George from Greece here.
My custom order of a STA-1M just arrived and i am so happy to start my first build!
The project is a black strat like Gilmours so the kit came with an alder body and black pickguard and mapple neck and fretboard.
I will post some photos later of a mock build.
I have decided to do the finish with rattle cans by myself and i've already found the products i'm going to use.
But as a newbie, i have tons of questions about finishing mostly.
Does alder needs grain filler?
Is sealing important or it can be skipped?
And much more questions to come...
good on you George, they are a great kit and I find that they sound pretty decent even with the stock pickups. Plenty of helpful people on the forum willing to offer advice, enjoy the build and take your time.
Thanks a lot D.K!
For starters i will keep the stock pickups. And i also think it will be ok.! The only thing i'm gonna do different from gilmours is to install black tuners instead of chrome. I think its going to look prettier with them!!
Here's my NOS CS DG Strat, so we've obviously got something in common!
Alder doesn't need grain filler as it's a closed-pore wood. If you've got any major knocks or dents in the body, then I'd fill those with a water-based wood filler, but otherwise no filling is required.
Sealing the body? Probably best if we knew what you planned to finish the body and neck with. If you plan on using a primer, then you won't need to seal it. You could just spray some clear lacquer on first before doing the black coats. At each stage you want to get the body finish as smooth as possible. Sanding sealer is mainly thinned lacquer (so that it penetrates the wood well) but often also has a filler material, which means you use less coats before it stops sinking in. On a clear finish guitar, this filler can mask some of the fine grain detail, so more coats of clear lacquer is best, but with a solid paint finish, that doesn't matter.
You won't need to seal the neck, just spray that with a couple of coats of amber-tinted lacquer followed by several clear coats. There's quite an orange tint to the neck, so you'll definitely need some amber tinted lacquer on it first.
I don't know what pickguard you've got, but it should be a single ply pickguard and it's pretty thick - about 3mm. It's certainly the thickest pickguard I've seen fitted to a Strat.
Obviously there's the mini-toggle switch that simply wires up the neck pickup so that its connected to the output of the 5-way selector switch, meaning that the neck pickup is always in circuit. When on, this makes no difference in neck only or neck + middle positions, but means that middle only becomes neck + middle, middle + bridge becomes neck + middle + bridge and bridge only becomes neck plus bridge.
It's this last setting that is very good and I use a lot. It's a very clean sound, not at all phasey like the other twin pickup positions, and doesn't have the bark bite of the bridge pickup on its own. The switch isn't held on by screws, so it must be stuck to the back of the pickguard.
The neck is quite shallow, and has quite a pronounced V-shape to it. I find it very comfortable indeed. So you might want to think about sanding the neck a bit to move away from the standard C profile.
I've was using nitrocellulose spray cans to start with, then bought a compressor and mini-spray gun and am now spraying nitrocellulose from tins (it's a lot cheaper).
It's good you are using products from the same manufacturer. They look to be acrylic based finishes, which is fine. You just need to allow sufficient time for them to dry before sanding them down and polishing them. Acrylic dries from the top downwards, so the outer surface may seem hard, but it's often still soft underneath. Then when you come to sand, you can break through the hard layer and it all goes wrong. So you'll need patience and just be prepared to let things dry, At least you generally have the benefit of a warm climate without the high humidity that a lot of the Australians here get, which can slow drying times down a lot.
If you can't find an amber tinted spray in that range, then you can dye/stain the neck a light orange/yellow, then clear spray over that. Or you can simply leave the maple neck its original colour if you aren't going for a 100% copy. But the maple can look quite pale with nothing on it.
For sure i will go for the amber tinted laquer for the neck. It's just so beautiful.
I've just finished with the mock build and i realised i have some problems with my kit which i have to solve before i go on..
And now the problems..
First and as it seems more easily fixed the jackplate isn't fitting correctly to the body.
And second and a little trickier is the neck pocket.. The neck can't be placed firmly and the pocket is a bit bigger than its should totaly..
I think i should try to even things out a liitle bit before anyhting else to ensure the neck is properly fitting the pocket.
Other from these the body and neck are sanded nicely from the factory. No problem with glue or bumps or scraches or anything generaly.
The neck is checked and it is straight no bows at all and the frets are perfectly leveled. So nothing to be done there.
I just have to solve the two problems with the neck pocket and the jack plate.
Does the jack plate not fit in the socket? Sometimes it helps if you loosen the nut and twist the actual jack connections round on the plate as in some positions the tip connection can touch the body and keep it from fitting correctly. It's worth testing this with a jack plug installed as well, just so you get it so that it doesn't touch.
If you take the jack socket part off completely, does the plate sit in the cavity correctly or does it still sit proud? At worst, you may have to use a file and enlarge the cavity slightly, probably easier to do this at the thinner end (away from the jack input).
If you are going to lacquer the neck, then you will make the neck slightly thicker anyway, so it all depends on exactly how much of a gap there is. As there is a gap, (then although it's not normally done), you can always spray the sides of the neck pocket to add some thickness and reduce the gap. If it's sizeable, then people have got a bit of very thin maple veneer and stuck that on the edge of the pocket.
i don't know about that Simon, hes using an ash body and grain fill is very important as if hes using nitro of acrylic its going to shrink back and look a real mess even using the wood stop on it doesnt work that well, it will still shrink back, i am not up to speed on the Rustoleum i have the feeling it maybe enamel but don't quote me on that as its not really used here in Australia.
Theses days nitro is not used much as acrylic is similar imo better than nitro as it drys pretty hard easy to get a excellent shine but most manufacturers have gone the way of 2k which is about as good as it gets for a hard refinish, but its dangerous if you don't use it correctly( i just spent the last week getting cancers remove from my hands and arms which was caused by using isocyanate's with no protection) so i would try get away from them.
If your going to paint it black it will show every fault in the finish so go to a hobby shop and grab a bottle a ca glue and us it as the grain sealer works great sealing the grain, if your going the nitro or acrylic way use a primer filler 5 or 6 coats will be enough to get a super smooth base to start, the black i would only use 3 or 4 coats but would use 8 to 10 coats of clear you will need a good week before you do any polishing even leave it a couple of weeks is better the longer its left the harder the finish.
You could use enamel but its messy takes to long to re-coat and crap to polish, either way you will need to be on your a game with black. The neck you just need to sand it smooth and spray clear on it as Simon said
here is some of my strat builds may help you out have done a couple of black ones all sorts may help you out
I dont come on the forums much i just check out some new builds and keep up on updates on a few guys i keep up on there progress so i dont reply very often but Simon knows his stuff when setting them up
Black Strat project (My first build!)
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