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THE BLACK STRAT PROJECT
After playing various guitars for many years I decided Fender Strats were my favorites, and the guitars I played the most often. They are the most comfortable to play and have a very versitile sound. I liked different elements from each of my Fenders, but I really wanted one that had everything I liked in one guitar, and that “David Gilmour“ tone, so I set out to assemble one on my own. I love the look of David's famous Black Strat - black body and black pickguard - and my first strat was all black, so I wanted to keep that look. I like “C” shaped strat necks, but I like the feel and tone I get from the maple neck on my Fender telecaster a bit better than the rosewood necks on my Strats, so I wanted a maple neck/fretboard. Gilmour has used both, but his Black Strat currently has a maple fretboard with a C shaped neck. For pickups, I have used bluesy sounding SCN (Samarium Cobalt Noisless) pups and Gold Lace Sensors in the past, but I wanted to try some more vintage sounding neck and middle pups, and a hotter bridge pup closer to what Gilmour uses. I liked the bluesy Gilmour sounding SCN neck pup in my crimson Deluxe Strat, and I got a similar neck sound to Gilmour from the lace sensor neck pup in my 80's black strat, but they were not dead on Gilmour sounding. Below is what I did to make the new strat, step-by-step. A great resource on building your own Gilmourized Black Strat is www.gilmourish.com, or you could just buy one of the Fender Signature Series David Gilmour Black Strat replicas Fender produced in 2008.
PHOTOS OF THE VARIOUS INCARNATIONS OF GILMOUR'S BLACK STRAT
I used a Fender American Standard neck and body, purchased online, instead of a Classic or Vintage series Fender that is closer to Gilmour's, simply because the Standard is similar to the Deluxe Strat and Strat Plus that I have been playing for years, both with the two point bridge. I also prefer the “C” shaped neck with 22 frets rather than the skinny “V” necks with 21 frets on the older guitars and re-issues. I could have used a Fender Deluxe strat with better bridge and trem parts, but it was less expensive to get a Standard and buy replacement after-market parts. If you want more of a “vintage looking” Black Strat, go with a Fender Classic 50s series (Mexican ior Japanese made) or a Fender American Vintage '57 Series guitar, which has a tinted coating to resemble that yellow-aged nitrocellulose finish. Gilmour's Black Strat has a 1969 alder body with a 1983 '57 re-issue 21 fret maple neck, C-shaped with a 7.25 neck radius.
LEFT TO RIGHT - Fender Classic Series, Fender American Vintage Series, Fender American Standard, Fender David Gilmour Signature Series replica (NOS version)
THE REAL BLACK STRAT OWNED BY DAVID GILMOUR (photos stolen from Phil Taylor's excellent book, The Black Strat)
I purchased a black 3 ply acrylic pickguard, back cover, and “vintage” white pickup covers, knobs, trem tip, and switch tip from Guitar Parts Resource (www.guitarpartsresource.com). I could not find an all black pick guard and back cover in stock, so I dyed the white edges black with several passes of a permanent black Sharpie Magnum marker. The Magnum seems to be a different fomula than a standard Sharpie marker. Seems tacky, but once dry it is not sticky, does not come off, and if you use even passes it looks great. David's guitar has a 1 ply, all black acrylic pickguard with rounded and polished edges and 11 holes.
The tuning machines on David's headstock are vintage Gotoh machines. I bought a set of current “vintage” Gotoh tuners on ebay to replace the American standard tuners, but I ended up leaving the standards on. They are very similar working tuning machines, and unless you like the look of the vintage style, and the vintage style slotted tops, there is no reason to change. I am too used to the standard machines with the hole in the post so I left these alone. Here are pix of the Gotohs.
I replaced the saddles and tremolo block with a Callaham made 2-point syncronized bridge and saddles (www.callahamguitars.com). Callaham also makes vintage 6-point bridges if you prefere those. The stock Fender saddles are made with the string holes a bit too short and don't carry the string vibrations as well as the Callahams, which are solid steel, bent and folded to shape. The better saddles improve the tone and sustain. David's bridge is a vintage style 6-point syncronized tremolo with vintage saddles.
I like my strings and tremolo bar VERY “squishy”, as in not tight, so I only use two or three tremolo springs on my strats to cut the spring tension, which in turn causes the string tension to pull the bridge plate way up. This is a “floating bridge”. Gilmour typically used three springs, and while his bridge was a “floating” type, in most photos I see it rests fairly close to the body. Gilmour stated in a the January 2009 issue of Guitar Player that his current strat bridge is non floating. If you watch him playing in the 2006 RTN DVD, he does not seem to use the trem as much as he did in the '80s and '90s. In theory, you will get more sustain if the bridge plate is flat, or resting on the body, due to the increased resonance of the strings vibrating through the guitar body, but it can also make the sound thin or tinny on some strats. I say “in theory” because I get plenty of sustain and my bridge is nowhere near flat. I keep the “2-point” screws that the bridge pivots on low, so the front of the brideg is flush with the guitar body. If your strat is a six point, you may want to raise the four inner screws a bit if you want a floating bridge. Most people will want to have the back of the bridge plate no more than 3mm (1/8“) off the guitar body for a floating bridge. Mine is around 6mm (1/4”). I screw the spring plate in farther to tighten the two springs more. It is a balancing act between the string tension and the spring tension. I jack the string height up with the saddle screws to compensate for having only a few springs. Doing this I can get the saddles back parallel with the guitar body and stay in tune. When I set the strings up high the Fender saddle screws go crooked because the threading is not done very well. Callahams are a bit better. I used a Callaham trem block instead of the Fender because it is cut from solid metal, not cast like the Fender. This allows more resonance from the strings and increases the sustain. I had to drill out the wood in the trem cavity a bit so I could press the trem bar all the way down without the Callaham block hitting wood inside. Callaham blocks are not beveled on the back side to allow this like the fender block, but they also have more dense solid metal than a Fender. If you like to be able to drop your trem arm all the way down so the strings go slack (Gilmour does this at the end of All Lovers Are Deranged), you may have to remove some wood here, as I have done. I used a sanding bit on my hand held Dremel to route out the wood inside the block hole.
