Faker Startocaster

Finally!  It lives!

Actually, I’ve been a bit slack; it’s been alive for the last month or so…

I was down to play Dire Straits’ “Sultans of Swing” at the annual UKMG National in Buxton and *really* needed a Strat.  So, with only the wiring and a setup to do, I dedicated a couple of hours one evening and…

<fanfare>TA-DA!!!!!!</fanfare>

Well, it’s a Strat – what did you expect?  “Three single-coil pickups and a whammy bar,” to quote Tia Carrere in “Wayne’s World”.  Although I’ve made a couple of additional tweaks:

• Bridge pickup is also connected to the middle- tone control, to enable me to tame the highs a bit.
• Middle/Bridge tone control has a push/pull switch to add the middle pickup in series to the bridge or neck pickup (positions 1 and 5) and route the signal via an additional capacitor for a tone roll-off (positions 2, 3 and 4)

So, am I pleased?  You betcha!  The neck has a 12″ radius, so there’s no choking on bends.  The Fender Tex-Mex pickups are really “Stratty”, as you’d expect, with plenty of bite from the bridge and quack in the “inbetween” positions.  I’m also dead chuffed with the shielding… This thing is bereft of interference; even playing in a room with two dimmer switches.

A couple of videos of me playing “No 1.”, as she’ll no doubt be called, are already on YouTube:

Sultans of Swing (unrehearsed!)

 I Wish I Knew How (It Would Feel To Be Free) – unrehearsed (and it shows!)

So what’s next?  Well, I’ve got a Squier Stratocaster and a few tins of nitrocellulose in the garage…