Hey, building is fun have a blast, good luck!
Cool Ian, and good luck give me a shout if you need any help Cheers Hec
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Indeed Hec, I might need some advice along the way. As I mentioned it’s my first build (which is also why I got an already finished body, which cuts a lot of work) and I’m not very familiar with Strats. Luckily there’s a huge amount of info online with some good videos of builds.
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Hey Ian!
Excited for you to be building your own guitar!!! That is one of my “Bucket List” things to do in the future! What/where did you get your body & neck?
I can’t wait to see pics!!!
Good luck!
Tod
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Hi Tod,
The body is Hosco which is made in Japan and the neck is All Parts (also made in Japan, although I think they make some in the US too). I live in Switzerland and I bought this combination of body and neck because there’s a guy in Switzerland who has an online shop and who also makes a lot of partscasters from the parts he sells. I had a good exchange with him by mail in order to choose the parts and he told me that the All Parts necks usually fit nicely to Hosco bodies without any issues.
But I bought these because they will be easy to return in Switzerland if there are any problems. Returning things abroad is a pain because it’s difficult to get back the import duty.
I think that if I was in the US, I would probably have bought Warmoth as there are a lot more custom options and they have a good reputation.
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Did you post a photo in another thread? If I remember correctly, that was that cool green one.
Sounds like a fun project. Cant wait to follow the progress.
Yes that’s right I made the green cabinet for my Vox. I’m really excited about this new project.
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If your fret ends are sharp while you’re sorting it out you could consider making a slight rolled edge on the fretboard at the same time, the Sire Strats and most of their other guitars have this and it really makes them comfortable to play!
Hi Darrell,
Yes I will definitely have to roll the fretboard edges. They are quite sharp.
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So as promised, now that I have acquired all the parts (I hope!) for my strat build, here are some photos before the build starts and a full list of all the parts. Sorry the photos are a bit dark.
The neck is not already attached to the body. I just put the heel into the neck pocket to give an idea of what it will look like once completed.
Last night I started preparing the neck which I’ll show in another post.
Body: Hosco Vintage white SSS, alder, poly finish
Neck: Allparts AAA+ roasted flamed maple neck, rosewood fingerboard, c- shape, compound radius 12-16 inch, fingerboard, 25.5”, 22 jumbo frets 0.114 inch x 0.055 inch, modern 10mm tuning holes, neck thickness 0.85 inch (1st fret) 0.95 (123th fret), heel width 2-3/16 inches, nut width 1-5/8 inches, inlays glow in the dark dots.
Tremolo: Gotoh 510 TS-SF1 steel block 2 point tremolo
Tuners: Schaller M6 mini
Pickups: Tonerider Classic blues TRS3
Electronics: Tube amp doctor strat wiring upgrade kit. 250k vintage audio taper (30% LOG) cts dimple pots, switchcraft mono jack, CRL 5-way switch, 0.047 uF Sprague Orange Drop capacitor.
Neckplate: Göldo
Pickguard & backplate: Tiger brown (Boston) - I would have called it leopard brown and gold pearl
Knobs: Chrome and horn domed knobs Q-parts
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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:
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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.
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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.
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Crowned and polished the frets.
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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. 
Before
After
Fret levelling and polishing
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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
That is some beautiful wood on that neck. Good Luck!
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.
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Word
That wiring job looks tight.
Edit
Are you going to shield the cavity? Oh nevermind, I see the shielding in the first picture hell to the yeah!
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.
Neck seems to be aligned ok.
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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…
Its Prof Thunder 
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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:
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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.
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Installed the tuners on the neck. These are Schaller non-locking. This step went very smoothly. Photo below.
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Installed a neck plate with a serial number. The serial number is also written inside the guitar pocket. Photo below.
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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!)
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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:
@TheCluelessLuthier @RobDickinson @DeltaTyne @CATMAN62 @Ontime @DarrellW @sequences
@Lefteris @Wishbone71
Thanks, Ian
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I love a tort pickguard! 
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That looks really good!
I love it when a plan come to order.
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