The Black Wreck

Here is my old, beat-up black S-type "parts-caster". It's gone through many changes and is now subject to future pick-guard swaps due to me always changing my mind about what looks and sounds best for this guitar.

It's currently sporting two PAF-style humbuckers: A Vanson '59, alnico V in the bridge and a Vanson '57 alnico II in the neck. The neck pickup is wired with the coils in parallel, which makes it less muddy and fat-sounding. That makes the neck humbucker actually useable for me.

A tiny-value capacitor (a 222 - 2200 picoFarads) for the tone controls results in a subtle adjustment that pretty much only takes off extreme high frequencies. This is mostly to cut out RF noise as this guitar is unshielded and sometimes can buzz a bit.

I also placed another capacitor (even smaller 471 - 470 picoFarads) across the output to further cut out some extra high frequencies. It also has some effect on the overall tone by moving the resonant peak of the pickups, but it's not a huge change.

It's an odd-ball guitar. It gets me close to the Gibson-type sounds whilst being able to stay on my preferred Fender style scale length and familiar layout. It's had a lot of damage and a lot of physical abuse, but it plays beautifully. It has a very nice neck profile (a super-cheap £23 Kmise neck from Ebay) with a nice satin finish. The action is low, it stays in tune and since I made it a string-though-body (after converting it from a trem-route to a top-loading hardtail initially) it has become a very solid-performing guitar.

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So, probably not much appeal to anyone else, but to me it's worth its weight in gold (so not much, seeing as it's a light guitar!) It's a proper work-horse and reliable instrument. It is ready to rock.

The Black Wreck Parts List:

• Basswood S-type body from Ebay.
• Kmise neck from Ebay.
• Musiclily locking tuners.
• Hardtail Bridge from Northwest Guitars UK.
• Cheap HH pickguard.
• Vanson '57 & '59 vintage output humbuckers.
• Lots of misplaced drill holes, scratches and gouges.
• Cheap, local acrylic spraycan paint.

 
I also have another pickguard (SSS) that will fit this guitar - a 50's style 1-ply for a real authentic look and sound of a 50's hardtail Strat and even when adding up the money I've sunk into it over the last few years, it still cost peanuts compared to an off-the-shelf Fender Strat.

It's not a guitar I think would be easy to sell as it's not worth much and it isn't that pretty, so I guess this one will stay with me until the end of it's life or mine. Whichever comes first!

All hail 'The Black Wreck".