Your 'Weapons of Choice' for today....[pics preferred]

Today is Hojicha-Burst Day :thumb:

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Expert Iliad HCB

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Expert Odyssey HCB
 
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Brand new Sonic Blue S I finished painting and putting together today. It currently has Fender Custom Shop Texas Specials, 250k volume, a 500k No load tone pot and a normal 500k tone pot. Gotoh vintage-style 6 in line tuners. CRL 5 way switch. Flamed, 'roasted maple' neck with dark brown rosewood fretboard.

Supposed to be stainless steel frets. Not sure about that yet. They aren't oxidized one bit so I'm guessing they are 🤷 This guitar is easily in the running for my best guitar. I put quite a bit of $ in it. Right at $700 for just the body, neck, paint, and pickups. Nothing else. And not just because of that. It's actually turning out to be a good instrument. Not nearly as light as I expected. It's more than my 6.2lb Silvertone and I was expecting it to be less.




It sounds 10x better than either of my Silvertones. IMO, well worth the time and money I put into it. I need to refinish it though. It got some sort of surface contamination between the 2nd and 3rd coats of clear. I stopped at 3, when I saw this. It's dust and/or dirt, I'm guessing.

So I'm going to sand it back with 600 and respray it in a few weeks with blue and clear. You can see what look like shadows on the lower part of the guitar. That's the stuff I'm referring to.

Man I really like this guitar! Currently waiting on some parts, still. The new 250k pots came in today and I'm waiting on:

- a Fender Pure Vintage 1 ply mint green pickgiard,

- a Fender American Vintage 60s 3 ply mint green pickguard,

- some mint green pickup covers and knobs,

- Fender jack plate

- Fender Pure Vintage trem claw and springs

Maybe something else I'm forgetting
 
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*Warning! Novel ahead!*

😆

New pic. Got the jack plate replaced. That was a fiasco. The cable wouldn't go all the way in with it installed. So I took a Dremel with a sanding drum on it and sanded out an area inside the hole to make more room for the jack.

Still waiting on the new mint green pickguard and pickup covers to come in. Then I'll be wiring up that pickguard with new 250k pots. They all measure between 239k and 242k. Not bad! Until then, it still has 250k vol, 500k no load middle tone and 500k bridge tone. Those were all I had at the time and I wanted to play it!

Hopefully those will all be here tomorrow. I have a CRL 5 way and new, longer pickup height screws to install, also. Man, this thing is NICE. EASILY one of my 2 best guitars and possibly the best one I own, now. If I had this guitar from the beginning, I might actually be a Strat guy instead of a Les Paul guy. If I had this from the beginning, I might not have bought any more guitars lol. Yes, it's that great.

And the best part is I went into this with only 1 simple expectation: to, have a playable guitar when I was done. Tbh, I figured it was going to be a dud. So I wasn't in a huge hurry to get done. It's not a dud lol.

Like I posted at another forum, it's like this guitar is in high definition while my Silvertone S-styles are in Standard Definition. Or like it has Dolby Atmos and they don't lol. It sounds that much better than they do. And this is before I ever plug it into an amplifier! I'm still shocked and surprised every time I play it. This thing rocks.
 
Wound_Up said:
View attachment 2401

*Warning! Novel ahead!*

😆

New pic. Got the jack plate replaced. That was a fiasco. The cable wouldn't go all the way in with it installed. So I took a Dremel with a sanding drum on it and sanded out an area inside the hole to make more room for the jack.

Still waiting on the new mint green pickguard and pickup covers to come in. Then I'll be wiring up that pickguard with new 250k pots. They all measure between 239k and 242k. Not bad! Until then, it still has 250k vol, 500k no load middle tone and 500k bridge tone. Those were all I had at the time and I wanted to play it!

Hopefully those will all be here tomorrow. I have a CRL 5 way and new, longer pickup height screws to install, also. Man, this thing is NICE. EASILY one of my 2 best guitars and possibly the best one I own, now. If I had this guitar from the beginning, I might actually be a Strat guy instead of a Les Paul guy. If I had this from the beginning, I might not have bought any more guitars lol. Yes, it's that great.

And the best part is I went into this with only 1 simple expectation: to, have a playable guitar when I was done. Tbh, I figured it was going to be a dud. So I wasn't in a huge hurry to get done. It's not a dud lol.

Like I posted at another forum, it's like this guitar is in high definition while my Silvertone S-styles are in Standard Definition. Or like it has Dolby Atmos and they don't lol. It sounds that much better than they do. And this is before I ever plug it into an amplifier! I'm still shocked and surprised every time I play it. This thing rocks.
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Why use a 90° cable end on that guitar ?
 
My IYV don’t remember the model name but if I could only keep one out of over fifty guitars this probably would be it.IMG_0428.jpeg
 
Eddd said:
You could always just switch ends unless they are both 90’s.
Click to expand...

Both 90s.

Still playing the Sonic Blue Strat. Probably will be for a while. This thing is killer. I got the right cable out for it, too, @BGood 😆😉😁. I'm a firm believer in using these "quiet" cables that go quiet when you unplug. They also don't pop when you plug in.

The 90* is a D'addario 'Circuit Breaker' cable and the other is a Mogami with a Neutrik 'Silent Plug' that automatically goes quiet when you unplug. The D'addario has a button. I prefer the automatic Neutrik jack.


I swapped a mint green pickguard on last night along with a new CRL 5 way and 3 new 250k pots in place of 250k/500k/500k pots and wired it all up.

I believe I'm going to swap the two 500k tone pots I removed for the 250k's back into the guitar. It sounded better that way, IMO. It had a no load 500k on the middle pickup and regular 500k tone pot on the bridge.

Yes these are both the same pickguard.
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