Noooo no scallop! It angers the Rosewood gods! My garage sale find Lead II with the scalloped fingerboard sat in my garage for fifteen years. I finally bit the Bullet (Fender pun intended, sorry for the groans guys) and bought a USACG neck last year for the poor bedraggled orphan. It's still in my garage. Rosewood must be very very angry. I think the scalloper used a roughly sharpened tablespoon or something to scrape out the "scallops". Maybe a hammer and antique barnwood forming chisel. It's a mess!
I purchased a new Fender Squier Bullet Stratocaster new in 1992 for $119. It came with a gig bag, neck strap, picks, and a Fender Champion 15G amp and a 10 ft Fender chord. The truss rod never worked (or I broke it without realizing it-it was my first electric guitar) so I had to file down frets and also file the ends of many frets. It gave "shredding a new meaning as it was. Lastly the last 5 frets that are at the very high end were very high so besides filing I used dry heat applied to the back of the neck to draw it straight. That guitar is among my favorites. Everything still works perfectly. I used WD-40 on the pots when they became scratchy and now they are silent again. My honest opinion is if you learn how to set up a guitar even such very expensive instruments as my Stratocaster are very playable and sound as good as anything I have ever played. I have Gibson pups, Seymour Duncan pups and the cheap pup's on my Strat hold up very well in any comparison, no they are not as hot. But that's what knobs on your amp are for and also that's what pedals are made for. -Peter
A sustainer pickup on a fretless guitar would probably be awesome! You could get that cello like bow/glissando effect on the entire neck! But I guess it's kinda expensive. Maybe you can find a cheap used one?
The Don DeLuxe yes! I came down here to suggest this very thing. If anything needs more sustain its going to be a fretless instrument, then you could get a really interesting bowed sound. There are a few people who have put together DIY sustainers although I don’t think any of them have been particularly ‘aesthetic’ I’d love to see it though. And while you are there a kill switch might be a good idea. Finally, everything i know about wood filler tells me that the wood filler wont take the stain if you try to ‘ebonise’ the wood although if you really sand it down during radiusing you might be able to get below the level of the tear out which should seriously neaten it up. Good luck, it looks like a really interesting project!
It's awesome! My fretless had a systainer pickup in it. It was fun to use the octave and a fifth up switch, bringing in the overtone during Indian or middle eastern influenced tunes. I would do gigs where I had loops stored, and would do melodies and solos over them. Unfortunately, I had it in storage and it was stolen. It's actually not as hard to adjust to as you would think.
A cool video series would be , "what guitar sounds best for "insert genre". So you would compare 2 or 3 guitars while only playing punk, metal, blues etc etc and determine which guitar gives the best tone for each genre
When i was in highschool, i bought the cheapest telecaster i could find in the store. I removed the frets just the same way as this one. It chipped a little but not as much as this strat. I also sanded the body for hours and hours with a very wrong grid of sandpaper to remove the paint. I also removed the pickups and i couldnt solder them back and had absolutely no money to spend on the project so i just put the thing in the storage and just forgot about it until i saw this video :D your guitar is in perfect condition compared to my mess of a wood but im going to try to finish what i started years ago following exactly what you do. Lets see how it works out together!
I would suggest the following for the neck. Firstly remove the neck and the nut. Secondly mask off areas you don't want to stain. Third use the ebony stain over the fretboard. Fourth using a saw carefully cut out where the frets used to be to create tidy and straight groves. Fith fill the groves with a white wood filler to create guides as to where to put your fingers.
Your videos are always so much fun and inspiring! I love this one in particular as I’m sure we have all come across some guitars that people have done some simply awful things to. Thanks for a great video and keep them coming 👍
Thanks for the video, Darrell. I'm getting into R&R's and kits, and you just put several new ideas on my list 👍. I just got an Iceman kit.... and what an abuse of that beautiful mohogany (definitely not for the faint hearted)! But I'll make her sing - and pocket the practice. Looking forward to part 2. Thanks again.
Nice one! Can't wait to see the result! Try out flattening up to 14" but first sand off a bit with the original radius (9,5" I guess) just to mellow the putty horror over those chipped rosewood places... whatever you do, there's a whole lot of supporters you have in east EU! Keep on!
