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I've noticed that the decal on the front of the headstock of my 56 NOS is starting to show wear and slight flaking around its edges.
It seems to finished differently from other strats in that they seem to have the decal under the varnish finish, whereas the NOS finish seem to have the decal on top of the finish without any apparent protection.
So does the team have any suggestions in how to protect the decal from eventually coming away altogether?.

Second query (really a "that sound" issue.)
How is Hank getting that, for want of a better phrase, mellow tone on his newer work?

I see from the videos that he still uses the bridge pickup but the treble content is greatly reduced (more than maybe just use of the tone control??).

is it clever EQ or is it differetn pickups.
I cant get anywhere near this mellowness (is that a word?) by just adjusting the tone on guitar or amp. Any ideas?

Equipment - NOS strat with stock pickups, Vox AC15, alesis Q2 with eftp patches.

John M.

Personally, I don't think it has much to do with pickups, because Hank has just about always had a mellow sound. When you listen to even the earliest Shadows songs, for example, Apache, Shadoogie, The Boys . . . and so on, you will notice that Hank's sound is never harsh. Just listen to Hank playing on the Cliff vocals; the guitar tone is very mellow. Much later, when Hank started using Kinmans, which are naturally mellow and noiseless, he had a mellow sound, but he still had it when he switched over to the CS54s during their most recent tour . . . So, it's not the pickups. I think that it's the setting on the amp first of all, combined with the tone controls on the guitar, and possibly, some equalization (although the equalization is just to make it sound closer to the original) . I have a Korg Ampworks that does a great job of emulating the Vox AC15 and AC30 and for the AC15 setting I have turned down the treble and bass tone settings considerably and boosted the mids. I think that is common knoweldge among Shadows fans. That, coupled with heavier strings (preferably 0.012) should produce a nice full sound, without booming lows or shrill highs, but with a nice mid-range quack, and definitely mellow, which can be additionally adjusted using the tone controls on your guitar. Today Strats can be wired to give you tone control of the bridge pickup as well, which is very practical. Songs for which you would definitely use the tone controls on your guitar to achieve an extra mellow tone would be, for example, Spring Is Nearly Here, or Some Are Lonely.

Cheers,
Bojan

Hi John,

All the early models headstock decals weren't laquered over (until into the 60's?), so as a '56 reissue it's period correct.
There's nothing to stop you laquering over the top if you think you can make a good job of it, though personally I wouldn't on that particular guitar.

Chas.

when I've applied decals to Frankenstrats I've used a very thin coat of water bass varnish applied with an artist quality water colour brush, just slightly overlapping the decal, that tends to seal it , if I've then chosen to spray over the top it forms a good base, but that wouldn't need to be done on yours.

I had one set for a Tele style and used Humbrol satin coat which did a good job of destroying it! but never had a problem with water base d products

Geoff

Thanks for the feedback

Hi

I wouldn't apply any kind of modern lacquer on a vintage guitar.

Mellow sound is quite often due to the type of pick used, a heavy pick "soaks" the highs whereas a thin pick emphasizes the highs,
the difference is quite striking and I always have both types, the thin for most songs and a quite thick for the early shads numbers.
A thicker pick also makes it easier to achieve a bit of string-slapping when wanted.