My psychedelic Strat winter project

[Vec]

Just for the fun of it, I always wanted to build a Strat style guitar that had some cool, on-board lighting effects. So, with a little time on my hands this winter, I found an inexpensive Strat style guitar on ebay that had a clear acrylic body that I thought would be a good candidate for the project. So the devious psycho-Strat plan was set into motion .

The first thing I did was to gut/rebuild the existing electronics and replace the pickups with a set of Fender Custom Shop Texas Specials that I had laying around from a previous project. Next, I routed a slot in the body for a 9 volt battery that will be used to power the on-board lighting. Finally, I installed 4 multi-color LED's, wired up the associated switching, and re-dressed the fretwork .

The multi-color LED's are capable of 6 solid colors and one random flashing mode. Here are photo's of the finished project psycho-Strat with the first photo showing how the guitar looks in normal room light followed by 3 of the 6 solid colors in semi-darkness:

[rog43win]

AMAZING! Is that cool or what? Beautiful job, Vec!

[Veenture]

That is really cool Vaugn, I've never seen a psychedelic guitar like that before; great idea! How about making the dot markers glow in the dark too?
(Actually, a few years back I wrote to Fender with my wacky idea about glowing dot markers...but I guess it was too wacky cuz I've never had any reply from them...or even been rewarded a free Strat ...

[GattonFan]

Very cool! Rickenbacker had a lighted psychedelic guitar way back when - they go for huge prices now. You now have a guitar that you can change the color to suit your mood ... nice!
Dennis

[Veenture]

You now have a guitar that you can change the color to suit your mood ...

I can almost hear an audience calling out requests...not for sound adjustments like "more reverb!!" etc., but ...for COLOUR!!

[jfine]

In one of Tommy Tedesco's books, he mentions doing a session for a producer who asked him to "play it more green"...with that guitar he could've done it!

[Vec]

This may sound strange but, if I'm just fiddlin' around my den, I've noticed that changing the color setting of the guitar's lighting seems to affect how & what I play. Psychologists say that color affects our mood and, based on my chameleon psycho-Strat, I think I agree with that. Red seems to bring out more aggressive playing, blue & green seem to mellow, yellowish/amber seems to bring out happy. Funny how that works. Now, if I get the time to tinker with it, it might be cool to see if I can get the lighting to vary with what I'm playing.

[woodchuck30]

Cool strat, but I think you have way too much time on your hands

[Vec]

Cool strat, but I think you have way too much time on your hands

Yup...got laid off from my job a few months ago with the crap economy and I don't want my hands to become the devil's workshop...so I sit around coming up with silly guitar ideas and try to flesh them out .

I'd really like to purchase another Hallmark Custom 60 but, for now, the creative juices seem to be flowing...and they just manifest themselves in silly guitar ideas .

[KRamone27]

Not to get off topic but I know it sucks to get laid off. I got laid off around this time last year then got called back 2 months later with a promotion and a raise. Then 3 weeks ago I had to lay off 3 of the 5 guys on my crew.