I own a fretless guitar and it's surprisingly useful, if you know how to use it. Ask me, if you have some questions. Shortly - you have to get some finish on the fretboard, or else you will kill the wood. You have to have a thickest gauge strings, or there won't be any viable sound or sustain on higher frets. And don't bother with a flat-wounds, if you have a good fretboard cover, they'll gonna give this thing way more juice. And try to go with a fuzz for it!
What a fun project! If I were doing it, I would want to put in some better pickups and better tuning machines, but obviously that would cost some money. In any case, this seems like it's going to be super unique and fun! Super excited to see the result!
glad to see someone is going to solve the tone issue i wondered why my squiers only have the filter on the one tone control so looking forward to that!
embrace the character , stain it and whatever happens happens, its a good story regardless! looking forward to the finished product and also the vid about re-purposing the knob!
Darell, you should try Leo Fender's Passive Treble Bass circuit sometime; he developed it initially for the G&L Legacy when he first founded G&L. Its now used on all of his S style guitars. It is a global tone control system that affects all 3 pickups and after using it, I find it so useful that I would never go back to the old 2 tone controls that are on Fender Strats. It uses a 500k linear taper pot for the treble control and 1 meg log taper pot for the bass. Best place to buy the 1 meg pot is directly from G&L, If you are interested, I can email the schematic to you so that you will have the cap values that Leo used
From Leo: It is a good system, I liked it so much on a G&L I copied it on a couple more Strats. Not too difficult, just have to add a 1 MEG pot and a capacitor
Darrell, you're such a kind hearted man to take something that is, by all intents and purposes, "totaled," as they say in insurance companies, and spend your time and money to restore it to working order. As a violinist, I have heard some interesting stories. People are always finding a "Stradivarius" in their attic. And they bring it to the dealer expecting to make a cool million $. :^) The dealers have some universal responses for these poor deceived souls. I'll share two of my favorites. The first: The dealer, after looking at the instrument tells the owner, "Oh....this is a good instrument.... for your fireplace ....because it burns slow." The other, takes another vein: "Oh....this instrument deserves special care. I suggest you insure it heavily, and then leave it on a bus."
Dude I was getting more and more excited as you were saying all those things that you wanted to do to that guitar and then you finished the video. That was cruel dude I was excepting to see the whole thing go down :´v lol, I´ll be waiting for the next videos tho
Not certain, but I may have played this exact Strat a bit ages ago. Back probably 15 'ish years ago, my friend and guitar teacher wanted a project. He bought a stock candy apple red (maybe Squier had a different name or shade of sparkle red) Squier Affinity Strat. He removed the frets by heating them slightly I believe with a soldering iron and pulling them with needle nose pliers. He then filled the voids in the fretboard with either wood filler or a mix of elmer's glue and sawdust, like looks to be seen here. I then smoothed the board a little with very fine grit sandpaper. The result looked almost exactly like this, very rough looking where the frets were pulled and filled. But it was relatively smooth to run your fingers over. We put flat wounds on it and enjoyed the odd fretless for a while. Crazy, this may be that very same guitar.
My suggestions (pretty common "mods" if they can be called that): 1. 5 springs on the trem, wire tone control to bridge pickup 2. adjust PU height (probably set em low) 3. sand all the paint from under the bridge, the pickguard and behind the springs on the back 4. to make sure the neck gets a good connection with the body put some strings on it, tune it then loosen each screw on the neck 1/4 to 1/2 turn--you'll hear a popping sound--then just tighten the screws down as normal. 5. IF you have these things then I'd say graphite nut and saddles. 6. ALSO if you want to sacrifice the use of the tremolo you could put a block of wood on the back of the trem, I've heard rumors that Clapton did that, no idea if it's true though. Have fun!
Would also be ideal for slide with a higher action. I would try and get the filler out or more of a rosewood colour before you hit it with the ebony stain (maybe use some fingerboard dust from the re-radius).
Cool, I'm thinking of doing ebony stain on one of my guitar necks, build a fretless Bass, and I just finished doing a tonepot/bridge pickup mod on my squire start! Lol
Looking forward to seeing how this comes out! I like your mod ideas, should make for a very unusual instrument, even if the fingerboard looks off with all that filler. Hopefully as you sand away the original radius it will clean that up somewhat. This might be more money than you want to spend, but how about some sort of piezo system and on board pre-amp? If not for this one, maybe a future build?
