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Vintage threads from the first ten years

brass plate behind headstock

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4/28/1999 8:53 AM
nic	brass plate behind headstock I was thinking of cutting up a piece of brass and attaching it to the back of my strat's headstock. Would this improve sustain?? nic

4/28/1999 9:43 AM
Gus	Don't Know could hurt could help. FWIW I like baseball bat type necks better sustain and harmonics. A.P. has that written up in the back of the groove tube book. A well cut nut seems to help sustain as well as heavy strings and low magnet pull. Gus

6/1/1999 2:28 PM
Michael Fragassi	This method might give you mild results but different methods to achieve more sustain can be used depending on the guitar and bridge on the guitar.

4/28/1999 10:44 AM

Can you tell us what year/model the strat is, what type of tailpiece/tremelo ass'y it has, what bridge saddles, whether you have the tailpiece tight against the body, what body wood, and an idea how high the string action is? (also, string gauge)

All these things have some effect on the overall tone and sustain on a strat. You may be able to set your guitar up a little differently and achieve better sustain without resorting to adding a brass plate to the back of the headstock.

There was a commercial plate (called a fathead?) offerred about 10-15 years ago. I'm not saying it didn't work as intended, but how many have any of you guys seen on players' guitars?

4/28/1999 1:39 PM

I have heard of the fathead, thats what gave me the idea and since my girlfriend has been doing a lot of jewler type stuff I asked her to pick up a sheet of brass for me. I think I saw a web page for the fathead, but I can't seem to find it anymore. I think I will try meta crawler to search again...

So is brass one of those superstitions??? I guess if anything it will look okay.

My guitar is an early ninties Japanese reissue of a fifties model. I have put Texas Specials, graphite nut and sadlles on it. The tail piece floats so I can get a step or a step and a half bend up. The wood is basswood. The action is no higher than 2mm I think. The gauge of strings is .11's. Oh and it has a maple board.

nic

4/28/1999 2:30 PM

The fathead I saw attached to the back face of the peghead. It had holes where the tuning machine string posts fit through. I guess that would make your string posts quite a bit shorter on the string side.

I have this '50s model guitar. I also changed the pickups. First to texas specials, which I thought were a bit too much (with the maple fingerboard), and then changed them to more vintage style DiMarzio '55s. I guess I wanted mine to sound more like a '54 strat than a roadhouse model. I replaced the selector switch and the pots, also. Believe it or not, the full size american pots sound better than the imported mini-pots they put in these guitars.

Anyway, mine has decent sustain. But the basswood is a rather soft wood for a guitar body.. I run the tailpiece down on the board and it makes a world of difference in unamplified volume and sustain.. You've kind of limited your options by requiring up-bends using the whammy bar. Note that the string block on these guitars is only medium-sized, compared to the US vintage (and original strat) type. You can fabricate an auxiliary piece out of a block of steel that can be securely attached to your existing block for added mass & stability. You could substitute a new, full size vintage style steel block. I think I saw them advertised in Vintage Guitar? Another option is to buy a complete US vintage reissue tremelo assembly (about $90 list from Fender, $75 on Angela's website catalog) and replace your japanese one.

2mm is an ok string height (higher action=better sustain with large string vibration amplitude) and .011s are certainly heavy enough and not sustain-limiting like .009s.

You can experiment with the brass plate, but you will get definite results with greater mass string block, IMHO.

4/28/1999 4:40 PM

Doc,

The fathead is sold by Groove Tubes. They had a bit of hype on their web site about how adding a bit of weight to the body just isn't enough but in headstock the mass percentage is higher and on and on. I took this as the GT added hype that many companies use but isn't really true. I do want to try this brass thing out anyway. I have considered a hard tailed strat for awhile but I don't know if I have the heart to convert this strat into one. The funny thing is I like my tele more these days. Maybe this is because it doesn't have a bar??? A bigger thicker trem block is a good idea but $75 is a lot.

nic

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