Electric guitar #2
The starting point
I
just bought this Excel strat via internet. It´s a typical cheap chinese
stratocaster copy, not common here in Finland but more popular in USA
and UK I think. I am pretty sure I´m just second owner because the
guitar came in original box with unused looking gigbag. It looks like
it hasn´t been played much (little wear marks on frets) which is no wonder
since this guitar really sucks! It´s totally unplayable in this
condition - strings are way too high and intonation is terrible.
Other problems: sticky stuff on the neck (like some glue residue from
tape?), missing trem bar and strap button, loose jack plate (someone
has over-tightened the screws and they´re not holding any more, same
problem with one screw at the back cover). Dirty fretboard.
Positive: body and neck look ok except for one small dent in the neck.
Electrics work nicely and unplugged sound is decent, I didn´t find any
dead spots.
This should be a fun project, I´m pretty confident that I can turn this
piece of junk into a quite playable guitar. We´ll see how much work it
takes...
Basic fixing
I
started with the neck. This is the stuff I used: Zippo fluid, steel
wool, gunstock oil (like Tru-Oil), masking tape, pieces of old T-shirt
and "Scotch-Brite".
First I covered the edges of fingerboard with tape and rubbed the neck
with scotch-brite. Personally I don´t like gloss lacquer finish on
necks, they feel sticky. This treatment gives the neck a satin finish
and it´s very easy and safe compared to sandpaper.
Next I covered the whole fingerboard with tape between frets and
polished them with steel wool. 0000 grade would be best I guess, but I
have just 000. That´s ok if you are carefull.
After removing all tape I cleaned the fretboard with zippo-fluid. Then
I applied oil and let it rest for 5-10 minutes before wiping the
fretboard dry. I was extra carefull to dry areas close to the frets to
avoid oil creeping under frets and loosing them over time.
The
string tree is a basic "butterfly" model and luckily it already had a
spacer. I used fine sandpaper to polish surfaces that are in contact
with strings. You can see the difference in the picture.
Factory had left the neck pocket very rough. I used a piece of
sandpaper over a small block of wood to smooth it a little to get a
better contact between body and neck.
I was not happy with the wiring - factory had not shortened the pickup
wires and shielded wire was not used for output jack connection. After
fixing those problems the wiring looks much neater and it´s easier to
attach the pickguard. I also made the "Eric Johnson" mod to tone
controls. Now the upper tone pot works in neck and neck & middle
positions, lower pot in bridge and bridge & middle positions.
I solved the loose jackplate problem by replacing the screws with
longer ones. Finally I installed "new" (second hand) strap buttons,
again using longer screws to make sure they´ll hold.
Setup
These
are the tools I used (a screwdriver is not in the picture): rulers,
welding tip cleaners, feeler gauge set, hex keys for saddles and truss
rod and a pencil to lubricate nut.
I did the setup in usual order. Truss rod, nut, string height, intonation and pickup height.
There was too much neck relief. I made a small adjustment at time and
left the neck settle down overnight. I had to repeat that 4-5 times but
I was in no hurry. I left just a little bow because that´s how I like
it.
Otherwise the setup was very straightforward. The only surprise
(positive one!) was that all frets were nicely in level. I had expected
to do some fretwork.
Now I can actually play this guitar! The bridge is still an issue but
I´ll have to wait until I find a fitting trem bar. Now the tremolo is
"blocked" by over-tight springs.
Bridge
I didn´t like the original cheapo bridge. Luckily I found a replacement
from internet, a Fender PW-29 with a big block. Second hand but looks
like new after some cleaning and I got it at very reasonable price. It
came without a trem bar but I had one with a fitting thread (metric 5
mm).
The body of this guitar seems to be thinner than the real thing. The
bottom part of the bridge protrudes from the back a little. I made a
frame from thin plywood to work as a spacer. Using that I was able to
fit the back cover. I set up the bridge as dive-only (not free
floating). That way it´s easier to use different tunings.
Master volume master tone mod
I just couldn´t get used to the awkward placement of the volume pot.
The easy solution was to remove the "upper" tone pot and move the
volume pot there. I can live without two tone controls. I made a
removeable cover from white plastic to hide the extra hole.
©Jukka Korppi 2015