Oh man, you just made me sad about trading my last fretless away all over again. I was so close to over it! Excited to see what you can do with that :)
Oooh... this could be a fun adventure. To watch, anyway... lol. Re the tone knob on the bridge pup... all my Strats are wired that way. In fact, the back tone knob is ONLY for the bridge Humbucker that's in all of my Strats. All my sounds are created using that tone knob at roughly halfway down. This gives me room to brighten or further darken my tone as needed. Anyway, I look forward to more of this project, Darrell.
Sounds like fun, just go for it. I was thinking you could go a bit more wild with the wiring with options for series wiring of the pups (2 of them or all 3).
A couple of related mods I've done which I rather like for the way I play: 1. wire a one end of a 50K pot to the bridge pickup and the other end to the switched neck/middle pickup signal; the wiper then feeds the volume pot; 2. modifying the bridge pickup so that it primarily picks up the lower strings (I use two strings for bass and four for chords, but perhaps a three+three split might work better for a fretless instrument). An easy way to do that is to lower the pickups and then stick on 6x1mm neodymium disk magnets on the strings to be boosted. The magnets aren't quite free but at under $10/hundred including shipping I'd highly recommend them as a cheap way of tweaking the sound on pickups.
Good luck with the Flat-Wounds. I have been using various sets made by Thomastik-Infeld (Vienna) on my acoustic for 2 years or more. This mob make a VAST array of flatwound strings for guitar and Bass. They are not cheap, but you get what you pay for. I am currently using the Classic S series which are not steel cored and therefore no use for magnetic pickups, but google them. You will find something! Great project Darrell, cannot wait! Cheers, Phil (Australia)
When I converted my Tbird bass to fretless, I also took out the dots, then filled all gaps with a good non-shrink filler, and dyed the 'board black with leather dye before coating it with epoxy. After radiusing that it was polished, and now it handles any strings without wearing out! I get great tones with plenty harmonics from that bass, even more than I got when it was still fretted :-) I'd consider doing the same with a Strat. It'll get you great tone, a completely smooth surface to play on, sustain for days....
Cool project Darrel! How about even doing a mod to get the bridge/middle position to wire the pickups in series? In conjunction with the mandatory tone pot mod, of course :)
Darrell Braun Guitar Love your channel bro!!! Why not set it up as a dedicated slide guitar??? Either way I look forward to watching what you do. Peace
From experience the fretboard stain will work and will wipe right off of the inlays. It also gives the maple a really cool look if you sand off the finish and lightly coat it in stain then wipe it off after about 15 - 20 minutes.
I'd definitely copper tape the cavity if you're keeping the stock pickups... really helps with the RF noise. Good idea for the bridge tone, otherwise I disconnect all my tones. Shoot, fat fret wire and scallop that puppy if you don't like fretless! Look fwd to the mod! I just put a Bigsby on a hardtail, love it.
Whatever you decide to do Darrell will be cool. I loved the Warmoth Strat. I built their VIP2 with a AAA birdseye maple neck, quilted maple top with alder back, star inlays. Dimarzios PAF Pro and Fred. coil tapped as well. It gives some great tones.
Darrell you’re getting closer and closer to the baling wire strung on a shovel that someone suggested a while back.which I think you could play masterfully too! Looking forward to your progress on this one.
The mod that I put on all my player SSS Strats is the Dan Armstrong Blender mod. It uses that second tone knob to blend from SSS on up to HSH. Wiring only change so perfect for this project.
I think once you get over the idea of a frettless strat. you should do a series on refretting a neck. would be very interesting to see that happen. cool idea though on the frettless strat. cant wait to see the tones you get out of this beast.
You should check out the Dan Armstrong mod! It costs nothing, and what you do is you rewire your second tone knob so that the guitar can have series and out of phase tones + all the original tones as well. Although you would end with one master tone only.
