Well I did say that this is going to be a slow build. Anyway, this is a bit of a late post but just before Xmas I prepared the neck for my strat build. This included:
a bit of sanding with P400 (not much needed) and then I applied a sealer (which is a rub on liquid sealer from Birchwood Casey) then 2 thin coats of their gunstock oil. You can see the before and after photos. It’s super satin smooth and feels very nice. Very easy to apply. I put 2 coats of Tru Oil on the headstock.
Then I did a complete fret levelling. Not exactly sure how necessary this was although I marked even the slightest points where the frets were not perfectly levelled. I may just be paranoid but at least my previous fret levelling job on my Starcaster transformed its playability so I didn’t want to take any chances.
Crowned and polished the frets.
Then I lightly filed the edges of the fretboard as they were pretty angular and then I smoothed and polished the fret ends. My photos of the fret ends are not so good as I couldn’t get really close with my phone.
My next job (and the most stressful for me) is to drill 4 holes in the neck. The neck pocket of the body is already drilled. I also have to drill the 2 holes for the bushings for mounting the Gotoh two point tremolo. Drilling these holes is the most stressful for me as they have to be very precise. I have access to a friends workshop in Provence, France, with good quality tools. However, my friend wants to help and he only speaks French with a very strong Provençal accent. I have loved and worked in Lausanne for 24 years so my French is pretty good. However, I don’t know the names of the guitar parts to try and explain to him exactly what we have to do. I hope their aren’t any misunderstandings.
it is all looking good Ian, and as long as you are enjoying try not to stress my friend you can guess how I felt when I slipped with my router, but I took a deep breath and started again so I wish you luck and I’ll pop back to see the next photo’s cheers Hec
Pick guard now wired up. I checked that it works and everything seems to be as it should. It’s pretty tight to get all those wires in the body cavity though.
So yesterday, I was finally able to work in a friend’s workshop with a drill press to put the bushings in the body for the 2 point tremolo and also the holes to mount the neck. Actually the most difficult thing was drilling holes for the spring claw for the tremolo.
It all worked out ok in the end, even though this part was a bit stressful.
Something about the cream body, the contrasting dark wood of the neck and the animal print pick guard. It is saying a storm coming through the edge of the desert where it meets the first muddy watering hole. The lighting is coming and the animals are running. Oh wait, I hear it already…
My strat build is basically almost finished. I will do a separate NGD post on it when it’s fully complete and I have had time to take some professional quality photos. But here are some photos and description of the last part of the build after drilling holes for the neck and tremolo block.
What I did after that was:
Shield the cavities with copper foil to prevent interference and reduce hum from external interference sources. This seems to have been quite successful. It seems very well shielded. Some people say it’s not necessary to do this but since I have noise on my telecaster after a pickup change (it’s not well shielded at all), I decided not to take any chances with this one and the copper foil is very cheap at Thomman in Germany. Photo below.
Installed the tuners on the neck. These are Schaller non-locking. This step went very smoothly. Photo below.
Installed a neck plate with a serial number. The serial number is also written inside the guitar pocket. Photo below.
Couldn’t install the jack plate that I bought. It was too small and had to order a real Fender one (double the price, but fits!)
Installed string trees. I put 2 on this one on strings 5 & 6 but also 3 & 4. I did this on my tele and it has great tuning stability, so I did it on the strat, even if it wasn’t needed.
It’s not complete which is why I haven’t posted a NGD post with proper professional quality pictures. But it’s now set up and plays really great and sounds lovely. I really couldn’t believe it when i plugged it in for the first time. I spent a lot of time levelling the frets and so I was able to get the action very low so it’s easy to play. Also after a couple of days (probably needed it for the neck to start settling in and the tremolo springs to stretch a bit) the tuning stability is very good. I heard bad things about strat tuning stability but mine seems pretty solid after 2 days.
Things still to do:
Screw down the pick guard
screw on the matching back plate (matches the pick guard)
install tremolo arm.
My wife got me a matching strap which is beautiful. (photo)
I also want to say a huge thanks to all the people who answered my questions and posted advice on this thread or my separate strat build-related posts. It’s a fantastic community we have and everyone was so helpful. Those who advised were:
Well done Ian, and now is the best time, you get to play it and it looks like you have made a very nice job of her so relax now and enjoy mate. Again well done cheers Hec happy new guitar
Oh Wow!!!
Sweeeeeet!!!
That is a really good lookin’ strat… the rosewood fingerboard is a beautiful contrast to the body’s color & really “pops”… love the pickguard with complementing strap!!!
Nice job Ian!
Have fun playing her now!
Well funny you say that because I have two telecasters. I love teles and I wasn’t that interested in getting a Strat. But I thought it would be fun to build a guitar, and decided a 3rd tele would be a bit too much.
However, after this experience, which has been really positive, I’m now thinking of building a tele, but with a single coil bridge and a P90 in the neck.
I just posted a random pic of a P90 thinline from a Google image search.
Looking up where it came from points to this Reverb listing. It’s a Micheal Kelly 59 Thinline.
