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Horus

The Stratocaster,a personal history.

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Anyone who has the pleasure of hearing you play any instrument you own has surely considered themselves lucky. I know I have mate.

 

Keep on ripping the shit out of em I say! :)

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Great post mate.  I confess I went to the dark side and bought a Gibson SG first up... 

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Sorry I couldn't help myself. 'It was a stratocaster with a whammy bar' 

Edited by Zedo

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Clearly this won't do

 

A post about Stratocasters from Horus without any of his tunes is just a tease.

 

It's like chang without a nang, a sausage sanga without sauce or glass of whiskey without ice.

 

How about a tune for those unfortunate bastards unlucky enough to have never seen you play live Horus ?

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Righto Sall,

I will have to wait till my daughter is around with her new iphone that takes a great video, then I will bump this thread with it in a week or 2.

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Damn mate I should have pulled out Tele out when you were down to show you! Great story thanks for the read! Here's a pic or 2, she's a 60th anniversary edition pretty rare nowadays apparently 

 

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Love you d00d, 

thanks for sharing, precious objects are major dots in your life that connect you to time and place, but special musical instruments take those connections to much deeper and wider levels................because you can create magic with them !!

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Dear Sall, still taking a raincheck on the video.

My daughter was around, but it was a social occasion.

Just appropriate to take a photo,

But if this is any indication the video should be good.

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Makoto Kawabata has been my Strat Champion for many years, never afraid of a 20 minute solo

 

Yes, another Acid Mothers Temple fan! The hour long version of "Pink Lady Lemonade" off of "Do Whatever You Want..." is one of my all time favourite tracks, Kawabata is an animal.

 

I have a couple of well abused strats, my main one has a repaired crack that runs all the way through the body but none of my others sound as good as the busted up black strat that I call my main guitar.

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Yes, another Acid Mothers Temple fan! The hour long version of "Pink Lady Lemonade" off of "Do Whatever You Want..." is one of my all time favourite tracks, Kawabata is an animal.

 

I have a couple of well abused strats, my main one has a repaired crack that runs all the way through the body but none of my others sound as good as the busted up black strat that I call my main guitar.

Cheers IPTOS,

Yeah the Acid Mothers have just "got it"  (it) being Psychedelic cosmic channeling, but they are a very acquired taste, I got a good "heads up" about them 20 yrs ago when they got started.Probably for Inner Circle guitar fiends with a permanent supply of acid and shrooms. I follow Kawabata on FB and stuff, and he lives to play, he pretty much plays somewhere on the planet every night, either solo or with the band or endless side projects. A few years ago he was in Edinburgh Scotland the same time as my daughter.

I was a very proud father when my daughter went to meet him on my behalf and give him my respect and best regards.

See I can plot my life around Stratocaster events. Although he doesn't use one when bowing.

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Show us a pic of ya cracked strat.

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Edited by Horus

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Here you go Horus. The neck is off a 50's road worn strat and the body is off a highway one strat so she's a mongrel. Super thin nitro finish, it basically flakes away if you look at it the wrong way. The neck has really nice V profile and I chucked a seymour duncan JB jnr into the bridge position for more grunt.

 

You can't see the crack in the photo, it runs from the top of the trem cavity all the way to the neck pocket and on both front and back of the body. Nothing wood glue and some overnight clamping couldn't fix, I'm actually fairly careful with her these days as no other strat I have sounds as good. Real nice resonance when played acoustically which translates wonderfully when plugged in, especially running straight into my 64' BF Bassman.

 

That's awesome that your daughter met Kawabata, such a guru of cosmic sound!

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Edited by InnerPathsToOuterSpace
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I'm still holding my breath waiting for that song/tune, maybe it's turned into an epic production like one of Axl Rose's comeback albums ?

 

While I'm here, seeing you are the guitar man, I'll ask a few questions and see what comes back.

 

I'm building a few cigar box guitars for my kids, the first one will be a 3 string and the next one might be a 4 string. Wot do ya reckon about scale length for a kid (One 8 the other 10) ?

Should I break them in with a full scale Strat or Gibson architecture right of the bat or should I cut it down to suit their hands/fingers and arm span for them now ?

 

These things will open tuned and playable with a single finger or a slide (preferably both) but I want to make sure that I don't need to compensate too much with the amp to get a nice sound out of them. It's going to be a cheap build process and the amp & pickup will most likely something cheap and nasty from ebay with an aim to upgrade when the cash finds itself coming my way. For now I just want to get them strumming.

