More Lefty-Righty Silliness!
The next logical progession in the saga of the "lefty-righty" madness was to build a better axe with the same design parameters. This time, I wanted to REALLY go for a look - and for me, one of the greatest "classic" Hendrix-looking Strats was the white maple-necked Strat Jimi played at Woodstock. I think it's the one all the "official reissues" want to be. And, just because that's the kind of guy I am, I had to name it - and came up with "Jimi's WoodStick" - alright now, stop that groaning!
Summer 2001:
My ol' pal Sherman Tate (CST Custom Guitars) was so intrigued by this project that I believe he spent days working out a template for the lefty-righty thang. In the summer of 2001, he sent me the body you see here, which has the left-hand silhouette and pup routs, but right-hand bridge and jack mounts. It has no control routing, at my request.
I originally asked for it with no "tummy cuts" or contours, but after hanging a picture of Jimi with the guitar I wish to emulate in my office, and seeing it every day for a year or so, I came to the conclusion that to get the right mojo it was gonna need at least some of the contours of the original. So, while I had the ol' belt sander out for another project, summer of 2002, I took a whack at the back of the body and did the left-hand tummy cut, and then added a right-hand tummy cut of my own.
Summer 2002:
The pickguard again was ordered from Warmoth, with pup holes ONLY. I believe I will probably use the same control layout as on the "Purple Haze," but I didn't want to burn any bridges - it's possible I could see or devise something that I liked even better before I got to that point in the assembly, and then I'd have to start over. I have the dual concentric pot(s) as used on the "Purple Haze," ordered from Stewart-MacDonald. I had to buy TWO sets of 3x3 tuners for it, as Stewmac are no longer are stocking left handed sets. Bummer!
September 2002:
I really wanted a neck with the bigger "CBS" style headstock for this one, but came upon this MightyMite neck that was right for me in every other respect, and for about half what the "big head" one would have cost me, so I settled. It's a small compromise... and I can always swap it out later.
So now, the only hardware I'm short are the switches and pickups.
Ah, the pickups... a lot of thought required there. If money were no object, I believe I would go with Seymour Duncan's best "vintage" tone pups - that's what this is kinda all about. But, if money really WERE no object, I'd have somebody else building this! If something else doesn't come up, I think at this point I am leaning towards the StewMac vintage set. I can get all three pups for about the price of a single Seymour Duncan...
FEB 2003:
I got a set of Rio Grande pups for my AmStd - their "Dual Calibrated" set - from my e-pal
WrongDog (aka Scott Douglas) over on the Silvertone/Danelectro Forum. Nice pups! The neck is big ol' classic Strat, the middle pup has its own chimey-charm, and the bridge pup is a MONSTER. So, that frees up the genuine Fender pups out of the AmStd for the WoodStick. Hey, that'll do, for starters...
Now I just gotta get off my butt and get out the drill and dremil tool to rout out the cavities for the vol/tone pot and the switches, do the Olympic White finish thing, and put it all together!
July 2003:
My e-pal Randy Ackley sent me a note that sez he noticed that the project seemed to have stalled again, but that he had something that might jump-start it: a MusiKraft BIG ol' CBS-style headstock lefty Strat neck! We swapped necks for the MightyMite I had, a few Chromies and other considerations... He was right, the day I got his neck, I started in on it again. The nastiest chore, which I had been putting off since I got the body, was to tweak out the neck pocket to fit - it just wasn't right from day one. Finally having the "right" neck got me going on it. An hour or so and I had a fit I could live with for the MusiKraft neck.
I was inspired to drop all the pieces on the floor and take a look at how it was coming along... Here it is with Randy's neck, the Warmoth pickguard, AllParts bridge and StewMac output jackplate.
SPECS: ...so far!
Body: Solid ash, custom built by CST Customs
Neck: MusiKraft 22 fret, left-handed, w/"CBS" Headstock
Bridge: AllParts-type vintage vibrato, right-handed
Pickups: Genuine 2001 Fender AmStd pups (Delta-tones)
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