Schecter Stiletto-6 FR

[Dave Sloven]

Yeah all the hardware on that bass is Hipshot. That's their A-style Fender-mount aluminium bridge.

 

[Dave Sloven]

I think I have worked out why my neck pickup is tilting:

Even though the pickups are short leg the fact that the screws are the long leg length means that the screws are bottoming out against the bottom of the cavity as I wind the pickup down and the pickup tilts over as a result.

Steve didn't cut in the leg recesses when he routed the neck pickup cavity.

So I am thinking this can be fixed by cutting the excess off of the pickup height adjustment screws as they are way longer than needed.

Also I am fitting a Gotoh wrench holder to the headstock, which I have mocked up with double-sided tape in the photo below

 

[Dave Sloven]

I used my Tamiya Handy Drill and a screwdriver to install it permanently. Everything clears the hardcase as well as without it fitted.

 

[WavMixer]

Now this right here is a GREAT thread!!! Start with pics of a new acquisition. Pics and descriptions of mods... more pics... yet more pics. Video of modded guitar in action... It just doesn't get any better than this! Beautiful guitar, great choice of mods that were excellently executed. Bravo Dave, BRAVO!

 

[Dave Sloven]

I think I have worked out why my neck pickup is tilting:

Even though the pickups are short leg the fact that the screws are the long leg length means that the screws are bottoming out against the bottom of the cavity as I wind the pickup down and the pickup tilts over as a result.

Steve didn't cut in the leg recesses when he routed the neck pickup cavity.

So I am thinking this can be fixed by cutting the excess off of the pickup height adjustment screws as they are way longer than needed.

Okay so when I was changing strings last Friday I decided to tackle this problem. Using my Foredom Flex-Shaft (to cut down some screws) and my Tamiya Handy Drill (for pilot holes) and Tamiya Handy Router (to enlarge and deepen those pilot holes to allow the screws of the neck pickup to sit properly without tilting or coming undone) I now have the pickups sitting level and just need to do a final adjustment of pickup height before the next gig on Saturday. I also removed the small washers underneath the mini toggles for the coil splits. They have a strange little tang that sticks up from them and besides catching my finger the finish seemed to be wearing off of them so using tweezers as a makeshift spanner (I couldn't be bothered going out to the garage in the rain!) I removed the nuts a few minutes ago to take off the washers. I don't think they are really needed with the switches mounted through the pickguard anyway. They probably came with the switches for people to turn them up the other was on the top of an instrument to dig in with those tangs if needed. These were up the other way and mainly gripping my fingertips. So they are gone now and it looks fine.

Here are some photos. There were scratches in the bottoms of both the neck and bridge pickup cavities where the screws had been. I used the ones in the neck pickup to place my pilot holes and then enlarge them, whereas for the bridge where the problem was less drastic I just took maybe 5-8 threads off the ends of the screws.

 

[jtcnj]

Finely tuned machine!!
How is the volume balance between bridge and neck with the pickup heights as shown?
I know you said you still have to do final, but is it close with them even like that?

I have really enjoyed following you on this journey, especially since it has turned out so well.

 

[Mr Grumpy]

Good work, and looks nice too.

Of course, the lack of parallelism on the pu screws will drive Robert's OCD to distraction.

 

[Dave Sloven]

The pickup heights aren't set yet but the bridge was higher than the neck before. It is hard to say though as the front one was tilting quite a bit so the old settings don't mean much after that was fixed.

I'm going to get to band practice before the others tomorrow and adjust them as much as possible with the screwdriver. It's a bit hard to adjust them properly here with people around. You really need to play them at gigging volume while adjusting

 

[Dave Sloven]

I took this guitar back to Steve a couple of weeks ago to have a new pickguard made. We eliminated the two toggle switches for coil splits and replaced them with a Mojotone CTS push-pull master volume pot that splits the coils on both pickups, but that meant that we were left with a couple of ugly holes in Steve's original custom pickguard, so Steve made a new one. Cost me $120 for the neck pickguard and the wiring changes (I supplied a new set of strings and the pot). The 550K CTS pot that he took out is replacing a damaged pot in my yellow SG. Here are some photos I took when I got it back on Thursday. I took it to band practice today and I was so happy to have my #1 back, I really love it. The only thing I didn't like about it was those two toggles that I would hit accidentally if I used the pickup selector switch.

How the guitar looked when I first got it back from Steve back in April 2018 or whenever, sitting on top of my 6534+:

That old pickguard after Steve removed it last week:

The guitar this week, sitting on top of my JSX:

A closer photo of the area of the pickguard that has changed:

The guitar in its case, getting ready to travel to band practice:

 

[Inspector #20]

Super Slick...

 

[syscokid]

Very nice!

 

[ivan H]

Nice, very nice. Cheers