Interesting video, waiting for the results :). Just an idea: put a pushbutton as a kill switch(like on M.B. guitarts) or a toggle switch to keep the brigde pickup always on to get some new tones like bridge and neck pickup togehter or the all pickups at the same time but to keep the bugdet, get them from junks like old electronics, amps, tv-s...
From Leo: The bargan basement guitars can be a lot of fun, and if it does not turn out, you are only out the price of dinner and a show. Looking forward to what you come up with. If the fretless does not work out, Stewmac has precut fretboards in Fender scale for $19 US. Kind of a time consuming job, but not something a lot of people get involved doing.
imo Good vid as always. Looking forward ti the finished product. Fretless is interesting as hell. I used to use flat-wounds a fair amount of time years ago...was always happy with them. There are more than enough vids on Strats, Teles, and LPs and I always jones for SG vids...but there are even fewer vids on Jazzmasters...how 'bout a JM vid? imo
You should do a Blender Mod using the second tone control… You end up with a master volume, master tone and then a blend. So in positions 1,2,4 and 5 you can blend in the pickup that is not usually on. So you can end up with some great variations, similar to a Gilmore Mod but with greater range of tones….
Do a before and after sound check on the pickups if you add better magnets to them. Also turn the ton controls into master controls for passive treble and bass controls. Both would be fun mods no one on youtube does very often if at all
I found, if a stain won't work with whatever they used. A dye will. I have leather dyes, that I have used for wood situations, and it works fine with wood. Like Eco-flo.
this guy is so clean cut and wholesome, he would make a great pharmacist
Ok there is your Prescription and if you fill in our online Questionaire you could win a Squire! Hope you have a great rest of the day!
One of the most genuine and pleasant people on the internet - and that's before we even get to Darrell's technical knowledge and virtuoso playing.
Or....he might be anything else you can imagine. At best, a nice guy here as I see it.
Your confidence is inspiring! 😄
As a pharmacist myself, I would love having Darrell as my partner. 😉
No way! Those filled in fret slots look awesome! Yes flatwounds. DON'T MASK OUT THE FRET FILLS, ROCK THAT LOOK!
😄👍👍👍
Don't "fret" over this guitar purchase, just have fun with it. Call it the Brauncaster.
Thumbs up for the pun!
scalop it. Yes, without any frets.
Noooo no scallop! It angers the Rosewood gods!
My garage sale find Lead II with the scalloped fingerboard sat in my garage for fifteen years. I finally bit the Bullet (Fender pun intended, sorry for the groans guys) and bought a USACG neck last year for the poor bedraggled orphan. It's still in my garage.
Rosewood must be very very angry.
I think the scalloper used a roughly sharpened tablespoon or something to scrape out the "scallops". Maybe a hammer and antique barnwood forming chisel. It's a mess!
Epic!
that would be a lute.
@yngwie
Very curious to listen it! Like how it sounds
This channel contains very helpful videos✌
Scallop the fretboard so that it has “wooden frets,” like what lutes used to have. That would be a fun idea
mind blown. I wanna try this.
This is actually a pretty interesting idea.
Daniel Lomax I was just thinking of something along those lines.
Bruuuuuh
Would wear out really fast even with nickel strings.
I purchased a new Fender Squier Bullet Stratocaster new in 1992 for $119. It came with a gig bag, neck strap, picks, and a Fender Champion 15G amp and a 10 ft Fender chord. The truss rod never worked (or I broke it without realizing it-it was my first electric guitar) so I had to file down frets and also file the ends of many frets. It gave "shredding a new meaning as it was. Lastly the last 5 frets that are at the very high end were very high so besides filing I used dry heat applied to the back of the neck to draw it straight.
That guitar is among my favorites. Everything still works perfectly. I used WD-40 on the pots when they became scratchy and now they are silent again.
My honest opinion is if you learn how to set up a guitar even such very expensive instruments as my Stratocaster are very playable and sound as good as anything I have ever played.
I have Gibson pups, Seymour Duncan pups and the cheap pup's on my Strat hold up very well in any comparison, no they are not as hot. But that's what knobs on your amp are for and also that's what pedals are made for.
-Peter
I think you've already got the best idea. I'm pumped to see how it turns out.
A sustainer pickup on a fretless guitar would probably be awesome! You could get that cello like bow/glissando effect on the entire neck! But I guess it's kinda expensive. Maybe you can find a cheap used one?
