Part 1:
Since I’ve been on this forum, I’ve been really impressed with some of the partscaster builds I’ve seen posted by other people in the Community.
So after making some mods to one of my guitars and making a cabinet for my Vox amp, both of which went well, I’ve decided to build a partscaster. I am intending that most of this will happen over the xmas break to treat Xmas GAS and also because I will be in France where I have access to a friend’s workshop (not a guitar workshop, but with high quality professional tools).
So my plan is to build a Strat type partscaster, SSS pickup configuration and modern - not vintage and not reliced. It’s going to be vintage white with a roasted maple neck, with rosewood fingerboard. I originally intended to have a tortoiseshell scratchplate and back plate but when they arrived, they were not nice and so I’m searching for better quality and possibly even something a bit different.
I’ll do a full listing of the specs of all the parts in a subsequent post. I was intending for my first post in this diary to put a photo of all the parts laid out on the floor unassembled. Unfortunately, because I had to return a few parts (e.g. scratch plate and a couple of other parts) I can’t do that yet. So I will try and do a full parts listing and a photo very soon, once I have all the parts.
This is going to be a challenge for me. I have never done a project like this, so I’m hoping to get some advice from the Community when I have some difficulties. I’ve literally watched hundreds of videos on partscaster builds. What I’m expecting to be the most critical steps are 1. Drilling the holes in the correct place for the neck (the body is pre-drilled). 2. Drilling the holes for the 2 posts for the bridge/tremolo (it’s a Gotoh 2 point trem) to be sure it’s in the right position and centred, and 3. Correctly inserting and cutting the nut. I have most of the tools except for cutting the nut slots, so I’m intending to take it to a luthier I luckily recently made contact with to get the nut fixed in at the correct hight and cut correctly - That will be towards the end of the build.
Since I’m waiting for some of the other parts, I’m going to start preparing the neck first. It’s an All Parts (MIJ) roasted AAA maple neck with 22 jumbo frets and a rosewood fingerboard. Looks lovely already before finishing and smells smokey!! Holes are pre-drilled for modern tuners. I’m going to sand it a bit more although it’s quite well sanded already and then apply a couple of layers of Tru Oil and then give it a wax finish to get a smooth satin feel. I’ve checked the fret heights with a fret rocker and a couple of the frets need to be filed down a bit and crowned. I don’t think I need to do a full fret level. Then I will polish all the frets. The edges of the fingerboard are really sharp, as are the fret ends so I’m going to have to smooth the fingerboard edges and finish the fret ends properly to make it comfortable. I’ll post pics as I do it.
One thing that worries me a little is that I don’t have a strat and no experience with tremolos, so I don’t have an assembled strat to refer to. Because of this, I did consider making a tele style partscaster, which would be easier, but as I have 2 teles, it would be a bit redundant .
That’s it for now until my next post.
Ian