 

Any suggestions from Horus or any other muso's or musically inclined people would be greatly appreciated.

 

 

 

 

 

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Hey Sal,

Im just waiting for my daughter and her fancy iphone, we dont cross paths much these days.

A STRAT video still on the agenda.

Great idea with the Cigar box.

As they are played slide, I would make them to suit the physiology of the kids.

Man, little practice amps are so cheap, its ridiculous, and you can get a little stick on pezzo pickup for $20.

I bought my aussie biscuit tin  guitar from Wollembi markets for $120 and he gave me a pickup they are so cheap.

3 strings is good enough, if they get into it buy them a proper guitar. they are so cheap nowadays.

Thing is, little slide guitars are like a 2 trick pony, once you learn those tricks there is little place else to go.

Its easy to fix up an old guitar. We bought one at the Wollembi markets for $10, and a little wet and dry, $20 for strings and she is way better/ more versatile than a cigar box

I bought mine cause of the swagmen, and the penny on the headstock is 1960....... my birthyear !

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Edited by Horus
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Cheers Horus, that thing must be a natural resonator being made out of a tin.

 

I bought them full size acoustic guitars a few years ago but they haven't used them much at all until lately. They have been more interested in video games until recently.They were cheap shit aldi pieces of crap that loose their tune before you finish tuning the fucking things.

 

They never spent enough time to learn any chords either and the little time they did try to it just sounded fucked because the guitars had already lost their tune. It only seems to be the nylon string acoustic guitars that were a problem, I got a steel string myself, it was the last one and it was reduced to $30 so I thought why not. It sounds surprisingly good and holds its tune well.

 

At least with a 3 string I can give it various open tunings and they can get something out of it that won't be as annoying as an out of tune piece of crap that they don't know any chords for.

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I'm a guitar teacher by trade, your 10 year old might be fine with a full scale length, I've taught 10 year olds with full scale guitars before. Some chords can be a bit of a stretch but if you're in open tuning then I don't see a problem. Maybe go shorter for your 8 year old I reckon. I have a shorter scale fender guitar in my collection that is 24", that might be a good compromise without losing too much tone. Maybe even 22"?

 

That's just my humble opinion, I hope that helps Sallubrious :)

Edited by InnerPathsToOuterSpace
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I ended up settling on a 23" scale length for the first one. I'm making a 4 string next, so I'll set it at 25.5" to get them ready for a fender if they stay interested.

 

I'm enjoying working with wood, Half the fun is making the guitar for me.

 

Is that 24" Fender a Jaguar IPTOS and how does the tone compare to a Strat?

Edited by Sallubrious

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It's a squier super-sonic (made in Japan at the Fender factory back in the 90's). It has two humbuckers so kind of hard to compare to a strats singe coils tone wise. The shorter scale doesn't seem to affect tone, I put heavier gauge strings on which helps too.

 

Keen to hear how your cigar boxes turn out :)

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I wish I hadn't put off learning ot play electric earlier than last year, but better late than never! Always thought I'd be a Les Paul girl but the strat (well, squier classic vibes 50s - couldn't justify the price of a Fender for a beginner) sat so nicely! It's so much fun to noodle on and make cool sounds with. My partner has a luthier friend who replaced a few bits for me and sanded down the neck so now it plays and sounds even better :D I've got lurid day-glo orange 9 gauge strings on it so it really looks and feels like a toy now and that's how i like it. I ended up buying a custom shop Tele too which I also love to death. Occassionally it's fun to play my partner's Hagstrom, too. Also fun making grooves on the basses :D I never realised making cool sounds was relatively accessible for a noob! I LOVE MUSIC.

 

 

 

Love to hear your sounds, Horus!

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I'm in the same boat @FancyPants , I wish I'd learned to play when I was younger, it seems to take me ages to learn how to play new stuff & milliseconds to forget if I don't practice every day. No-one in my family (except my younger brother) ever played any musical instruments, so I just wasn't exposed to it as a kid. I was nearly 30 before I ever played a note.

 

The idea with the 3 & 4 string setups is you can put them in an open tuning and be belting something half decent almost straight away. If I can get my kids on them they won't really learn much except how to get a groove going and maybe it will spark an interest in music. I got a cheap shit effects pedal with a looper and basic drum machine built in, so I'll have my kids laying down loops and rocking on soon. I'm looking forward to messing around with that myself.

