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| Luxe Guitars aka Luxe Radio & Musical Instrument Co. |
Note: ALL PHOTO'S ARE EXPANDABLE
Luxe Guitars was stumbled on by surprise when i was scavenging around the Internet for the exact capacitors found in David Gilmour's famous Black Strat. They are a supplier of NOS and RE-PRO capacitors, resistors, cloth wiring, spaghetti wiring and braided wiring. Most components are made here in the USA, but some are possibly made in China due to cheaper production prices. Some components are pre-fabricated and some are hand-made.
Located at
2750 Pitcher Rd, Los Angeles CA 90068, they are an on-line based shop only. Go to their eBay store at http://stores.ebay.com/Luxe-Guitars/ to search their inventory of NOS and RE-PRO components.
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| Luxe Re-pro Capacitor and Vintage Waxed Cloth Wiring |
It's quite rare to find a company to reproduce products right down to the point. I jumped at the opportunity to buy myself the age-correct capacitor found in the David Gilmour Black Strat (Note that there were two different style "dime" capacitors made around that time, so i chose the one that was visually better). There were two different capacitors made around the same time, and David Gilmour used the '71/'72 CD capacitor (pulled from his '71/'72 Bullet Truss Rod Nut Stratocaster). Either capacitor would work fine, i like the way it looks and it will fit just fine with my '69 Fender Custom Shop body.
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| David Gilmour's Black Strat with early '70's Ceramic Cornell-Dubilier .05 µF / 50V Capacitor (Courtesy of Kit Rae) |
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| Luxe Orange "Dime" Ceramic Cornell-Dubilier Capacitor Kit |
The Orange "Dime" Ceramic Capacitor is a Reproduction of the Ceramic Cornell-Dubilier .05 µF / 50V Capacitor, used in the Stratocaster from 1964 to 1971. These Re-pro capacitors were originally either late '60's to early '70's NOS Sprague or Erie capacitors of the same specifications, but with the original print cleaned off carefully, then silk-screened with the Cornell-Dubilier label of the specific type. Overall they did an amazing job and the readout's match!
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| Luxe Guitars Re-pro Orange "Dime" Ceramic Capacitor |
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| Amazing detail on the newly applied Cornell-Dubilier label! |
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| Luxe In-house Hand-made spaghetti tubing (also available in different colors) |
The spaghetti tubing is made in-house as there is no one manufacturing this type of tubing anymore. I believe that they mention too that the machines are no longer available so they're HAND-MADE! The color is age-correct and this is the small details that will make my build a rare breed of guitars to be.
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| Front side of diagram sheet |
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| Rear side of diagram sheet |
They have also included a sheet full of images of different years the Stratocaster had of different capacitors. They also include a wiring schematic to show you how the capacitors were originally wired out through the years, WOW! This company has really done their homework! If any questions were to come up during my build, i can sure count on this sheet to help answer my questions with all the high quality photos and diagrams!
Next item of purchase is their vintage age-correct 22 Gauge 7-Strand Waxed Cloth Wiring that is found on Pre '70's Fender Guitars. It was after 1971 that Fender (during the CBS-owned era) that they changed the wire to the plastic sheathing rather than wax cloth. Around that time, Fender guitars were found to have colorful wiring setups as they were using up all the wire they had to replenish new stock of the plastic wiring. Although Gilmour's Black Strat as well as Fender's Custom Shop Relic Black Strat uses the cheap, flimsy plastic wiring, i felt comfortable to stick with the good stuff, and since all my pickups will have cloth wiring to them, I'd like to keep all wiring in the same fashion.
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| Back side of wire spool |
I ordered 4 feet of black, 4 feet of white, 2 feet of yellow, 1 foot of red and 1 foot of green. In all was a total of 12 feet, which came up to be pretty cheap. All this will be used for the build, with some extra for repairs whenever necessary (i've learned throughout the years that having a little extra comes in VERY handy when in need!).
Overall, Luxe Guitars sell high quality products at a fair price. For a build like this, quality is critical so I'd like to thank Donovan of Luxe Guitars for the amazing products and help he offers and for others to please visit the eBay store at
http://stores.ebay.com/Luxe-Guitars/ to purchase these great products.
I'm getting closer to the ultimate guitar, and i just got something in the mail today! On my next post, I'll discuss what that package was and what all other items that i have for this fun and amazing build.
For that one-of-a-kind Black Strat pickguard, visit
www.stratcat.biz for your Black Strat build needs!
Until next time, keep real music alive!
David Sarmiento
