David Byrne ~ 1978 ~ Playing his Fender Duo-Sonic
Now consider necks... you can get a sweet late 50's through mid 60's Duo-Sonic or Music Master neck for less than $400, much less in many cases. Some of them feature the same sweet rosewood slab boards found on you're favorite vintage Strats. What I'm getting at is this, if you like vintage Fender guitars but feel like you've been priced out of the market, the Duo-Sonic and Music Master may be your ticket in.
This olympic white example became the first of what ended up being two simultaneous projects. What we have here is a late 60's Duo-Sonic (or Music Master) body paired with a '74 Music Master neck. To give you an idea of how affordable these can be to put together, I paid $225 for the neck (which is in mint condition) which had reproduction "F" tuners already installed. That's a pretty sweet deal in my book.
This dakota red example was the second of the two projects. It features a mid 60's body paired with a '66 neck... more about this particular neck in a moment.
So what "happened" was that I originally bought the white body and the '66 neck but then ended up winning this red body on ebay as well... it was less than $200 so I couldn't say no. Then I decided that I'd look for another neck and that's when I found the '74 Music Master neck, and so before I knew it I had two projects rolling at the same time.
A quick word about these DS and MM necks, basically they come in two lengths, or at least they did up until the late 60's... the really short ones are stamped 3/4 and feature a 22.5" scale length. They're short, and most have a narrower nut width, denoted by the "A" stamped on the butt of the neck. The other (and more desirable necks IMO) are the 24" neck... the same ones used on the Fender Mustang. Many of these are also the narrower "A" width necks but there are some to be found with the more comfortable "B" width... these "B" necks are the same width as your basic Strat. If you want more info on neck stamps check this out. This is a good resource too regarding Fender necks. Since finding my 24" "B" Duo-Sonic neck on ebay, I have not seen another come up for auction so I feel lucky to have grabbed it when I did.
Close up of finish checking
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Before cleaning up the body
After cleaning up the body. I used automotive scratch remover, the stuff in the orange bottle called Nu-Finish. It's safe on both nitro and poly finishes but I'd recommend doing it by hand, not a buffer. You can burn through a thin vintage finish in no time. As with most things, patience is a virtue.
After routing for the toggle
After applying the shielding paint
So basically there were two versions of the vintage Duo Sonic. The first generation which had a unique body shape, unique bridge, and a 3-way toggle on the lower horn. As you can see, there were other differences too. The second "60's" version adopted the body shape of the Mustang, lost the 3-way in favor of the Mustang style slide switches, and featured a redesigned bridge.
Original Version Mustang Inspired Version My Version
I happen to like/dislike elements of both designs and decided to blend the most favorable into one guitar. I don't care for the electronic scheme on the newer version and decided to use the old style 3-way, which meant so routing was necessary. The body on these guitars is thinner than a Strat and so I needed to use 3-way toggle switches like those used on Gibson SGs. I caught a little grief form forum users about routing these two bodies but it had to be done, and besides, the red one had already had a deepened pickup cavity. I understand the argument for not hacking up vintage guitar parts but I think I did a good job and it's not as though I killed value (they aren't worth too much to begin with).
The parts were pretty easy to source out, I just scoured ebay for the bridges and control plates (one was vintage, the other a vintage RI). The pickguards for both guitars were ordered from WD Music... I've heard that the "WD" stands for wrong dimensions and I can see why. The guards themselves were alright but the hole patterns were WAY off. I plugged the original holes in the body with toothpicks and wood glue and just re-drilled them for the pickguard holes. Not something you'd want to do on a vintage Strat but for these guitars I wasn't too worried.
I wanted to try something different as far as pickups and decided on GFS Pro Tube Lipsticks. The neck pickup features a pretty low output but the bridge has a little more juice. You can hear them in action here. Anyhow, they were a good choice. I used the following wiring scheme if anyone is interested in using it.
I also shielded the pickguard with that sticky aluminum stuff available from StewMac (that's where the shielding paint came form too). I'd highly recommend both products, both of these guitars are dead silent, something their stock vintage counterparts are not known for.
Other than that I aged the neck plate and knobs a bit to match the rest of the guitar but that's about all. And so, the first of the two DS/MMs was complete.
On to big red...
The neck on this guitar makes it for me. I love a comfy neck and this one is just to die for. The nitro has worn off the back and it's SMOOTH to say the least... the cheesy metaphors and similes just fill my mind but I'll leave it be. Second, the thing just looks killer... a very nicely aged amber tint that simply cannot be replicated by artificial aging. MJT does a great job but real vintage necks have sweat, beer, and god-only-knows what else caked on them from years of being handled.
This neck did not come with tuners but I aged up det of period correct Kluson "two-rows" using the muriatic acid double boiler method and ochre colored Sharpie which I've previously mentioned on my blog. The results were pretty good, good enough anyhow.
The body is pretty straight forward. It arrived totally grimed out and I used the Nu-Finish and some elbow grease to breath some new life into it. The finish had tons of checking, dings, scrapes, and bruises but the neck pocket was solid. Actually, the neck pocket did have a one issue. There was so much overspray in the pocket that the neck sat crooked in the pocket so I carefully scraped and sanded it out.
Before...
And after...
I kind of hated to do any sanding in there for fear of sanding off the factory stamps but they remained intact for the most part.
Speaking of stamps, anyone know what this "C" stamp denotes? It could be something, or it could be nothing. I've looked high and low and found no information whatsoever. You can also see the routing work that was done previous to my getting ahold of the body.
I had to do some routing of my own to accommodate the 3-way and to get the Dimarzio pickups to fit. And so, lets talk pickups.
I wanted to retain a more vintage look but turn this guitar into a screamer. I opted for Dimarzio Strat sized humbuckers, a Fast Track for the neck, and a Super Distortion for the bridge. As I mentioned they did require some extra routing of the pickup cavities but I think I did a relatively clean job... another case of good enough being good enough. I also wanted to add a coil tap toggle which I positioned between the two knobs. The wiring provided a challenge but it was do-able and came out fine. I'll try to refresh this post with the schematic once I find it.
In any event, once I got her wired up and assembled I was in awe... this thing is an all out rocker. The pickups are HUGE sounding in humbucking mode and both sound good split too. The coil tap toggle added some nice new flavors to the standard neck, neck/bridge, bridge settings. It's not the clearest video I've shot but you can have a listen...
And so, my short scale fever has been officially cured. While I love these two little Fenders, I don't see myself building any more student model Fenders in the near future but they sure are fun. They're the closest thing to a "real" 60's Fender I'll be able to afford unless I hit the lottery.
What specific GFS pickups did you use? The Stratocaster or Danelectro? Great work by the way!
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