My Lowell George Stratocaster is finally ready

[kplamann]

Dear all,

As I announced in an earlier thread, I planned to transform my beginner's Japanese strat copy from the seventies into a Lowell George guitar. It took me a long time to get around to it and get all the parts.

Some details - Pickguardian pickguard ; Harmonic design Super 90 bridge pickup ; the other two are Fender SE strat pickups I got from the classifieds here ; Allparts bridge ; Schaller tuners and a new Alembic "blaster." The new ones actually come with a nicer oval shaped plate. It cost me a couple of local beers to have a plate made in the older ugly rectangular shape by the nice guy in the workshop of the research place I work at. I have .011 flatwound strings on it, like I believe Lowell had.

And you know what? - She sounds somewhat like Lowell George ... at least inasmuch I am capable of a faint imitation of his licks. It must be the heavy Jazz strings, the slight sparkle the blaster adds, the compression I use and certainly my imagination ...

Here she is:

[lupowitz]

Good job!
Congrats!
Let us hear it if you can!

[kplamann]

For comparison: the actual Lowell George guitar. In the end he put a Tele volume knob on the guitar, but most of the available footage shows the guitar with the regular strat volume knob.



The man with his guitar:



Perhaps I post sound clips later, however I am presently very busy. As I stated above, the blaster gives a nice sparkle, even when not boosting much; the flatwound strings really help the slide sound and the P90 inspired bridge pickup, although not quite Lowell authentic, makes a nice sound on its own and gives rise to a strat-on-steroids effect when combined with the middle pickup.

[czgibson]

Looks great, man!

Rock on!

[Califiddler]

So - open A and an 11/16" Craftsman socket?

[kplamann]

Originally Posted by Califiddler

So - open A and an 11/16" Craftsman socket?

Here you go with the socket! I got it during a recent business trip to the States. A metric socket would just not have sounded the same ...

To be honest, I find it a bit heavy. I actually prefer Dunlop 218 glass slides, but don't tell anyone.

Open A sounds great with this guitar. However, the trem then slightly lifts off; I will need to block it for tuning stability.

[e-merlin]

Very cool!

[LightninMike]

Very cool man..... when playing, Lowell's sound was not just him and his guitar, but he ran two Dynacomps, one with the compression high and level low; one with the compression low and the level high, and his Dumble amp....

[boris bubbanov]

Originally Posted by kplamann

Man, this socket is way from the wrong era!

We need to find you a 1970s or 1960s Craftsman socket.

+

Anyway, very cool project!! Great!