David Gilmour Black Strat

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I built this guitar based on the Fender Stratocaster played by David Gilmour on such Pink Floyd classics as Animals and The Wall (and recently seen in use on Roger Water’s The Wall tour during Comfortably Numb).

It has gone through several iterations over the years. Mine is modeled after what he settled on for the original The Wall tour.

It is built with:

• Standard black alder Strat body
• Maple neck and fretboard in a C profile
• Bridge pickup: Seymour Duncan SSL5 single coil. Gilmour’s is actually a custom “hot wound” SSL1. The SSL5 is a production model based on that overwound SSL1.
• Middle pickup: Fender Custom Shop ’69, wound and signed by Abigail Ybarra.
• Neck pickup: Fender Custom Shop ‘57
• 11 hole single-ply black pickguard
• Parchment knobs and pickup covers
• Vintage spec Wilkinson EZ-LOK tuners (a small deviation, his are Gotoh vintage-style)
• Fender USA trem bridge with upgraded full steel block and a shortened trem arm as he preferred.
• Open trem cavity
• Custom recessed toggle that adds the neck pickup in any position so that Bridge/Neck and Bridge/Middle/Neck are possible. The harness of the recessed toggle was fabricated by hand

Me shortening the trem arm