BRIDGING THE GAP
This month, Tone Doctor Simon Law – tour tech to Robben Ford and numerous other guitar greats – takes a stock Mexican-made Fender Jimi Hendrix Strat and pimps its bridge and pickups to demonstrate how you can tweak an off-the-peg guitar to better prepare
When I told a guitar-playing friend that I was going to be writing an article on this guitar, he pointed out, “Hendrix sounded great on any guitar.” Well, of course! But lest we forget, the guitars our heroes were playing in the 50s and 60s were the best of the best, particularly Jimi, who was rocking late-60s, big-headstock Strats. Still, with the right tools and guidance, we can get quite a bit extra out of this off-the-shelf Strat.
Our Mexican-made model features a right-handed body and an upside-down left-handed neck. Tonally, it’s a little thin in timbre and not hugely resonant; the output is quite low and could be more assertive. Of course, much of this is down to the neck and body wood, but the hardware and, more importantly, the bridge can be changed to one of a higher quality that features a solid steel trem block. I will also be swapping out the pickups and tidying up the wiring…
Before we start, it’s always a good idea to note some measurements. First, as we’re going to be swapping the bridge, note down all the string heights. Using an accurate ruler, measure the distance between the strings and the top of the 12th fret [1] – it will normally be 1.5 to 2mm, depending on personal preference. Second, measure the distance between the strings and the top of the outside pole pieces of each pickup. The bridge pickups will normally be a little closer than the neck pickup.
Get To Work
Now, it’s time to tear it apart! I mean, disassemble… All you need for this whole job is a pair of side cutters, a couple of small screwdrivers and a soldering iron [2]. Start by removing all the strings (let’s treat the guitar to some nice new ones) and then remove all the small scratchplate screws from around the outside of the plate. Using a soft cloth, carefully turn the plate over to expose the beauty of the wiring… Uh oh: bird’s nest! [3] This may be a nice-looking guitar with a fine black and shiny finish, but under the cover it could be tidier. Start by making some notes of where the three white wires from the pickups attach. They attach onto the switch in a particular order, meaning you get the right sound from the right click of the switch, so take a close-up shot with your camera phone. Using a 25- or 30-watt soldering iron, carefully desolder these wires from the switch along with the group of three black wires that make up the negative or ground on the back of the volume pot. Now, you can carefully remove the screws that hold the pickups to the scratchplate. The screws can normally stay in the plate along with the small rubber spacers or springs on the underside.
Carefully fit the pickup covers to your new pickups, making sure to use the right pickup in the right position – they should be marked B, M and N, for bridge, middle and neck. Roughly adjust them to a similar height to your previous ones. Once all three pickups are in place, we can get wiring. This is where we can have some fun – and make it look lovely and tidy, just the way Leo Fender would’ve liked it. Most vintage-style replacement pickups feature cloth-covered wire and this can be bent into nice right angles and cut to perfect lengths. Starting with the bridge hot/white wire, carefully lay the wire down along the pickup, across the volume pot and to the switch. When
cut to length and soldered onto the switch, it should look immaculate, as if it had been done at the factory in the 1950s.
Next, you can move onto the middle pickup. Take the white wire towards the bridge pickup then bend it at right angles down across the bridge pickup and to the switch and solder. Repeat this for the neck pickup, each time taking great care to measure twice before cutting the wire to length. Now, we can group all the black wires together and solder them to the back of the volume pot, once again making sure you have them straight and looking perfect before trimming them to length and soldering. Gone is the pile of spaghetti, replaced with order and correctness! [4]
It’s time to replace the okay-sounding and rather naff-looking tone capacitor with a lovely sexy-sounding orange one made by Sprague or Tube Amp Doctor (TAD) [5]. Of course, tone caps don’t do a huge deal when you’re not using the tone controls, but cheap ones will bleed too much tone and volume to ground once you do use them. Some Strats are wired so the tone control is out of the circuit when the bridge pickup is on its own. This, in my opinion, is the most useful time to have the tone control in the circuit, because you can reduce the unwanted and shrill high-end down a little by rolling the tone control from 10 down to eight – thus creating the singing lead Strat tone as used by such players as Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Matt Schofield and Eric Johnson. This can be easily modified by identifying which wire goes from the switch to the back tone control. Then, using a small jumper wire, link the next unused tag on the switch to this wire, or just move this white wire along to the next lug on the switch, giving you a useful tone pot on the bridge pickup. It sounds tricky but, if you look at how the switch is working, you can see where the signal will be routed and work out how to route it differently. Such fun.