The Don DeLuxe yes! I came down here to suggest this very thing. If anything needs more sustain its going to be a fretless instrument, then you could get a really interesting bowed sound. There are a few people who have put together DIY sustainers although I don’t think any of them have been particularly ‘aesthetic’ I’d love to see it though. And while you are there a kill switch might be a good idea.
Finally, everything i know about wood filler tells me that the wood filler wont take the stain if you try to ‘ebonise’ the wood although if you really sand it down during radiusing you might be able to get below the level of the tear out which should seriously neaten it up.
Good luck, it looks like a really interesting project!
It might play better with an E-bow, shades of Jimmy Page!
It's awesome! My fretless had a systainer pickup in it. It was fun to use the octave and a fifth up switch, bringing in the overtone during Indian or middle eastern influenced tunes. I would do gigs where I had loops stored, and would do melodies and solos over them. Unfortunately, I had it in storage and it was stolen. It's actually not as hard to adjust to as you would think.
A cool video series would be , "what guitar sounds best for "insert genre". So you would compare 2 or 3 guitars while only playing punk, metal, blues etc etc and determine which guitar gives the best tone for each genre
I’m excited to see what this is gonna turn out to be! I recently did a “free” modification to a rip off strat i picked up at a flea market
When i was in highschool, i bought the cheapest telecaster i could find in the store. I removed the frets just the same way as this one. It chipped a little but not as much as this strat. I also sanded the body for hours and hours with a very wrong grid of sandpaper to remove the paint. I also removed the pickups and i couldnt solder them back and had absolutely no money to spend on the project so i just put the thing in the storage and just forgot about it until i saw this video :D your guitar is in perfect condition compared to my mess of a wood but im going to try to finish what i started years ago following exactly what you do. Lets see how it works out together!
Yes!!! 👍
I would suggest the following for the neck. Firstly remove the neck and the nut. Secondly mask off areas you don't want to stain. Third use the ebony stain over the fretboard. Fourth using a saw carefully cut out where the frets used to be to create tidy and straight groves. Fith fill the groves with a white wood filler to create guides as to where to put your fingers.
Doing on my dean boca 12 string very soon
Nice! Look forward to seeing the finished product!
Darell I'm so excited for this project! I love watching your Chanel man ! I live in the states in South Carolina
I hope it's going to be a fun project!
Can't wait to see what you come up with!
i love this channel always so upbeat and interesting
The strat is the chevy small block of the guitar world.
I own an affinity telecaster and I can tell the neck it feels great! Btw I love the color on this Strat. Can't wait to see the next video!
Looking forward to seeing how this turns out!
I’m intrigued, let the build begin!
This will be a great learning experience. The fact that you have nothing to lose should make this more adventurous! Can’t wait.
Can't wait to see the result! :)
Can't wait to see the results.
Love your Strat videos the most! You have some nice eye candy behind you...Daphne Blue and Surf Green looks awesome hanging on any wall!
Your videos are always so much fun and inspiring! I love this one in particular as I’m sure we have all come across some guitars that people have done some simply awful things to. Thanks for a great video and keep them coming 👍
Hey cool project Darrell!!! I would love to see more of these cheap projects. Keep em coming! 😃🎸✌
Looking forward to this!!
Fretless basses are common but seeing a fretless guitar is a rare sight. Great idea for a video as usual!
Great as always! I'd like to see the soldering with the re-wiring, keep it up Darrell!
Thanks for the video, Darrell. I'm getting into R&R's and kits, and you just put several new ideas on my list 👍.
I just got an Iceman kit.... and what an abuse of that beautiful mohogany (definitely not for the faint hearted)! But I'll make her sing - and pocket the practice.
Looking forward to part 2.
Thanks again.
Nice one! Can't wait to see the result! Try out flattening up to 14" but first sand off a bit with the original radius (9,5" I guess) just to mellow the putty horror over those chipped rosewood places... whatever you do, there's a whole lot of supporters you have in east EU! Keep on!
Cool, looks like a fun project!
I have a strat like that I practice on before I try the work on my bass.
