Alvarez Strat Project by James @ 9:08 am

OK, so this is the latest in my ongoing quest to make my beautiful old Alvarez Strat copy stay in tune. It started in 1996, I purchased the Alvarez “Classic” sunburst guitar for $136 in a music shop in Greensburg, PA. I forget what the place is called. They had to custom order it for me, since they only had a black one in stock.

Anyway, I had tuning problems right away. I had extremely low expectations and performance requirements at that time in my life, so I didn’t make the first move until 1998, when I purchased Sperzel locking tuners. This improved the situation greatly, but later, in a band environment, I was still always the one with tuning problems.

Around that same time, I went through the process of lowering the bridge, adding extra springs and tightening the crap out of the “claw” making the maximum possible tension on the bridge. This, again, made a serious improvement, but still… STILL she would fall out of tune.

I tore the guitar completely down in 2002, to refinish it. At this point, I revisited the lock down of the bridge.

In 2004, I purchased a set of graphite saddles from an eBay seller. This was the next step. I was breaking strings frequently.

In 2006, I sanded off all the finish from the back of the neck, down to raw wood, and gave it a good, hearty dose of teak oil. The neck is like satin now. Plays beautifully. The Alvarez neck is a lot thinner than the standard Strat neck, which feels like a baseball bat, in comparison. It plays like a dream. Except for the tuning problems…

The guitar originally came with a cheap white plastic nut. From the very first time I changed the strings back in 1996, the nut would grab the strings on their way through, making that horrible *TINK* sound while tuning. This was easily solved with a #2 pencil, sharpened to a fine point, shaving graphite into the grooves. That treatment would last almost the life of the strings, before they would start TINKing again.

What I thought was the final step was earlier this year, I purchased and installed a graphite nut.

Later in 2007, my lead/bridge pickup went bonkers and turned into a squealing demon. My friend Tom (http://myspace.com/tombradbury, who is the lead guitar player in my band) traded me the original wired pickguard from his 80’s model Japanese Strat. I removed all the guts, swapping pickups, pots, and switches out of the Alvarez for his Fender Jap Strat guts.

The guitar now sounds great, is a complete Frankenstein’s monster of pieces parts, and still, sadly, falls out of tune from time to time. Granted, it’s about 1/8 as often as it did when brand new, so the extra $150 that I have put into this $136 guitar has been worth it. I love the way it plays.

So, here we are, nearing the end of 2007, and I have dropped another $50 on a hardtail bridge conversion. This isn’t a genuine Fender part, it’s “Custom Shop” brand, but hey, it’s not a genuine Fender guitar, either. So, the idea, is that it bolts straight to the body of the guitar, eliminating all the spring-loaded floating stuff in the body that allows the bridge to move under heavy playing.

I haven’t gotten it installed yet, because there is an issue. Two of the four screw holes line up perfectly with the two bolts in the original that serve as the fulcrum point on the original trem bridge. I am going to have to figure out how to eliminate those sleeves, then fill the holes.

Luckily, this is not my main guitar, so I can afford to have it out of service for a while if that is what’s required…

I will keep this updated as progress is made.

////// Edit 9/30/2007 ////////
I got the bridge mounted yesterday. It lines up perfectly. The saddles are mounted on this thing quite a bit higher than they were on the original, so I had to adjust the action down considerably. It is all together and restrung, it just needs tuned up and the intonation set again.

Here is a random song of mine: seeing ghosts
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Until then, here is something I stumbled upon:

September 27, 2007