Finally, reassemble the scratchplate to the guitar with the tiny screws. You can test the function of the pickups without strings by gently tapping the pole pieces of the pickups with a small non-magnetic screwdriver. Any faults should be easy to recognise and rectify at this point. Next, we can move onto the bridge.
Your new Bridge
In my opinion, steel is the only material that should be used for a vibrato block on a Fender Stratocaster. This has to be pure steel, not steel that has lead or zinc in it. Both of these alloys will kill sustain and dampen clarity. Many companies make replacement hardware for Fender style guitars; my favourite is Callaham from the US and this is what I will be using here.
First, remove the backplate (if fitted) and remove the springs that attach the trem block to the steel trem claw [6]. Do this very
“You can reduce the unwanted and shrill high-end by rolling the tone control from 10 down to eight – creating the singing lead Strat tone used by Beck and Clapton”
carefully with long nose pliers (watch they don’t fly straight up towards your eyes – I’ve done it and it isn’t nice!). Next, remove the six screws that attach the trem to the top of the guitar. You should now be able to lift the old unit up and out of your guitar. Roughly match the bridge saddles of your new unit to the old one, in both height and back and forth (intonation). Now to fit the new unit…
Place it in the body rout and line up the six mounting holes. Roughly fit the screws so they’re about 1mm from the top of the baseplate [7]. Flip the guitar over so you can fit the springs. Fit the hook end of the spring into the trem block and then, using a longer bladed flat screwdriver through the hole in the spring, let it slide down onto the trem claw… clonk! [8] This can take a few attempts and you may find it easier to use pliers, but it’s hugely satisfying to do it this way. Hold the spring in block with one finger, screwdriver into spring hole. Put the screwdriver just behind the trem hook and let the spring slide down the shaft of the driver. Done. Repeat for the other springs.
Next, back to the trem mounting screws… I like to adjust the outer two screws of the six to be just touching the trem baseplate – and I mean just touching so as not to hinder the settlement of the bridge at all. I then set the centre four screws to be just above the baseplate by about 0.5mm. With this adjustment, none of the screws are hindering the trem sustain at all.
Now, you can restring the guitar and make any adjustments to return the instrument to the starting specification, which, of course, should be a bit easier due to the better quality bridge unit [9]. I prefer the trem to be adjusted flat to the body, but with not so much tension on the springs that I can’t just wobble a chord or note a little. Some players like a fully floating trem set so that a backward bend of the bar raises the note by a whole tone or even more.
Once you’ve tweaked and checked the intonation and you’ve adjusted the pickups for both output and balance from string to string, it’s time to check out your guitar in all its new sonic glory. You should have a guitar with more power, sustain, clarity and overall quality of tone – certainly a guitar worth playing. Plus, the new pickups should improve both tone and touch sensitivity. In this feature I fitted some pickups made by the UK manufacturer Rog B pickups, but let your ears and fingers be the judges. US makers such as Jerry Amalfitano, Lindy Fralin, Seymour Duncan and Ron Ellis – not to mention UK guys such as Mark Foley of Fat Boy Guitars and Tim Mills from Bare Knuckle – all make staggeringly great quality pickups for both Fender and Gibson guitars.
Join me for the next Tone Doctor workshop when I’ll be discussing how you can capture the tone that’s in your head with a few tools and tweaks.
“You should have a guitar with more power, sustain, clarity and overall quality of tone – certainly a guitar worth playing. Plus, the new pickups should improve tone and touch sensitivity”