This is the story of a remodel of a custom “FrankenStrat” made for me back in the early 2000s by good friend and former guitar student, Jon Filomeno, of Muncie IN.
The remodel took over two years to complete… for an odd reason.
When Jon started lessons with me, I was taken by his own handmade Strat equipped with a scalloped fingerboard. So we made a deal where he would build a Strat to my liking in exchange for a few months of free lessons.
Jon started with a solid one-piece mahogany slab for the body, with an extra-wide Warmoth maple neck with a rosewood fretboard. I requested Fender Lace pickups, and a Wilkinson whammy bar. The final product was a gem! The density of the solid mahogany and weighty Wilsinson bridge assembly made for enhanced sustain. I happen to like Fender Lace pups because, playing fingerstyle as I do, they not only deliver that classic Strat sound, but the slick pickup covers protect my nails from snagging on the typical Strat pup’s exposed pole pieces. The Warmoth neck’s extra width at the nut is another adaptation to my familiarity with the 2″ nuts found on nylon-string guitars. Always feel a bit cramped on standard electric guitars.
I subsequently hard-tailed the Wilkinson by tightening the springs to the max and immobilizing the bridge with a piece a hardwood wedged into the back cavity. I did this because, as with most whammy bars, extreme string bending and general usage tends to knock the guitar chronically out of tune, yet the extra mass of a floating bridge assembly improves sustain. I recall reading somewhere that Clapton did this on his early Strats… if it’s good enough for Eric….
Somewhere along the line I added the Roland GK-3 hex pickup so I could interface my Strat with the Roland GR-55 guitar synth. My FrankenStrat was well on its way to full customization, but I wasn’t done twiddling with it by a long shot.
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Heading over to Axetreme Creations, I downloaded a template for a Strat pickguard, and using various and sundry graphic apps (chiefly Logoist by Synium Software) began putting together a high-res design. The Axetreme Creations rep was very helpful in the process, BTW, recommending that I avoid certain design indulgences that wouldn’t reproduce as well as I might like. Many graphic files and emails went back and forth before I settled on the final version.
I found a Fender font and installed it on my Mac, and used it to add my last name above the neck pup. Using various ornamental elements from Logoist I pieced together the golden bits around the tone knobs and the treble horn. I added a small cross right above the fingerboard. The large central image is a high-res depiction I found of the flat earth (of course). The final product came pre-shielded.
Once I had all the components, I began disassembling the guitar. I completely shielded the pickup and output jack cavities with copper tape to reduce the 60-cycle hum typical of single-coil pickups, wrapping the edges of the copper onto the top of the body so they would make solid contact with the shielding on the pickguard to complete the grounding. I replaced the stock twirly bits with black knurled aluminum knobs inlaid with some lovely abalone (forget where I found them). Also upgraded the volume pot while I was at it.
The weird thing is, I had all the components gathered and was ready to start reassembling the guitar just when the entire world went insane. Covid Hysteria had hit, and I had too much on my mind to concern myself with finishing the project. The parts lay scattered about in my shop, and I was beginning to worry that I’d eventually misplace something in the shuffle.
Ironically, after two years of barely touching a guitar and actually toying with the idea of retiring from music, in November of 2021 opportunity struck and I landed a lucrative two-week gig at the Brown County Playhouse as guitarist in the pit band for Covid: The Musical by award-winning playwright Ashton Wolf. (promo video). I only had a week or so to assemble my Strat and get it tweaked up for rehearsals. The parts flew together, and my remodeled Filomeno Strat performed, and continues to perform, flawlessly.
I’m not done snazzing up my FrankenStrat, though. Using the Fender font, I made a decal slick to be applied it to the headstock… I’ll get around to it one of these days, I reckon.
GlamShots
