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