Tylercaster B

I like this step. The neck needs a solid metal surface to receive the microtilt bolt that comes through the American Deluxe neck plate area. Since this is a more vintage style neck, I improvised with a couple of Forstner bits and a metal plug used for electrical boxes. It works great, and I did a much better job on this than my Telecaster earlier this year. I used this adjustment to tweak the Telecaster into a perfect neck angle so that my saddle and pickup heights were easy to get into line. It's good to have this on the Stratocaster because there will be a lot of setup as soon as the neck adjusts to having strings on it again.

Next goes some copper shielding. Shielding a guitar can be controversial because it can attenuate some high frequencies. However, I like to err on the side of quiet. I think 60-cycle hum is not acceptable. This guitar will be very quiet due to the cautious shielding and the Seymour Duncan stack pickups. Classic Stacks, STK-4s, are technically humbucking pickups made to look, fit, and sound like single coil pickups. The trade-off from true single coil sound is worth it to me. We are using copper foil tape for the cavity shielding. Here you can see Tyler soldering together the taped seams. This is not necessary for continuity, perhaps, but it also helps to lock things in very tight. I think this copper foil will still be hanging on in 50 years. The solder stiffens things, that's for sure. I also think the heat from the soldering station makes the glue on the tape adhere very securely.

Tyler is finishing up the layout of the wiring here. The controls are loaded onto the pickguard. Note that there is some shielding on this pickguard - that is from Fender. I think we changed things around a little bit after routing the wires this way. The 4-conductor wire that Seymour Duncan uses appears delicate, so this can be a little nerve wracking. The carpet on the dining room table here is what we now have in our stairway and upstairs hall. It's on the shaggy side which took some getting used to, especially on the
stairs. it does feel plush, though.

One of the things that Tyler wanted for this build was to have American parts (when available). So, when we stared talking about the bridge, tremolo, saddles, and block, I told him that what we needed was from Callaham Guitar parts in Winchester, Va. I have a lot of fond childhood memories of Winchester, so it's nice to know a piece of his guitar came from there. Oddly, they do not make a 2-pivot style bridge plate, so I needed to get that from another source. The trem-bar feels VERY secure in the block. It is the best I have ever felt. Thanks, Callaham. It may look like there is not much left. For the parts assembly, this is true. There will be a lot of setup issues over the next month, though.


--gh