Hot Rodding a Fernandes

[D-log]

I got this cool Fernandes FR-55 off Craigslist a while back (For $50, I figured it was worth the risk):

 

 

After a quick setup and a new pair of strings, I was quite impressed. hard, aggressive tone to it and the neck plays nice and fast. I wasn't to sure about the black on black color scheme, but it's grown on me a little. Of course, it did have it's flaws:

 

1. The spring tree and nut clamps are missing

2. the humbucker was a little rusty (though it didn't affect the tone)

3. I'm still not exactly digging the fender type control knobs

4. The volume and tone were a bit limited

5. The Floyd Rose bridge was quite rusty and missing the tremolo arm

 

I put this off to the side for a little bit, but now that I'm back to modding guitars, I've decided to get the ball rolling on this one. I found an out of box Floyd Rose at GC for $15 (mainly because it was just the bridge and all other parts were missing, minus the arm) and solved my inadequate bridge problem (nice and shiny too ). Yesterday, I brought her down to my workbench and got to soldering in a new humbucker and electronics. It took roughly about an hour to do (mainly due to not following the wiring diagram properly ), but I have to say I'm very pleased with the results:

 

 

I put in a Seymour Duncan parallel axis trembucker, put in a 500K push/pull pot that puts the pickup in series, and replaced the tone control with a Torres Engineering super mid-range. After testing it out through my Marshall, I'm very pleased with the results: The parallel axis has a nice bite to it (especially in the mids) and sounds downright harsh when in series. The mid-range control is awesome (I prefer these to standard tone control's anyways). Being able to scoop and boost mids from your guitar is a feature that's vastly underrated.

 

All that being said, I'm still not done. I'm going to buy a string retainer and nut clamps fore the neck, but I was looking for some input on a few questions I had:

 

Should I leave on the fender knobs or change them (I was thinking about standard silver barrel knobs if I do change)?

 

What kind of string tree did Fernandes use on their guitars? Also,, does anyone know where I can find just the nut clamps for sale?

 

Thank you. BTW, please leave your feedback on my modding, I want to know what you think of it.

[jr_vw2]

Sweet dude do you have a link for that mid control you used? I would like to read up on it.

 

As for knobs I would go either chrome barrel or black Gibson style speed knobs (not the bell knobs).

[D-log]

Sweet dude do you have a link for that mid control you used? I would like to read up on it. As for knobs I would go either chrome barrel or black Gibson style speed knobs (not the bell knobs).

 

Sure thing: http://torresengineering.com/torsupmid.html

 

They make a cheaper version that just cuts the mids as well, but i prefer to be able to boost them.