Awwww, maaaaaan ... we gotta wait for the next video to find out what happens to this fretless wonder.
I own a fretless guitar and it's surprisingly useful, if you know how to use it. Ask me, if you have some questions. Shortly - you have to get some finish on the fretboard, or else you will kill the wood. You have to have a thickest gauge strings, or there won't be any viable sound or sustain on higher frets. And don't bother with a flat-wounds, if you have a good fretboard cover, they'll gonna give this thing way more juice. And try to go with a fuzz for it!
You should try and relic the body! Make it look a lot more expensive than it is.
Cant wait!!
definetely want to hear your hands on it !!
love this! please make more
I've been asking myself that a lot lately. About new stuff!!
What a fun project! If I were doing it, I would want to put in some better pickups and better tuning machines, but obviously that would cost some money. In any case, this seems like it's going to be super unique and fun! Super excited to see the result!
The abalone on the DB Caster looks so cool in the background.
glad to see someone is going to solve the tone issue i wondered why my squiers only have the filter on the one tone control so looking forward to that!
I would love to see an off shape like a v of an explorer on this series! Great work, keep up the quality content!
Make it a semi-hollow, if you dare! 😉
Sounds impossible
Dremel the f**k out of it, that will do the trick.
Yessss
Love to hear it.
And I love the candy apple red color.
embrace the character , stain it and whatever happens happens, its a good story regardless! looking forward to the finished product and also the vid about re-purposing the knob!
Affintys are awesome expecially once you pop in a nice set of pups
Darell, you should try Leo Fender's Passive Treble Bass circuit sometime; he developed it initially for the G&L Legacy when he first founded G&L. Its now used on all of his S style guitars. It is a global tone control system that affects all 3 pickups and after using it, I find it so useful that I would never go back to the old 2 tone controls that are on Fender Strats. It uses a 500k linear taper pot for the treble control and 1 meg log taper pot for the bass. Best place to buy the 1 meg pot is directly from G&L, If you are interested, I can email the schematic to you so that you will have the cap values that Leo used
Adjusting the bass really fine tunes OD & distortion, amazing what a difference that it makes
From Leo: It is a good system, I liked it so much on a G&L I copied it on a couple more Strats. Not too difficult, just have to add a 1 MEG pot and a capacitor
Darrell, you're such a kind hearted man to take something that is, by all intents and purposes, "totaled," as they say in insurance companies, and spend your time and money to restore it to working order. As a violinist, I have heard some interesting stories. People are always finding a "Stradivarius" in their attic. And they bring it to the dealer expecting to make a cool million $. :^) The dealers have some universal responses for these poor deceived souls. I'll share two of my favorites. The first: The dealer, after looking at the instrument tells the owner, "Oh....this is a good instrument.... for your fireplace ....because it burns slow." The other, takes another vein: "Oh....this instrument deserves special care. I suggest you insure it heavily, and then leave it on a bus."
Very cool, I never played a fretless either. Very interested in the results.
Dude I was getting more and more excited as you were saying all those things that you wanted to do to that guitar and then you finished the video. That was cruel dude I was excepting to see the whole thing go down :´v lol, I´ll be waiting for the next videos tho
I have a fretless bass. My first thought was, "It sounds like a horn." I spent some time with it. It has its place.
Frankenstrat! Looking forward to the moment it becomes alive!
Darrell, I think you could DIY a heavy relic on the finish of this Strat!
Great Idea, why not?! Play Loud.
Not certain, but I may have played this exact Strat a bit ages ago. Back probably 15 'ish years ago, my friend and guitar teacher wanted a project. He bought a stock candy apple red (maybe Squier had a different name or shade of sparkle red) Squier Affinity Strat. He removed the frets by heating them slightly I believe with a soldering iron and pulling them with needle nose pliers. He then filled the voids in the fretboard with either wood filler or a mix of elmer's glue and sawdust, like looks to be seen here. I then smoothed the board a little with very fine grit sandpaper. The result looked almost exactly like this, very rough looking where the frets were pulled and filled. But it was relatively smooth to run your fingers over. We put flat wounds on it and enjoyed the odd fretless for a while. Crazy, this may be that very same guitar.
Yes you read my mind with the flat-wound strings bro!
