261 – 081024 ZS-SH Strat hardtail – Zachary Handcrafted Guitars | Bass| Pedals | Strings

Inspiration

I create each guitar to try out new things. New designs, new finishes, new body shapes, new pickups, new hardware, new constructions methods, new tools, new themes, new pickup designs, etc. This is why every Zachary guitar is different, besides being hand made, which by default will invariably create individuality, due to the inconsistency and imprecision of human inspiration and craftsmanship.

You see, I am actually fighting very hard to preserve the creativity of humanity; thus the preservation of humanity itself. In essence that which defines humanity? It is variability and yes, that hijacked term "diversity", which defines humanity which is intrinsically diverse because not one person is ever the same. This is why its so important to support and appreciate every craftsman that is still left in the world. Every person who creates, either artistically or intellectually, will do it in a unique way with individualized results. Every craftsman is celebrating humanity by displaying diversity of creation. Its strange how the ignorant masses are ready and willing to be displaced by technology and relegate diversity to simply skin color mostly and not biological and intellectual variation. Yet, at the same time contradicting their ideology by denying that there is even such a thing as diversity. "We are all the same", they say.
Strange and ignorant are the Toddler masses unable to see their own demise through denying and even criminalizing diversity of creation and individual creativity, while claiming they mandate diversity. You must detect their contradictory racial agenda at play. Technology will truly equalize everything, material and living. It will be the same as buying a mass produced guitar, which are all identical in the thousands, regardless of where they are sold and played.

I had this thought of recreating an updated, simplified and more effectively designed Fender-style single coil pickup. Those Fender pickups were designed to be suspended under a pickguard or bridge. Fender pickups were not meant to be uninstalled easily. They were not meant to be mounted to the body. They were also meant to be used with covers, like on a Strat. I wanted to make the design more practical in all applications, with or without a pickguard. I wanted to make the shape simpler, just a rectangle and I wanted it to be connected at the pickup end, instead of the control cavity. I also wanted them to be mounted to the body like a Gibson P90 but moving the mounting screws over more to the ends for increased stability and easier adjustability.

These are the first versions of my new pickup design and are prototypes, completely hand made. I made the flatwork, cut them out, drilled all the holes, assembled it by hand and wound them on my little pickup winder. They are made to vintage specs but better, since Fender did not have the insight or the consideration to compensate each pickups for its position in terms of output and volume. Fender made all their pickups identical regardless of which position they were placed on the guitar. So what you get here is in essence the perfect Strat pickup set.

I also had this wild looking Canary-wood neck that I made previously, with a Canary fingerboard. I have never seen this done before but it works so well and gives this instruments even more uniqueness visually and in character. I cut and slot my own fingerboards, so I have the control over creativity there also, in the type of woods I use.

The switching is also improved over the traditional Stratocaster in that a Strat has a 5-way switch, while I use a 6-way switch, giving the player the missing combination of neck + bridge pickups. Single volume and single tone knobs simplifies the setup even more to make it more intuitive and functional.

My goal was to make this guitar as traditional and vintage inspired as possible. I chose a 3 saddle Tele bridge and vintage Kluson-style tuners with plastic buttons to not make the guitar neck heavy.

24 tall and wide Stainless Steel frets as usual, means that strings will not chew up the frets, having to refret.
At 6.2 lbs, being a semi-solid constructions, with a solid block down the middle gets this instrument down to 6.2 lbs.