SS3
Guitar

Solid korina body with figured maple front-plate for string balance and ultimate tone.
Kahler Hybrid vibrato bridge for deep dives and tuning stability or fixed action.
Seymour Duncan pickups within a chamber for tone enhancement.
Fender LSR Roller nut for tuning ease and accuracy, and string weight tolerance.
Schaller locking machine-heads for easy string changing.
Humbucker / single-coil switch provides a wide range of vintage and modern tones.
Choice of korina stain colours, maple figuring, fret-board woods.

 

SS3

SS3 back

 

The SS3 is not just another stratocaster copy with added humbuckers, although it will feel familiar to anyone coming from that direction. An original designed body of selected hard tone-woods features a thin carbon fibre reinforced neck joint, offering better access to high frets. The scratch-plate is 6mm solid figured maple, not cheap plastic, creating more musical resonance with long sustain as well as beauty. During development a plastic scratch-plate was tested and found detrimental to tone.

Standard pickups are Seymour Duncan: JB bridge humbucker; Quarter pound strat middle; Jazz neck humbucker. Alternative pickup combinations are available to order.

 

SS3 Bridge

Other Guitars
Let's face reality: making a vibrato bridge ( or misnamed "tremolo" bridge) that relies on bed-springs, wood screws, and the body wood in its high-force string tension balancing mechanism, may be cheap to manufacture, but is never going to have the stability or response that a guitarist really needs. The only way to achieve stability together with responsive deep-dive control is to use serious precision engineering components.

Kahler Bridge

SS3 Bridge
The Kahler bridge used on the SS3 is a heavyweight piece of precision kit, expensive to manufacture, but worth every cent and more. The result is a bridge that offers intimate feel and control; amazingly deep dives down as much as a whole octave; and with one of the right nuts: roller; low-friction; or locking; offers perfectly reliable tuning stability.

Adjustability
The bridge is adjustable in every way imaginable: string weight; individual string intonation; individual string height; individual string-string spacing. The vibrato arm can be used on either side, and the stiffness of its rotation can be set. Strings are top-loaded for quick changing. This is clearly the best vibrato bridge in the world.

Floating Vibrato or Fixed Action Bridge
The same bridge can be locked by turning an Allen key when the vibrato action is not required. This makes it into a fixed bridge.

 

SS3 Controls
Pull the tone knob, and the 5 way pickup selector behaves exactly like a Stratocaster using three single-coil pickups.
Push the tone knob, and the 5 way pickup selector, with a Rees circuit, provides 5 humbucker sounds in order from neck to middle to bridge.

Pull for
"Stratocaster like Guitar"

Pickup Selector position when tone knob is pulled:

1: Neck single coil
2: Neck and Mid single coils
3: Middle single coil
4: Mid and Bridge single coils
5: Bridge single coil

Push for
"Three Humbucker Guitar"

Pickup Selector position when tone knob is pushed:

1: Neck humbucker PU.
2: Neck humbucker PU and a bridge single coil.
3: Middle pure humbucker made of a neck coil and a bridge coil.
4: Bridge humbucker PU and a neck single coil.
5: Bridge humbucker PU.

 

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