 

So I got my shit together for my 3 & 4 strings after waiting for parts from China for what seemed like forever. A bit more painting and finishing and they'll be ready to go. I made a few mistakes along the way but I learned a lot and got a few tools together to make the next project easier.

 

I've found a lot of Fender knock off shit on ebay while I was looking for parts - necks, bodies & full kits etc. I also saw an aldi knock off Fender on youtube that seemed almost respectable (except the colour) . I'm thinking of building my own fender knock off after seeing how cheap all the gear is.

 

Does any know how the "Chinacaster" Fender copies play ?

 

I wouldn't expect them to be great but they would agree with my limited budget.

 

 

Edited by Sallubrious

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I've found a lot of Fender knock off shit on ebay while I was looking for parts - necks, bodies & full kits etc. I also saw an aldi knock off Fender on youtube that seemed almost respectable (except the colour) . I'm thinking of building my own fender knock off after seeing how cheap all the gear is.

 

Does any know how the "Chinacaster" Fender copies play ?

 

I wouldn't expect them to be great but they would agree with my limited budget.

 

 

I've gotten a few different chinese made fender knock off parts off ebay. I made a strat out of mighty mite parts, from memory the neck was a bit over $100 and the body was in the $200 range. Factor in hardware and pickups and the price gets higher but the basic neck and body I'd put on par with Squier quality.

 

I've also taken a gamble on total no name stuff, one neck I had to send back because it was warped (probably made from wood that wasn't dried properly), another I had to basically learn how to do a fret level, fret dress and sand back the neck profile to make it play good. Those were sub $100 price range from memory and are more of a gamble and probably won't play nice until some work has been put in.

 

Can't go wrong with Mighty Mite and All Parts for partsacaster/chinacaster guitars but will be more spendy. Go all out on Warmoth and you'll have a guitar that will rival an US fender but probably end up costing over a grand.

 

Hope this helps at least :)

 

P.S. Edit: I see 2nd hand SX brand strat copies in Cash Converters all the time and they always seem to be of decent quality and a lot of the time are anywhere from $75 to $150. Could make a cool project by taking it apart and upgrading and modifying.

Edited by InnerPathsToOuterSpace
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Cheers IPTOS

 

I picked up a Strat knockoff yesterday for $70. It was a baby shit green/blue Aria stg series. It seemed like a kid or non technical minded idiot had "fixed" it or fucked with it trying to fix it at some stage. It was missing a bridge saddle and a few strings. The nut was a really soft plastic piece of shit and the strings were bound in the slots, so it was hard to tune. If anyone has a spare bridge saddle or whammy bar for a Strat tremolo bridge I'd love to hear from you. 

 

I pulled it all apart and planned to give it a sunburst paint job but I'm not sure if that will work out because of the colour mismatch of the timbers used to make the body.I might be able to fudge it in and work the sunburst around it.  It had about 4mm of filler under the baby shit duco and the body was basically deadened by all the extra layers of crap plastic filler. Now after I've stripped it I can get a nice ring out of it when I knock on it with my knuckles.

 

By the time I put an aluminium nut in it and iron out all the little problems I should have something for the kids to bash around and get the hang of the Strat design. If they stick with it I'll get them a good one in a year or so.

 

Here's a picture of it before I fully stripped it.

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Edited by Sallubrious
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Looks like your keeping yourself occupied Sall. Good stuff.

Usually any cheap instrument I buya new set of tuners and strings, and you can get a sound out of it.

Impossible to play anything that wont stay in tune.

And I haven't hesitated to spend that 80 bucks or so to rebirth a $20 garage sale special.

My campfire special is a $200 Chinese guitar I have "hot Rodded" and its great, better that a lot of off the rack hi end guitars.

But on the other end of the spectrum, I bought a 2nd hand Gibson Jumbo for 3 grand, and straight away spent a grand having 

it customized to vibrate in my secret "atlantian" tuning, money well spent, cause the thing opens portals with its harmonics 

 

Hey Fancy Pants, great you have chosen Fender to make cool sounds, get Santa to buy you a nice Echo unit to fill the vibrational space, where less can be more and noodling for newbies can be bliss.

 

 

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Hey Sal,

 

I should have a spare saddle that's floating around in my pile of parts that you can have. PM me your address and I'll send it in a standard old envelope for you.

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Here's a cardboard see through Statocaster certified by Fender

 

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