I hate marketing - I always fall for it - It's a bank holiday weekend in the UK and the body supplier I used for my previous build is having a sale.

So I've got a two piece American ash SSS strat body on the way from guitarbuild.co.uk.

I wasn't so impressed with the tele neck from guitarbuild - for the money there were too many little niggles. So I'm trying a neck from guitaranatomy.com. It's a roasted maple two piece. It's feels like a bit of a risk going with a body and neck from two different companies - but let's see how we go.

At the moment my plan is to do a red/brown to amber fade - a bit like a Sienna sunburst. But I might change my mind and go for solid light blue nitro. As we're heading into autumn it seems unlikely there will be a weather window for attempting nitro - unless I can get creative with some heating in the shed.

I've got a Fender Elite Strat with the ebony board and noiseless v4s that I've not really bonded with. I've not really picked it up since I finished my PB deluxe tele build so it's going to go up for sale.

The proceeds from that will mean I have a fair bit of budget for a nice set of pickups. I'm not sure what though - I want something quite hot but vintage sounding. Perhaps something from the Fender Custom Shop. I liked the Texas Specials I had in an American Special Strat from a few years back. Or may be Bare Knuckle or Monty perhaps? I'm tempted to put an SD single coil sized humbucker in the bridge for a bit of Grrr - a JB Jr or lil' 59? If anyone has some suggestions?