A parts mustang!

Self built and self assembly ;)

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Thomas Hurst
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A parts mustang!

Post by Thomas Hurst »

Hi all, long time reader of the forums but first time poster.
I just recently finished up this parts mustang:

Image

Image

The pictures don't seem to do it justice, the yellow is really vibrant in person!

This is the seconds parts guitar I've done - I think I'm addicted!
I love the look of butterscotch yellow blackguard tele's, and was wanting something with strat pickups, so this was the result!

The parts:
The neck is from musikraft. 10' fretboard radius. Black binding too.
Body and pickguard are warmoth, with an extra hole routed for the middle pickup.
Regular ol' 5-way blade switch, with a stacked pot for tone and vol, along with two 3-way mustang switches for some fun wiring.
First time using a zero glide zero fret nut, which was a breeze to install, and certainly sounds great!
Also first time using the dunlop strap locks, the ones on here are the flush mount ones, which look, feel and work great!
The finish is from wudtone, it's a wipe on finish, and it came out absolutely perfect with the look and feel of the grain coming through the finish exactly how I wanted it. It's their butterscotch finish, with the aged satin top coat.
The tuners are Gotoh H.A.P.M locking, height adjustable tuners, which I must say have to be the best kluson style tuners I've ever used!
Pickups are ToneRider city limits pickups - under black, closed covers to keep the classic mustang look.

I've got a mastery bridge on the way to replace the mustang style bridge. I find that after coming from a tele, I miss the sustain. With the regular mustang style bridge only making body contact via two pinpoints for the height adjustment, it just lacks the sustain I want. Plenty of people seem to complain about the rocking design of offset bridges like these, but this setup has worked perfectly for me in terms of tuning stability, I'm just after more sustain.

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Re: A parts mustang!

Post by Lyle »

Nice! I like the black binding with the maple fretboard.

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Re: A parts mustang!

Post by Tiglitar »

Wow, that looks really nice!

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Re: A parts mustang!

Post by mr_sooty »

Very cool!

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Re: A parts mustang!

Post by jeremyb »

Extremely tasteful, the neck binding really looks great!!
Slowy wrote: That's the problem; everything rewarding is just such hard work. Regret takes much less effort.

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Re: A parts mustang!

Post by MikeC »

Great looking guitar - got a pic of that zero glide nut?
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Re: A parts mustang!

Post by bender »

Lovely!

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Re: A parts mustang!

Post by GrantB »

Welcome. Excellent entry. Tasteful execution.
"Man is the most insane species. He worships an invisible god and destroys a visible nature. Unaware that this nature he's destroying is this god he's worshipping." - Hubert Reeves

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Re: A parts mustang!

Post by StrummersOfThunder »

Wow. Welcome to the forum :)
I must say that is lovely. Agree with Grant, very well executed. Lovely looking guitar.
I do like mustangs. Personally I have owned one (a 65 I think it was).
You won't regret the mastery upgrade.
Also interested to hear your thoughts on the tone riders. Maybe a sound clip or two.
Great surf axe !

Thomas Hurst
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Re: A parts mustang!

Post by Thomas Hurst »

Hi all, thanks for the nice comments!

Here's a pic of the zero glide:
Image
The picture makes the neck look a little bit raw, but it actually looks lovely and feels great with about 6 or 7 coats of tung oil on it.
The zero glide nut was a breeze to install though, and feels great. String height is perfect, and I ordered a pack of stainless steel zero frets to match the stainless frets on the musikraft neck.

As for the pickups, I'm not too sure yet. Sometimes I find them okay, sometimes I hate them. I'm undecided as of yet. I think a lot of it has a bit to do with me not being a strat guy. I love the tele snap and particularly for the bridge pickup, it's just not there for this guitar. It doesn't have enough grunt or snap to it. I also find these pickups to be a bit unclear compared to my old tele. But anyways, here's a link to soundcloud with some examples of some of the pickup positions:
https://soundcloud.com/user-599473311/s ... tars-forum
All recordings going through my hx stomp, with a strymon volante and sunset. Love the AC30 fawn amp model in the stomp!!!

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Re: A parts mustang!

Post by Thomas Hurst »

Just a quick update on this:
Recently installed a mastery bridge, and some new Lace Sensor Hot Gold pickups. The mastery being about a month ago and the lace sensors only the other day.
Firstly, good grief what a difference the mastery made! Tuning stability on the guitar was fine if I used the vibrato lightly, but if I really hammered it, it would go out of tune. The mastery bridge certainly corrected that, it also made intonation an absolute breeze. Most importantly for me though, it made the thing come alive! Gosh the sustain and volume it added is insane. It was well worth the cost.
The lace sensors too, amazing. The tone is just unreal. I can't even begin to describe how much better they sound than the tonerider pickups that used to be in there. No words.

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Re: A parts mustang!

Post by Slowy »

Redo those clips you recorded. It'll be interesting to compare them. :D
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Re: A parts mustang!

Post by StrummersOfThunder »

Mastery is the only option. That's why I have four of them

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Re: A parts mustang!

Post by StratMatt »

Not sure how I missed this the first time around, but you've done a great job of that. Wish I had more time and money to put partscasters together.
Loving it so far

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