Custom Strat – Super-vee BladeRunner Tremolo – Belcat silent pickups – Fender Roller Nut

Hervé Senni

4 years ago

Custom Strat

This article reviews the strat I built years ago using my beloved burned body and neck.

Despite the worn outlook, the guitar features some of the best hardware and electronics.

Planet wave locking tuners.
By the way, Daddario has acquired the brand since, so Planet wave doesn’t exist anymore. But you can have the same tuners under Daddario branding.
Rolling trees. They are cheap, but it makes a massive difference with the regular trees installed on strats.
Fender Roller Nut
Aluminium pickguard and backplate
Belcat silent pickups. Those pickups are cheap, but they sound really good. I like them a lot. I get a real strat sound out of them.
Super-vee BladeRunner Tremolo Systems. This tremolo is one of the best alternatives to enhance a fender tremolo greatly.
a Freeway Switch. It’s a 10-Way Switch in Blade Format. You get five additional pickup settings; you can wire in many ways.

The rest is straightforward. straplocks and regular electronics.

Check the video

concerning the pickups setting:

I have the 5 regular fender settings, which are neck, neck and middle, middle, middle and bridge, and bridge.

then I get:

neck and middle in series
Neck and bridge in parallel
Neck and bridge in series
all three pickups in parallel
and finally middle and bridge in series

concerning the burned finish. I bought the body and neck from a German crazy guy on eBay selling custom guitar parts. He actually burned the body and neck for real. If you look at the guitar closely, you might find that it was a white body. I applied some True Oil cover to it to make it look shiny a bit.

The most expensive parts were the hardware: tuners, roller nut, tremolo, and the switch. The guitar cost me less than 400$. Everything included.