The Guitar shortly after assembly.
The Chrome-Red Strat is a parts guitar; genuine, 1962 re-issue Fender, fat C-profile neck, genuine Fender low-density Alder body (4-lbs), finished in Chrome Red (metallic, Candy-Apple red?). Various single-coil pickups, including modern Fender Custom Shop Texas Specials, Seymour Duncan SSL-1's, and a set of Mighty Mite Alnico V pickups was tried and played. Finally decided that I preferred the vintage-sounding SSL1's after all, just perfect for lead guitar for my kind of music. Ernie Ball Power Slinky strings are used on this guitar, except I prefer a wound third string.
The differences between all-Maple necks and Rosewood-fretboarded Maple necks were explored. Here is the Red Strat fitted with a Maple neck. Perhaps a subtle difference with more high end tone, in my opinion not quite as live as the Rosewood fretboard, though sounds very nice too. Eventully went back to the 62' re-issue neck, mainly to keep the guitar as close as possible to a real Fender guitar.
Next, the tremelo was blocked in a fashion similar an Eric Clapton Strat, i.e., wooden blocks to lock the tremelo block in place, with all springs installed -- an easy reversible procedure. Sounds like a hard-tail, string-thru-body installation; nice sustain and lively tone. Here's the red guitar in an open-air concert.
NOTE:~~~~ Just a hint; Be careful about too much shielding in pickup cavities with those single coils pickups. Learned the hard way how much high frequencies can be lost due to interaction with shielding in pickup cavities. I settled with only a bit of shielding on the bottom of the cavity and was surprised by the differerence. Cannot really tell any difference in hum level with reduced shielding.