I cut my tremolo (or whammy) arm short, about 133mm (5 1/4“), to fit in my palm when playing. My first guitar was already set up like this, so I have always shortened them, and Gilmour does too. If it is the right length you can grasp it with your pinky and third finger while holding the pick with your other two and it does not interfere with normal playing like a longer stock trem arm will. If you do this, check where your hand normally rests over the pickups when you play and measure the trem arm from the bend almost to the center of your palm to see how far to shorten it.
Unscrew the plastic trem tip from the bar and mark you distance, but add 6mm (1/4”) to what you measured to compensate for the plastic tip length. Lock the arm in a vice but be sure to wrap the arm in a piece of leather, rubber, or rag so the vixe does not scratch it. You can cut it with a steel saw, or use a Dremel tool or similar handheld device (wear eye protection!). I used a steel disk cutter on a Dremel tool. I also ground the sharp edges down after the cut with a sanding bit. You won't have any threads to screw the plastic tip back on after cutting it short, but you can glue it back on with a good epoxy, or heat the end of the trem arm with a flame for a minute, then push the tip back on tight. I put a small spring in the bottom of my trem arm hole to prevent it from screwing in too low in the Callaham block. That adds to resistance and helps keep the bar from coming loose over time. Don't use a spring that is too large or it can jam in the screw threads and strip them. I also bent my trem arm up a bit in a vice to keep it roughly parallel with the guitar body bacause my floating bridge is angled high, but most people will not need to do this. Be aware that most trem arms are hardened steel, so if you do re-bend, do it slowly or you may risk breaking the bar.
I wanted to replace the weak sounding Fender standard pickups with more Gilmour sounding pups. I bought Fender Custom Shop '69s for the neck and middle positions and a Seymour Duncan SSL-5 in the bridge position. Gilmour currently uses original late '60s Fender pups in his neck and middle positions, and a custom wound Seymour Duncan SSL-1 pup in the bridge position. He also has used a DiMarzio FS-1 bridge pup from 1976-1978. I opted to use the SSL-5 because I have read it is close to the custom SSL-1 he uses currently, and it is also the pup used in the Fender Black Strat replica. It is a very “hot” sounding pup. You could also use Fender Fat '50s or CS '54 pups in the neck and middle positions. They are in the same family as the CS '69, but each sounds slightly different. The Fender Signature Series Black Strat is made with custom would fat '50s in the neck and mid. I found the CS '69 pickups at Musician's Friend (www.musiciansfriend.com). Other sites had them for less money, but Musicians Friend was the only place found that actually stocked them. The best price I found for the the SSL-5 pup was at Music Power (www.musicpower.com).
I knew these single coil pups were going to pick up a lot more RF noise than the noiseless pups I was used to so I decided to shield the guitar. I shielded the inside body cavity with adhesive backed copper foil and used shielded wire for the ground wires from Stewart Macdonald (www.stewmac.com) to reduce the unwanted noise that single coil pickups seem to gather. I first removed the whole pickguard and unsoldered the ground wire that was welded to the spring claw and the two wires soldered to the jack plate (remember which goes where!) so I could work on the guitar body without worrying it, or the pickguard would get scratched.
I had to get a good soldering iron, a Weller Therma Boost TB100 from Lowes, and supplies - rosin-core solder, solder remover wick, wire clamps, and a damp sponge. I had to learn to solder, which took some practice, but it was worth it. Simple lessons can be found on the web. Don't get a dirt cheap, low wattage iron. You need at least 30W to solder and 100-130W to heat up the big grounding solders already on the pots and spring clip so you can remove the wires. The Weller does both wattages and it is only about $20. If you have never soldered before, mess around with some scrap wire and scrap metal parts to get used to soldering before you try it on your guitar, and also learn to de-solder, using the soldering braid to heat and soak up solder after you have applied it.
I got a standard strat wiring diagram online from Seymour Duncan's website reference in case I could not remember what wires went where. I had already removed the whole pickguard and unsoldered the ground wire that was welded to the spring claw and the two wires soldered to the jack plate (remember which goes where!) so I could work on the copper shielding previously. I used an old towel to cover parts of the guitar and pickguard where I was soldering to prevent any solder splash onto the finish. I unsoldered everything I needed to replace, removed the old pickups, installed the new ones, and then resoldered all the wires. The Seymour Duncan should be installed with the two wires soldered to the reverse position of the standard Fender bridge pickup (reverse of what the SD diagram I have here shows as well). This is because SSL-5 is wound reverse of a standard pickup. I replaced the grounding wires with good shielded wire I bought from www.stewmac.com. I also removed the ground loops from the volume pot to the two tone pots, as I have read on a few websites that these loops are not necessary and can produce noise. I kept the 250K pots that were already in the stock strat as they seemed fine. I have not decided if I will do the Gilmour toggle switch mod, adding a switch to combine the neck pickup in pickup position 1,2, or 3. I'm not sure I would ever use it.
The Black Strat was a rewarding project to do and this guitar has become my favorite strat. It plays and sounds incredible, and I feel it is much more “my” guitar, having assembled it myself, rather than buying a Fender Signature Series Custom Shop replica for over double what this cost me. This strat was completed in 2008.
PHOTOS OF THE FINISHED BLACK STRAT