One thing about getting older is the guitars you bought on the cheap 20+ years ago may be getting pricey and a little beat up from 20+ years of banging around in your car going to gigs and rehearsals. So I decided a while back to build the amp I would play through and work towards building the guitar as well. Partly to give the antiques a little rest, and to avoid lugging thousands of bucks worth of gear to a gig where I might make $80-$100.
I had built a Tele, & fixed up a pretty dead strat, and now I wanted to build a nice new strat. It would be largely the same as my Yellow one, which I adore, but it would have a vintage style bridge. That meant a nice chunky neck was a must.
I ordered up a Warmoth roasted swamp ash body and a roasted Allparts neck and got to work. John Frondelli recommended the Allparts vintage fat neck. I found one close to that online - a 'select SMO-FATRF" roasted maple neck. It was fat all right, but also flame maple and roasted (baked to get the moisture out - like an aged vintage guitar).
Getting some color coats on the body after filling and sanding here. Coat hanger to hand the body or neck as needed.
Spraying the neck with aged (tinted lacquer) in the Ikea "booth" (a portable wardrobe)
I used a squeegee to work the sealer into the wood and then sanded it smooth. I did this a couple of times but not enough to remove all of the grain. You can see the wood through the black finish up close.
Test fitting the neck and body to see how things are working out.
The Allparts neck is really pretty. I probably should have used clear lacquer so I could see the wood better, but it is also kind of a cool look with a dark neck.
Here we are with the neck and body basically ready to go, test fitting again.
I found some used Fralin Vintage Hots online, they are what I have in the Yellow guitar, and built out a pickguard with the electronics on it. I used a VIP volume pot and covered the entire thing with shielding foil. I reversed the two tone controls just to see how that feels.
I painted the guitar cavities with 3 coats of shielding paint. May as well try and keep it quiet.
I bought blanks for the nut, this would be the first nut I ever cut. Not perfect, but very playable. The "d" string is a bit low, and they could probably all come down a hair but it's very comfortable so I am leaving it for now. I mounted the tuners and strings to line up the neck (as on the Tele) and then screwed the neck on.
The finished nut. I added string trees later to get a good break angle. My Yellow one has them. You really need them on the high B & E; the E will pop out of the nut otherwise.
You file the nut to fit the slot, then to roughly the correct height and you curve it to match the neck radius. You mark the slot locations and cut finally them with the nut saws. It is easier - and harder - than it looks. I had plenty of beginner's luck, and there is a lot of room to improve. Overall the action is low, the intonation is good and it plays very well. I have been using it for all of our live dates.
Here it is basically all built. I just added string trees and strap buttons.
The tool kit is expanding. Files for shaping the nut, nut files for cutting the slots, a nut ruler with string spacings marked on it... the clamp was for the Les Paul Jr. I used a bunch of these clamps. They are inexpensive and really handy.
Gamsol is what I used to clean off surfaces after sanding to make sure I had a clean surface to put the next coat on to. At the garage we used a thing we called 'anti-silicon' which was similar in the sense that you don't want any residue from the sandpaper - it can cause fish eyes in your finish. So I would wipe the parts down with this on a lint-free rag prior to painting. It worked great, no issues at all.
Last bit is I set up the bridge like I have the bridge in the Yellow guitar. It had been so long I had to open it up to see what I did. I use all 5 springs to pull the bridge flush with the body and then screw the trem cavity screws in just enough to keep tension on the whole affair. I don't bend up with the bar, so its no biggie. The two big reasons I do it like this are:
I find floating trems a real pain to keep in tune, every string affects every other string.
I don't want the guitar going sharp if I break a string
Overall the two Strats are very similar. The black guitar has a bit more high end and snap, I am guessing due to the stamped steel bridge? Hard to say though. But it is quite noticeable. The Yellow strat has a Wilkinson bridge and a heavy poly finish. It has less sparkle and more body.
Sources:
Paint, tools, various parts - StewMac
Pickups - Chicago Music Exchange / Fralin Pickups
Pots - VIP Pots
Neck - Zzounds - "Allparts SMO-FATRF"
Body - Warmoth Roasted Swamp Ash body
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