Hi guys,
Okay, so this is going to be my first build. I've been playing guitars with double humbuckers (badly) for a few years (well... actually that's 20 few years...) and with age I'm starting to enjoy a nice clean funky sound and I thought I needed a Strat. And then I found I could build one... let's do it!
So order was placed, and my kit arrived a few days later. That was couple weeks ago.
There was a slight issue with the pickups, electronics and nut bones, but Adam sorted it out and a week after I had all the right bits with me.
I got from PBG:
- STA-1M kit with gold hardware
- Pure Vintage Tonerider pickups
- replacement Bone nut
- The Dingotone Colourless Neck Finish
- Dingotone Guitar Wax
- And a few Dingotone Luthier supplies (sanding paper, steelwool and copper shielding kit)
The plan is to make something like the deep blue STA1 built by Gavinturner a few months back that won GOTM April 2015. I had a blue Strat in mind and when I saw Gavin's that was almost exactly what I had in mind!
So same concept but with maple fretboard, and looking at keeping the white pickguard.
I found some blue and black Colortone and I'm going to try and make a black-blue burst... wish me good luck!
So I got started yesterday with a dry build.
I started by fitting out the machine heads... and found the holes were not quite lined up...
So I went on to 'ovalise' 3x of them up, and the 3x others down. The actual holes are masked by the washer on top and machine head underneath, so one will see that the hole is not round anymore!
And here's the result:
Still not perfect, but I thought it was time to stopped messing around before I started going too far... It's not very visible with the kit mounted:
Next step was to drill the neck. The neck is very very tight and leaves a little gap at the bottom. But it's hidden by the pickguard, so I won't worry about that:
Now the hook for the springs at the back.
I wanted to try and keep the holes as horizontal as possible and that wasn't working with the drill... so I fitted a 3mm drill bit in the dremel's flexible extension and went on to drill on slow speed (tried on fast but the wood getting too hot...)
Went pretty well.
I then fitted a string on the low and high Es:
I think I got the bridge a bit off centre and the strings are closer to the edge on the high E side by about 1mm. I'm not too worried as I read on this forum that it can actually make it easier to play, did I get this right???
I think it's too late anyway...
good choice!!
I am also a newbie builder, at this stage Im finishing my 2nd build, my advice is, do it SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW, take care at every stage, when you sand the body and you think "thats as smooth as its EVER gunna get" your not even 1/2 way there, watch out for undulation between grain layers particularly in the belly cutaway.
I am also in Sydley, so when applying the DT finish, DONT do it on humid days, after applying, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaait, let it dry, so far, twice when I have applied the next coat I have watched it shrink into itself and end up orange peeled, at that stage I have had to wipe it off and try again later.
More tips,
go to the big green store, and buy a soft brush, when you use steel wool it leaves a HUGE amount of steel dust behind, Im lucky and have an air compressor so I use air to clean off.
Be very careful of getting oil/grease/whatever onto the wood before you start to apply finish, if you get a thin spot in your finish it doesnt matter how many layers you add theres always that thin spot.
Last edited by soundguy4033; 18-10-2015 at 08:15 PM.
When I was playing with the jack plate I found that it wasn't resting flush on the body as the hole was slightly too short and to get the tapered side of the plate flat I had to push the jack connections hard into the body...
So I got the dremel out again with a sanding drum and lowered that side of the hole, that is better:
And just to be safe I shaved some of the wood on the other side to make sure there's plenty of space for the jack. I used a large engraving bit on the dremel to slowly carve it. Not pretty, but no one will see it!
Then I removed the plastic nut. I slid a scalpel between wood and nut on both sides, gently tapped it on both edged with a screwdriver and hammer, and finished it by grabbing it with a set of pliers and slowly moving it until it started cracking. And now it's out and nothing got damaged:
And finally I shaped the headstock. I have been contemplating various funky different and unique designs... but I couldn't find something I liked... I was sort of coming back to the shape of the 'real-thing' while avoiding it...
So I accepted it and went for a classic F shape.
I didn't use any template though. I found a small plastic container on my bench that had a suitable diameter and used that to mark the circle. Then I used the dremel sanding drum to make the smaller circle, and finished it with a straight line:
Then the jigsaw got to play sloooowwwwly!
And I finished the shape with the palm sander with a 80 sheet of sandpaper to get the shape 'rounder', followed by a second pass with 120, and then 180. And I finished by some hand work with a sheet of 180 and a sanding block.
Looks almost there:
I need to spend more time sanding the round part to make it really round, but it's not far.
I've started sanding the neck with 180 sandpaper, but that's enough for this weekend!
I'll try to do some sanding during the week.
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