Take A Breath

Well, it seems I am going to have to take a little break from building my "Blackie" for now, as September has arrived and on Tuesday 18th I have my induction evening at college, for my HNC in Computing.

The course fees are £650 per year which is going to mean my small wage-packet must be stretched even further. This doesn't mean I giving up though, oh no!

When I can, I'll purchase the neck and pickups, the 2 most expensive parts I still need. I also need smaller things like some replacement bridge screws, shortened tremolo arm, pickup screws, neckplate screws, strap buttons, the "magic" toggle switch and white covers for the volume/tone & pickup selector switches.

This could well be my last entry for a while, but updates will be placed on my MySpace blog.

The Sum Of The Parts

The picture to the left shows some of the components that have recently arrived. They are: the scratchplate (1ply, like Gilmour's), output socket / jack, the David Gilmour neckplate as mentioned in the previous entry and the electronics pack - which includes a 5-way switch, 3 pots (for the tone and volume controls), a capacitor and some wire.

I still need to by knobs and a tip for the 5-way switch as well as some soldering equipment (which was going to be this one from Amazon, but they're currently not selling them). But all these electronic components are pretty useless until I get the pickups.

I have also purchased some other small things like screws for the scratchplate and (seeing as I bent one of the bridge screws) a new set of bridge screws.

The next item to buy will (probably) be the neck, I'm trying to find a good Fender maple neck on eBay, but failing that I may have to go for a replica neck and Fender decals, which is cheating, but Gilmour did it in the 80s...

As usual, I don't know when the next entry will come, probably when more parts come I suppose. If you want to know when I make my next post here, check out my MySpace where I put links to this blog.

Burning Bridges

As you can see from the picture, I have fitted the bridge to my Stratocaster, at the moment it has three springs but I am thinking of putting an extra one in. The bridge cost me £33.33 plus a little postage & packing cost all the way from Arizona USA.

It appears to be a genuine Fender bridge as it "Fender" wherever there's room to fit it. I rather suprised myself when I didn't cock it up and ruin it, which would have pissed me off no end.

I actually purchased the bridge on August 13th but it's taken a while to get here, since then I have also purchased a David Gilmour neckplate, a wiring kit for a Stratocaster, a black scratchplate and a black backplate - only the David Gilmour neckplate has arrived so far.

Music From The Body

Hello again, firstly I'd like to begin by answering a question someone left as a comment here: No I am not the Doctor from the Podcast, I am actually the Doctor.... the real one.

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Now, more about my Stratocaster; I have purchased the first major component of the guitar, the body! It's a custom black body with a Nitro finish which cost me £125 on eBay, it looks exactly the same as Gilmour's as far as I can see.

I haven't yet looked into getting the pick-ups but I'll probably be getting 3 Gilmour-style SD's along with the famous "Gilmour Magic Switch" allowing both neck and bridge pickups to be used together, a feature not included on standard Fender Stratocasters.

As before I must not forget to thank pinkfloydfan1 for his help.

Alonsy!

On An Island

I have been going into this project totally blind. I have never built a guitar before, and I keep hitting brick walls. I seem to be stuck on an island, all alone.

But, one person has helped me quite alot, someone by the name of pinkfloydfan1 on the Pink Floyd Online forum, who's helped me in choosing my pickups and body.

I have decided that the pickups will all be Seymore Duncans - more specifically - David Gilmour Custom Shop models, which pinkfloydfan1 tells me, costs $300 - and at the time of writing this, is about £145.