DIY Steve Morse "FrankenCaster" in progress

[Clete Ritta]

Anyone who wins Guitar Player's "Overall Best Player" more than once is amazing. But Steve Morse won it 5 years in a row and was finally excluded from competition with mere mortals! In tribute to his musical influence on me personally, heres my DIY variation on his original infamous "FrankenCaster" (pictured below)



I'll post more pics as it progresses. The blue Ernie Ball signature model behind it is based on this same wiring schematic.





Ive since painted my homemade pickguard black, and added 4 cans of nitro amber tint laqcuer to the Empress body (very light weight) and a little on the headstock and maple back of a Squier Strat rosewood neck. Cant wait for it to dry fast enough to polish!



Ive also added a few toggle switches like the original. I aged some of the large chrome parts with acid fumes for appearance. I will replace my modified Trilogy bridge with a Harmony trapeze bridge (not a 12 string like his original). I swapped the bridge mini humbucker for a full size humbucker but will try the mini in the neck, just cause it looks pretty cool, and it sounded great in an Epiphone Firebird. I have a Roland GK midi pickup (now on an older Strat) that I might add to complete for a 5-pickup build. So far Im into it for about $275, but that sounds about right for a home made guitar made with spare parts.
Copper shielding the cavities next...

Clete

[Clete Ritta]

Well, so much for even wet sanding! I replaced the temporary Trilogy with a Stratotone Harmony trapeze tailpiece. Here's a few more pics since my post two days ago of the Frankencaster as it becomes a reality.

VO: (Vincent Price — "mwuahahahahaahhh)



This is a fun project personally, as I really know very little about schematics, electronics, and not particularly mechanically inclined either. Nor have I any experience in woodworking and finishing. These are all crafts which each of us see everyday, but may or may not appreciate until you try and do it yourself. Well sometimes "happy accidents" (yes, Bob Ross, the PBS painter ), become something beyond what you initially imagined.


Luckily, I only have one more switch to install on the pickguard, but then the real nightmare begins:
<<WIRING>>



SFX: (flash of lightning)






Its almost ALIVE!
(no green tint here, just that dang flash <POP> )
My good friend Larry, over at Century Music, is going to be cast as Dr. Frankenstein in this guitardrama,
I will play the hunchback, Igor, frantically jumping up and down in anticipation when he flips the switch and turns energy into life!

Clete

[Clete Ritta]

Heres the schematic from the Ernie Ball signature model, which is based on the original.



This first one was so much fun, I already have plans to do another. I was tempted to add the new Seymour Duncan "Triple Shot Switching Mounting Ring", which looks just brilliant in design, but I will save that, and the Hipshot Trilogy bridge, for my next home project build!

Clete

[Joachim Kettner]

Great work Clete,
I suppose it's the same guitar that he uses on this track:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81YIhMEDZWo

[Clete Ritta]

Yep thats the one! He recorded and performed with it for nearly 20 years, from the early 70's till retiring it sometime after High Tension Wires in 1989 (when Ernie Ball approached him about designing a signature model). He was using his 1st EB prototype on Southern Steel in 1991.

I was fortunate to see him play the "Frankencaster" quite a few times since Dregs of the Earth was released in 1980. When he finally switched to the EB prototype I sort of missed it, though primarily just its history and appearance. It started as a brand new Strat in 67. Sometime in the early 70's he kept the neck and middle pickup and combined them with a Tele body that was already modded with a Gibson 335 humbucker in the neck. He initially added a Fender high output humbucker in the bridge position. It was replaced shortly after with an early custom wound DiMarzio that later became one of their four current DP signature pickups.

It seems he still has a favorite among all his Ernie Ball guitars: ..."he's been using prototype no. 1 of his Steve Morse signature guitar for more than 20 years (the guitar has been refretted eight times and is still the first original one)."

Clete

[David Mason]

Morse & McLaughlin were "my" guys, too. There was more than a bit of influence from both of them on the one on the right:



It's got a USA Custom Tele body, the bighead Strat Warmoth neck - but scalloped (thanks John!). I made do with only two pickups, but the 5-way lets me pull up either coil of the Lawrence L500, and both coils in series, parallel and out-of phase, and each PU has it's own concentric tone/volume control, which leaves the proverbial rainbow with the selector in the middle.

"Southern Steel" and "Coast to Coast" were the recordings I spent the most time with out of all of them, though I went way back with the early Dregs, living in Florida in the 70's. Morse's wiring is deeply whacko - I tried to love it, almost dropped the hammer on a Music Man several times, but his brain just doesn't work like a human's. I got over halfway through the Steve Morse Band's "Live in Baden-Baden" DVD before I really noticed that he was playing Dregs tunes with a trio, he simply played the keyboard and violin parts at the same time as his guitar parts. And though a lot of musicians are forced to take a day job to pay off a mortgage, not too many of them go work as a Boeing 737 pilot.

[Kevin Hatton]

Needs more pickups.

[HowardR]