Extreme Makeover Guitar Edition - featuring your favourite host, Darrell Braun
My suggestions (pretty common "mods" if they can be called that):
1. 5 springs on the trem, wire tone control to bridge pickup
2. adjust PU height (probably set em low)
3. sand all the paint from under the bridge, the pickguard and behind the springs on the back
4. to make sure the neck gets a good connection with the body put some strings on it, tune it then loosen each screw on the neck 1/4 to 1/2 turn--you'll hear a popping sound--then just tighten the screws down as normal.
5. IF you have these things then I'd say graphite nut and saddles.
6. ALSO if you want to sacrifice the use of the tremolo you could put a block of wood on the back of the trem, I've heard rumors that Clapton did that, no idea if it's true though.
Have fun!
Would also be ideal for slide with a higher action.
I would try and get the filler out or more of a rosewood colour before you hit it with the ebony stain (maybe use some fingerboard dust from the re-radius).
Exactly what I was thinking. Perfect starting place for a bitching slide guitar.
I’m starting to get into modding as well, very interested to see what you come up with!
Cool, I'm thinking of doing ebony stain on one of my guitar necks, build a fretless Bass, and I just finished doing a tonepot/bridge pickup mod on my squire start! Lol
Looking forward to seeing how this comes out! I like your mod ideas, should make for a very unusual instrument, even if the fingerboard looks off with all that filler. Hopefully as you sand away the original radius it will clean that up somewhat. This might be more money than you want to spend, but how about some sort of piezo system and on board pre-amp? If not for this one, maybe a future build?
Great video! I'd like to see you try to scallop or relic it, it'd be fun :)
I played a frettless bass in a guitar shop, it was really fun
Oh man, you just made me sad about trading my last fretless away all over again. I was so close to over it! Excited to see what you can do with that :)
Oooh... this could be a fun adventure. To watch, anyway... lol.
Re the tone knob on the bridge pup... all my Strats are wired that way. In fact, the back tone knob is ONLY for the bridge Humbucker that's in all of my Strats. All my sounds are created using that tone knob at roughly halfway down. This gives me room to brighten or further darken my tone as needed.
Anyway, I look forward to more of this project, Darrell.
Sounds like fun, just go for it. I was thinking you could go a bit more wild with the wiring with options for series wiring of the pups (2 of them or all 3).
A couple of related mods I've done which I rather like for the way I play: 1. wire a one end of a 50K pot to the bridge pickup and the other end to the switched neck/middle pickup signal; the wiper then feeds the volume pot; 2. modifying the bridge pickup so that it primarily picks up the lower strings (I use two strings for bass and four for chords, but perhaps a three+three split might work better for a fretless instrument). An easy way to do that is to lower the pickups and then stick on 6x1mm neodymium disk magnets on the strings to be boosted. The magnets aren't quite free but at under $10/hundred including shipping I'd highly recommend them as a cheap way of tweaking the sound on pickups.
i am having an epic day....watching a laptop screen while the sun shines.
Yes! Do the tone secondary tone control mod please, I want to do that to mine and would love to see your process.
Good luck with the Flat-Wounds. I have been using various sets made by Thomastik-Infeld (Vienna) on my acoustic for 2 years or more. This mob make a VAST array of flatwound strings for guitar and Bass. They are not cheap, but you get what you pay for. I am currently using the Classic S series which are not steel cored and therefore no use for magnetic pickups, but google them. You will find something! Great project Darrell, cannot wait! Cheers, Phil (Australia)
When I converted my Tbird bass to fretless, I also took out the dots, then filled all gaps with a good non-shrink filler, and dyed the 'board black with leather dye before coating it with epoxy.
After radiusing that it was polished, and now it handles any strings without wearing out!
I get great tones with plenty harmonics from that bass, even more than I got when it was still fretted :-)
I'd consider doing the same with a Strat. It'll get you great tone, a completely smooth surface to play on, sustain for days....
Cool project Darrel! How about even doing a mod to get the bridge/middle position to wire the pickups in series? In conjunction with the mandatory tone pot mod, of course :)
Darrell Braun Guitar Love your channel bro!!! Why not set it up as a dedicated slide guitar???
Either way I look forward to watching what you do. Peace
Thanks Richard!
