So here we are.
For my first build I wanted something totally different to my two existing guitars (a LP and a Blueshawk) so naturally I went with a strat. Single coils, floating bridge, maple neck. Why not.
I was also up against the clock for this one, which will hopefully forgive a few shortcuts I made, as I was meant to become a dad on Saturday (but so far the little wriggler is refusing to come out!).
Lets start at the start....
I was impressed when I opened up the box and found everything in there, right down to a set of string and a pick!
The body, sanded and ready to go. It arrived in great shape, as did the neck, and everything seemed to fit together as it should.
Originally I had a bunch of fancy ideas for the headstock but a lack of tools/proper workshop and a fear of destroying it before I had begun put an end to that. maybe next time.
I wanted a golden colour for the body to show off the grain and went with the Coolangatta Gold. This turned out to be less yellow than i was expecting on the ash body. on the neck though the pale maple made it much more yellow. At first the contrast freaked me out a bit but with more coats and the intensifying coats the colour turned out really nice. The neck did need a lot more staining than the body, I guess because of the much tighter grain. You can't really see in the photos (everything is horribly skewed to orange!) here but the neck ended up with a nice 3D depth to it.
Masking off the fretboard worked well and the tape came off easily after the month of so it was on there. I did the finishing coats next, with a light sanding between each coat. after that and after 3 weeks i gave it all a wet sand with 1200 grit paper and that made a massive difference to the overall smoothness.
Sadly this is where one thing didn't work out so well. I wanted to buff it out to a nice shiny finish but after trying for a while to find a what to use I was out of time.
If anyone has any advice on how to polish it up then I'm all ears as I'd like to go back and finish it off some day!
Next - the electronics and learning how to solder!