Maybe after a while I would order a chambered replacement body (I'd go with ash but then there's the possibility of neck dive; what about mahogany?) from Warmoth, routed for a Kahler.
Well, as far as stock goes, it seems I will have a choice between the standard Fender tremolo, and the locking Wilkinson tremolo.
In principle I would prefer a locking tremolo because it goes two ways and not just one. However, I have a MIM Strat with a Floyd Rose, and I hate it hate it hate it!!! I despise Floyd Rose... biggest guitar-related mistake I ever made. It's a massive pain-in-the-@$$ and it sucks the tone right outta the guitar, and murders sustain. To hell with FR. Never again!!!
I know the Wilkinson was designed to be far less of a pain (no locking nut, don't have to snip the ball ends, etc.), but does it bleed out the precious tone/sustain like the Floyd Rose does?
And how does it compare to the Fender trem in terms of how it effects the tone/sustain?
If I go with the regular Fender trem, I would get a replacement from Callaham because I hear tell it is made of better metals and will give back a lot of the tone that such a trem would normally diminish.
Tone and sustain matter a lot to me because I plan on running it through two amps simultaneously, clean and dirty (with the occasional stomp of a metal pedal that precedes the A/B-Y box on the chain). And I'll be using big fat jazz strings (.056-.013), for I am delighted to find (according to the replacement parts section of the Fender website) that the LSR Roller Nut can accomodate such a massive gauge.
I would plan on replacing the pickups (as good as they may be on that model) with an HSS set from Bare Knuckle... namely, the "Nailbomb" humbucker plus two "Irish Tour" single coils.
Man... when I'm done with that thing, it'll be a serious tone monster... whether for jazz or grind/death/noise/puke core metal. :D
