 - neck, Seymour Duncan duckbucker - middle and Harmonic Design Z90 - bridge.
  • Warmoth Stratocaster#2 - Chambered swamp ash body, canary/pao ferro neck/fingerboard, Callaham bridge assembly with FerraGlide saddles, Schaller locking tuners, Bill Lawrence L280 pickups.
  • Midi equipped Line 6 Variax 300 guitar with Roland GR3 pickup going to Roland GI-20.
  • Line6 Variax 700 bass.
  • Yamaha FPX 300 acoustic/electric.
  • Ibanez acoustic/electric nylon strung.

AMPS:
  • Traynor Custom Valve 20 combo with 2xEL84 and 3x12 AX7 valves.
  • Crate V3112 30watt tube combo with 4xEL84 and 3x12 AX7 tubes.
  • Atomic Reactor112 18watt tube combo with 2xEL84 and one 12 AX7 tubes.
  • Crate V5 5watt tube combo with 1xEL84 and 1x12 AX7 tubes.

EFFECTS:
ProCo RAT2, VoodooLab Sparkle Drive, Carl Martin Hot Drive and Boost III,
2xMXR Dynacomp, 2xMXR EQ109, Boss RC20XL Loopsation, Line 6 DL4, 2x Lexicon MPX 100's, POD XT Live, TC Electronic NovaVerb and Nova Delay. BlueBird Tremolo, CryBaby 535 wha-wha and Ernie Ball volume pedal, Loop Master Triple Bypass looper and Wobo Dual bypass looper, PedalTrain board.

STRINGS ETC:
  • D'Addario EXL 115W for the Gibson
  • D'Addario EXL 110W for the Stratocasters
  • D'Addario EJ26 bronze (steel acoustics).
  • Various heavy picks - Fender, Tortex, Dunlop (1 to 1.5mm)
  • Shubb capos.

FOR RECORDING:
  • TC Electronic Konnekt24D, TC Konnekt 8 and Digidesign Mbox2 interfaces.
  • Shure, Blue, AKG and APEX microphones.
  • Logic Pro 8, Pro Tools 7.3 and Reason 3.5.
  • PSP, BFD2, Albino, Garritan, Line 6 Gearbox and other plug-ins.