Woltz's semi-scratch strat build

[I’ll give it a go]

Wow you have a lot of patience, gonna look awesome when your finished.


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[Woltz]

Nice work so far, Woltz. That book matching join looks well done for a home job.

Thanks Mark. So far things are looking good. The only thing I am uncertain of at the moment is whether to stain the tasmanian oak.

Good progress! Which way are you going with the truss rod? In from the top or skunk stripe style?

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At this stage planning to go in from the top. Doesn't seem any point to do skunk stripe when I'm gluing on a fretboard anyway.

Wow you have a lot of patience, gonna look awesome when your finished.


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Thanks mate. Honestly it's my Pitbull TL kit that has really tested my patience, more so than this scratch build. But there is still plenty of time for things to wrong with this build so I'm just trying to plan everything and envisaging what I need to do in the build process to try and foresee any potential problems.

[Woltz]

Haven't got that much done recently. Hopefully I'll get a bit more done over the next few days. Anyway here is an update.

First thing is, I put the Queensland Walnut through the thicknesser to bring it down closer to the correct thickness for the fretboard and I can confirm it smells like dog sh!t.

MDF working templates have been routed off the Acrylic master. I just need to expand the route towards the neck for the bridge pickup cavity because the bridge I purchased needs to sit closer to the neck for the scale length to be correct.



Book matched top rough cut on bandsaw.



Neck blank glued up.



And cleaned up with the hand plane and centre line drawn. You can see the centre piece in this image with the grain going in the opposite direction to the two outside pieces.



Planning on putting a headstock cap on this build as well.



I've been trying to decide whether to do a roundover (where you'll be able to see the join between the body and the cap) or bind it with this binding.



And finally here is a bit of a sneak peak of the bookmatched top with the bridge sitting on it.

[Fretworn]

Man! This is going to be purty!

[McCreed]

Hi Woltz. I saw a build *exactly* like this on the ANZ Luthiers Forum!

This forum is more in my wheelhouse as it's more electric build orientated.

Not bashing ANZLF, just way more acoustic building going on over there, and my skills aren't anywhere near that refined!

[Woltz]

Hi Woltz. I saw a build *exactly* like this on the ANZ Luthiers Forum!

This forum is more in my wheelhouse as it's more electric build orientated.

Not bashing ANZLF, just way more acoustic building going on over there, and my skills aren't anywhere near that refined!

Haha yeh I'm on both forums. To be honest I prefer this forum as well. People seem more engaged with the threads here. I just wish more people were having a crack at scratch builds here but then to be fair it was set up as a forum for the Pitbull Kit Builds.

[vh2580]

[QUOTE= I just wish more people were having a crack at scratch builds here but then to be fair it was set up as a forum for the Pitbull Kit Builds.[/QUOTE]

Built a lot of kits with Pitbull and transitioned to doing my own builds (have a kit or two just sitting now). For myself I suppose was moving to forums more focussed on building to increase my knowledge and not sure that anyone was interested in seeing just scratch builds.

[Woltz]

Built a lot of kits with Pitbull and transitioned to doing my own builds (have a kit or two just sitting now). For myself I suppose was moving to forums more focussed on building to increase my knowledge and not sure that anyone was interested in seeing just scratch builds.

Yeh I'm lurking in the background of the projectguitar forum as well because it's more focused on building.

[fender3x]

1+ FWIW I am interested ;-)

[McCreed]

"...I just wish more people were having a crack at scratch builds here but then to be fair it was set up as a forum for the Pitbull Kit Builds."

I'm looking at doing a semi-scratch build soon. I'd like to do a custom body with a pre-made neck. I'm not ready to undertake the neck building part of it yet!

I'll be posting a question here about Aussie timber recommendations for a solid body next.