Polishing a Turd, 2013 Edition.

[phaeton]

Or, "oops, I did it again".

Or, "Throwing good money after bad".  Here's the Summer Project:

 

 

 

$79, sold as "used" and as you can see it's still got all the plastic on it.  Odd, because the serial number decodes to the Indonesian Cort factory in 2008.  Maybe it's another "bought a guitar, strummed it 3 times, put it in the closet for 5 years" sort of thing.  I didn't ask.  Was told over the phone it is "flat red not metallic" but it is most certainly metallic red, which was somewhat of a pleasant surprise. It's also got the regular "small" strat headstock, not the big fat CBS one that people either love or hate.  Maybe this means it's the alder Affinity that's sold separately, instead of the agathis one that's sold in the Paks.  The pickups are weirdly imbalanced- the bridge single is really weak and the neck is sofa king loud.  Adjusting the heights didn't help.  Doesn't matter though, they're getting swapped for a pair of humbuckers soon.

 

So...The guitar last summer got Dragonfire Screamer humbuckers (hot vintage) in it, this one is likely going to get Phat Screamers (hot modern).  I'm going to wire this one up with a 5-way Super Switch so I can do series/parallel options on each set of humbucker coils.  Yet, part of me almost wants to just go one humbucker, one volume and say {censored} all the other tricks, it's Metal Thrashin' Mad Time.  :robotmad:

 

I was thinking black pickups on a black pickguard, but Dragonfire also has red/black zebra pickup combinations..  What do y'all think?

 

 

[*BLEEP*]

 

Was this last year's project guitar?  

 

 

 

[phaeton]

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*BLEEP* wrote:

 

Was this last year's project guitar?  

 

 

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No, that was the girlfriend.  She didn't work out so well, so she got ground up and turned into soup.  This is the previous year:

 

[mschafft]

What's your opinion about the blackface hh strat pickups?

[humbuckerstrat]

Happy New Cheap Axe Day! 

[phaeton]

 

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mschafft wrote:

 

What's your opinion about the blackface hh strat pickups?

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You mean the ones I put in that black Squier?  I really like the bridge pickup for distorted rock n roll.  It's wound to 16.9K so it's pretty hot.  It has that nice 'square' tone for aggressive power chords.  I've heard these compared to Dimarzio X2Ns and Seymore Duncan JBs, but I'm not personally familiar with those pickups.  With these I can go into my Laney or Reverend and dial that classic "LP into Marshall" type sound from the 70s and 80s pretty easily.  That's what I wanted.

The neck pickup (8.3K) does that same thing LPs do with distortion, where it sounds as if the tone is rolled off all the time.  I'm a little less happy with the neck pickup, but I don't use it much in this guitar.  Played clean, both pickups are really warm.  I'm often tempted to boost the treble in that case.  The guitar itself is a little dark sounding so that has some affect to it.

I had never really messed around with swapping pickups before so that was my first experience.  For the $50 or so I spent on a prewired pickguard I am really happy.  I've seen a lot of threads in a lot of places where some people love the Screamers and other don't like them.  Like anything else, I suppose it's all situational.

That said, ever since I put those pickups in this guitar, it's the one I pick up 99% of the time to play and I have 6 others to choose from.

[JoeBoy]

I just ordered a Loaded guard from DF. Same config. It is going into a Lace Huntington. I just dropped another DF loaded HB P90 into another Lace Huntington and love it. Great stuff for little money. I have a 3rd Huntington that may get a DF mod also.