Starcaster scratch build Upgrade-"Troncaster"" flies again.....

johnP_90

Hi again folks,

I have been busy since my Tele neck build post building more one piece vintage necks, I have 4 all maple and a couple of 2 piece slab board necks to do having done some upgrades to my jigs recent. Part of the deal was to get some "Mojotron's" to fit in my Starcaster build from a couple of years ago that never really "flew" as had crap GFS Retrotrons in it as couldn't afford TV Jones. I now have a set of Mojo's and time to do something about it


The guitar is fully chambered swamp ash and sounds great unplugged but no "musicality" plugged in but never got around to sorting it out until now. The difference is night and day and at last got great Tone, so thought I might share the upgrade as these things have great Filtertron tone, what I was looking for when I built her in 2015. La Carbronita meets White Falcon sort of thing ....

 First up was a proper wiring harness upgrade inspired by my "ship in a bottle" 336 builds recently. This thing has a rear cover thankfully!.. I want rid of any hiss and hum from unshielded wires I was getting before by using braided cable throughout.

https://i.imgur.com/B0rRKL5.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/X4QNp46.jpg

I am swapping out the 500k Log pots for Linear as hate the taper. It has a 3rd Master Volume, just an additional pot in the output to jack socket, the rest is standard LP/335ish. The master volume is well handy and does not seem to effect tone any more than rolling off the other volumes which tend to stay at 10. Rolling of the master has same effect as on a Les Paul, in a good way and handy for a good tone in the mixed/both pickups position.
https://i.imgur.com/PKd2Agf.jpg

All done now and tested, briefly...
https://i.imgur.com/dll4rVh.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/DTIzsv4.jpg


Some shots of the girl as this was a labour of love a few years ago, I cut the neck profile too thin on the first neck by a tad and had to build another neck with nice chunky 59 round back profile so a few tears shed along the way, lol. (Got better at the headstock "swoosh" though as a tad tricky..)
https://i.imgur.com/EhNvohM.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/AnFtO5K.jpg


I have just re-set the pickup heights to TV Jones specs un-fretted and in Jangle heaven, they sound great in all positions and not a trace of hiss of buzz, they are very touch sensitive btw. They are fairly under wound at 4.5K neck and 5.1 or so for the bridge, yet surprisingly pokey and have a voice of their own, very Tron, Man...

It is delivering exactly what I was after tone wise now, Cabronita Tele on steroids. Heres a few more rubbish indoor pics as she deserves her 15 minutes of fame now sounding so good!

https://i.imgur.com/m6A6XDQ.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/fyCa7Z9.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/36mOrqK.jpg


Thanks Darren at Custom Kits for getting these sorted and Marc at Mojo pickup's UK for building these great Trons,he does them in a range of covers and highly recommend them indeed, these are in "paf" size casings btw. I now want a set for my Tele Thinline, Doh! Hopefully a few more builds,  upgrades and necks coming along shortly if you guys are interested.

Regards,

John

Edit: Sorry about initial picture links, still getting used to Imgur.

Danielsguitars

That's a good looking guitar John, can't wait to try it out now 

Corvus

Very nice that, nice colour too. Filtertrons are great prob my favourite pickup.

Danielsguitars

Corvus 

Very nice that, nice colour too. Filtertrons are great prob my favourite pickup.

Wasn't your tele fitted with filtertrons,  it was great sounding Bill

Sesh

Really great work. I like that a lot.

Corvus

customkits said:

Corvus 

Very nice that, nice colour too. Filtertrons are great prob my favourite pickup.

Wasn't your tele fitted with filtertrons,  it was great sounding Bill

Cheers Darren, my own-shape, offset, orangey one has trons. And the Firebird build. (Did a Tele but it's got lipsticks, really like those too).

johnP_90

Thanks Darren, Corvus n Sesh for the likes. With the swamp ash body she had to be "Ash Blonde", on the pale side like one that hasn't aged much.Very light too at 6.5Lbs and at last a tone to match! These MojoTrons aint half nice and rapidly becoming my new fave pickup too Corvus! Very Gretch.....man. Wiring upgrade worked out well too and totally silent from background hiss I was getting.

I think this is now my weapon of choice, for a while anyway. Grin

Thanks, John