I kept staring at the partscaster on the left pretty much the whole time I was watching. Need to replay the video to see what you said lol.
Me too! I want one that is absolutely identical!
Dude, you read my mind!! So many money thrown away! 😂😂😂
From experience the fretboard stain will work and will wipe right off of the inlays. It also gives the maple a really cool look if you sand off the finish and lightly coat it in stain then wipe it off after about 15 - 20 minutes.
You got a new cam?! good video!
I'd definitely copper tape the cavity if you're keeping the stock pickups... really helps with the RF noise. Good idea for the bridge tone, otherwise I disconnect all my tones. Shoot, fat fret wire and scallop that puppy if you don't like fretless! Look fwd to the mod! I just put a Bigsby on a hardtail, love it.
Whatever you decide to do Darrell will be cool. I loved the Warmoth Strat. I built their VIP2 with a AAA birdseye maple neck, quilted maple top with alder back, star inlays. Dimarzios PAF Pro and Fred. coil tapped as well. It gives some great tones.
That sounds really cool!
Darrell you’re getting closer and closer to the baling wire strung on a shovel that someone suggested a while back.which I think you could play masterfully too! Looking forward to your progress on this one.
😄 Thanks!
You should do another build like your superstrat, but with a PRS style kit.
The mod that I put on all my player SSS Strats is the Dan Armstrong Blender mod. It uses that second tone knob to blend from SSS on up to HSH. Wiring only change so perfect for this project.
I think once you get over the idea of a frettless strat. you should do a series on refretting a neck. would be very interesting to see that happen. cool idea though on the frettless strat. cant wait to see the tones you get out of this beast.
Flatwounds are awesome, for bass at least. Really smooth to the touch and they keep their sound for a lot longer than roundwounds.
Good to know!
You should check out the Dan Armstrong mod! It costs nothing, and what you do is you rewire your second tone knob so that the guitar can have series and out of phase tones + all the original tones as well. Although you would end with one master tone only.
what if... hear me out, what if WE send you stuff to modify that strat with?
I always Love your Intro 😍😂
Interesting video, waiting for the results :). Just an idea: put a pushbutton as a kill switch(like on M.B. guitarts) or a toggle switch to keep the brigde pickup always on to get some new tones like bridge and neck pickup togehter or the all pickups at the same time but to keep the bugdet, get them from junks like old electronics, amps, tv-s...
hey man! love your channel!
I would put a veneer on the fingerboard to cover up the fret slots and give it a super clean look. You can use ebony too 👽
Thanks!
That's a cool idea ☺
Or glue sheet metal to it and you would basically have a vigier excalibur ;)
From Leo: The bargan basement guitars can be a lot of fun, and if it does not turn out, you are only out the price of dinner and a show. Looking forward to what you come up with. If the fretless does not work out, Stewmac has precut fretboards in Fender scale for $19 US. Kind of a time consuming job, but not something a lot of people get involved doing.
imo
Good vid as always.
Looking forward ti the finished product.
Fretless is interesting as hell.
I used to use flat-wounds a fair amount of time years ago...was always happy with them.
There are more than enough vids on Strats, Teles, and LPs and I always jones for SG vids...but there are even fewer vids on Jazzmasters...how 'bout a JM vid?
imo
you should do a video on, why did i buy this explaining pedal addiction
You should do a Blender Mod using the second tone control… You end up with a master volume, master tone and then a blend. So in positions 1,2,4 and 5 you can blend in the pickup that is not usually on. So you can end up with some great variations, similar to a Gilmore Mod but with greater range of tones….
If you have any spare "prettier" pickguards laying around, I'd slap one on that thing.
I’m making a groove fretboard fretless guitar. I did the bass and it has great tone grinding vibrato over fretcorner
Do a before and after sound check on the pickups if you add better magnets to them. Also turn the ton controls into master controls for passive treble and bass controls. Both would be fun mods no one on youtube does very often if at all
I found, if a stain won't work with whatever they used. A dye will. I have leather dyes, that I have used for wood situations, and it works fine with wood. Like Eco-flo.
Is it gonna suck?
Or is it gonna Rock?
Can't wait for the final result, Good luck Darrell!