Lowell George setup :: 2001 Fender Stratocaster [7.5 lbs]

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A 70's style Strat back in the shop to complete it's Lowell George-esque setup with a Tele bridge pickup and Alembic Blastor preamp.  Above the body is being routed out for a Seymour Duncan Tele bridge pickup.  I forgot to photo the method used to enlarge the bridge in the pickguard (yes, a Tele bridge pickup is bigger than a Strat pickup).  What I did was to take a Tele bridge, double-stick taped it to the pickguard and used a violin knife to pare away the excess.  It worked fairly well.

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The owner found a NOS original Blastor from the 1970's (not the newer Blaster / Strat-o-Blaster).  Pictured above is the back of the body is being routed out to accept a 9V battery box to power the Alembic preamp. A battery box is not required, but it's nice to have easy access.  You can install the battery under the pickguard but it can be a pain having to take off the pickguard for each battery change.  I would not install a battery box on a vintage instrument.  Also note that we ended up lowering the action at the nut considerably from last time it was in.

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Custom inlay & new frets :: 1982 Gibson SG R1 [8.0 lbs]

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A player's long-loved SG he named "Norah" in for new frets, new bone nut and dressed up with some fingerboard inlay.  Originally a dot neck, we decided to go with pearl blocks along with a custom "Norah" script designed by the player's friend, cut by Dave Nichols Custom Pearl Inlay and the easy part, dropped in the board by me (video here).

The guitar is set up for slide, strung with flats and tuned to open E.  I highly recommend trying flatwounds if you are into slide.  Sounds killer.

Follow up on this project's photos & videos here.

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New bone nut :: 2001 PRS Custom 22 [8.2 lbs]

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New bone nut :: 2001 PRS Custom 22 [8.2 lbs]

This early Y2K PRS was in for a new bone nut to improve the action for both slide and fretted playing.  The original graphite nut slots had worn down and made slide playing difficult, especially down low.

Slide only :: 2001 Fender Stratocaster [7.3 lbs]

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Slide only :: 2001 Fender Stratocaster [7.3 lbs]

Here was an interesting setup request.  This player wanted to set this 70's style Strat for slide only with no fretting.  A new bone nut was carved to both elevate the strings and flatten the string radius (meaning the strings do no follow the curvature of the fingerboard).  The saddles were also raised and the string radius flattened at the bridge end.  A maple block was fit to convert the floating bridge it to a hard tail.  To finish it off, the guitar was strung with flats.  This player is going for a Lowell George kind of setup, so we may end up installing an Alembic Stratoblaster preamp in the future.

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