Building a strat (PICTURES)

[Blazer]

Well, as you people might have read in my "fixing a headstock" topic, I am the proud owner of a late eighties Squier Stratocaster which I bought new on my fifteenth birthday back in 1991, this old girl, lovingly called "the Veteran" has been through a LOT of modifications but now I'm restoring her to strathood.

But as to take three dimensional photograph I'm building a closely matching replica of how the "Veteran" used to look with the mods and all. I'm thinking of naming that one "The rookie"


The "Veteran" before the restoration, the "Rookie" wil look just like this.

[Blazer]

Building the "Rookie".



Here's the raw maple with the strat routing template.



After sawing off the exess wood, ready for routing.



After routing, a nice clean maple strat body to be.



Routing out the neck pocket, I put in the neck to check if I haven't routed it too dep, luckely, I got it right.



And so I started working on the vibrato channel.

And while doing so I completely forgot that I had a camera with me and failed to document the routing of the pickup and control routs, and of me bevelling the body. I only remembered my camera when I put the thing together to see how it looked.





The "Rookie" at home. The neck, Kahler Vibrato, pickups and pickguard all come from "the Veteran" as you can see I am FAR from finished, I need to drill the holes for the bushes of the vibrato and spray the body in sealer before I can add the first layers of red.

It'll be a long time before I can play the "Rookie" but bot I'm having a ball just making it.

[Blazer]

The "Rookie" in its filler coat, showing how green she is right now. I put the neck and other hardware on to see for myself how she will look when done.

A close up on the Kahler bridge showing the studs I inserted today.

and so the build goes steadily forward.

[Blazer]

I did the last sanding job and put the body in primer. Now I need to start wet sanding (after the primer has dried of course) and then I can start applying the layers of color.



Boy I'm having fun with this.

[snoglobe]

keep posting as you go along.

I love watching the progression from a chunk of wood to a working guitar

[Blazer]

Okay you guys, I finished Building the "Rookie" compare it with the Picture of the Veteran in the beginning of this thread.





As you guys can see, I went with a different neck. I could get this gorgeous Birdseye maple neck for a bargain price and I went for it. Apart from the headstock shape I suceeded in making a matching copy of the "Veteran" They look so similar that I have to catch myself sometimes. The swimmingpool rout of the Rookie gives it a very airy open sound, I figured that the all maple construction would result is a very bright sound but that's not the case, it has a very tight low end and it nails that David Gilmour tone when overdriven. All in all this project was a success.