The Strumpet. a TLA-1 build (my first!)

For the last few weeks I've been working on the strumpet. A TLA-1 kit taking influence from my guitar hero Graham Coxon from Blur and his fantastic solo stuff and my own love for oddball guitars like the old Vox teardrop guitar. The strumpet is a happy midrange I feel for the both of them. Sound wise I'm hoping to attain a spanky, rhythm based sound that remains tight and focussed think along the lines of Joe Strummer's tele or Graham's playing style. Overall I'm aiming for a old school punk (the clash, sex pistols, the adverts) mixed in with the dirtier side of britpop and the early 2000's garage rock sound.

I've taken the decision to use a Tonerider P90 in the neck along with a Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounder in the bridge I like to drive amps and my sovtek big muff quite hard.

The build so far....

I found the sanding of the body very relaxing as I had to do it all by hand and loved doing it while having youtube playing in the background started out sanding at 180grit then 240 then finishing on 360. The whole process took about 10 days working on it when I can. After fully sanding it back I did a grainfill with Timbermate as Ash is fairly open grained and wanted to have it nice and smooth ready to be painted.
Attachment 18789

The next step was to sand down the neck again I found that quite relaxing. Started at 240 as I really liked the feeling of it as bare wood in my hands and moved onto 360 then onto 600 to make sure everything was nice and smooth I also ran an old bit of hosiery from my girlfriend to make sure there wasn't any rough bits i may have missed but after that it was all good so onto the next step Attachment 18789
Notice the pencil on the body? You'll see whats happening with that coming up!

Taking influence from Vox guitars again I went for a more rounded headstock shape after not being happy with what I had cut earlier as it didn't fit in with the curvy body by being too pointy. Attachment 18793 bonus dog!

The trimmening. Remember my love of oddball guitars? well I really wanted to make the strumpet mine so off came the top bump and bottom horn I personally love the shape it's turned out but I can see why some others will loathe it. Attachment 18790
Pre cutting

Attachment 18791
post cutting

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post sanding to shape. with the hardware added in too!

Rather than staining I went for a paint solution as every other guitar I own is either wood coloured or sunburst so I wanted something with colour and ended up using dulux duramax velvet violet spray paint. There was a primer coat underneath as that was what was recommended on the back of the can. I went very light and dusted the guitar with paint rather than getting it wet. There was about 6 coats in total involving both the primer and paint itself all done lightly with many coats. For the gloss coat I did a light dusting with dulux gloss spray after about 2 coats it's got a light sheen to it and enough to protect the colour underneath.
Attachment 18794

Since I loved the bare wood feel of the neck but knowing I needed protection. I decided on the lightest finish I could get by researching and ended up with a danish oil finish on the neck. I wet sanded the neck with 1200 grit paper after the first 2 coats after having 24 hours to dry after each layer for the next 4 layers. It was finished with steel wool very lightly after a week of drying then a polish. It's now one of the quickest feeling necks I've ever felt.

Attachment 18796
after the first coat.

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with the machine heads attached.

The latest thing I've managed to complete is the shielding and i'll edit in pics once Ive been able to take some.

So far this build I've really enjoyed and is it wrong I'm already thinking of my next one? Perhaps the mosrite copy?

certainly a different look, nice to see someone trying something else. Awesome purple!

Certainly a customised shape! Reminds me a bit of a more extreme version of some of the Reverend guitars. You could almost have gone for the full teardrop shape. Looks nice. Good choice with the neck P-90.

However, you'll have a bit of a problem with the neck position strap button placement. You could drill a hole through the neck plate and put one there as long as the screw wasn't too long. You've moved the centre of gravity back a bit by cutting off those corners, so you need to keep the strap button as far forwards as you can otherwise it could end up being a bit unbalanced.

Great job so far popscene! Love the re-shaping.

@fretworn : Thanks dude can't wait to actually play her!

@simon : The centre of balance thing is something I have thought about but if worst comes to worse I'll use a acoustic style neck strap. I was also thinking about having the buttons off centre so like having the rear one near the control plate on the side and the neck side flush against the upper curve to help balance it.

What stopped me from going the full tear-drop is I wanted to be able to play it sitting down hence the small bottom horn remained so I could balance it on my leg. After playing around with photoshop as well I realised it needed the small bump on the top as well.

@stan: cheers guvnor!

You'll sort something out with the strap positions, I'm sure.

With the Tele cutaway, you'd never have got a symmetrical teardrop shape anyway, and it does need to be playable sitting down. So, good reasoned choices there.

Is it me or am I the only one who doesn't like the shape? I mean, it's almost 'shapeless' to my opinion. No offence mate but it's not my cup of tea, sorry.

all good Kick, I knew it would be a love it or loathe it shape, my love of oddball guitars won out over something more traditional :)

Planning on a pickguard at all? There's a bit of a gap around the P-90 in your test build picture.

Ive made a shim that will happily fit on the slot and fill the empty space quite happily. No scratch plate (I normally take them off anyway) I wanted a barebones look to the guitar

Cool. You must be almost there by now.