Gav's STA-1

[gavinturner]

hi guys,

Jet lag is gone and time to start a new build. I thought I'd attempt the Ash strat that I picked up at the birthday sale in september. I've only built one strat before - and that went to my neice - so my wall is stratless at the moment. Hoping to remedy that this time around.

Right out of the box the kit looked great. The neck is straight, with a nicely figured rosewood fretboard. The 3-piece ash body also has some great figure in it. I was intending a solid colour for this baby - I've always coveted a surf strat - but now this figure is giving me pause. I could be tempted with a blue burst if I can find a burstable finish with a brilliant blue colour. How have you dudes gone with bursting Dingotone? Could I burst it perhaps with black Colortone dye? (yes the naughty room awaits as always!!).

Anyway, no need to decide this second, but any feedback would be appreciated!!

The mock build went together very quickly. As you all know, the assembly of the strat kit is very straightforward, with only the position of the bridge to be established. To be honest, the tremelo cavity really doesn't leave much room for error here either. There's only a couple of mm play vertically and horizontally within the cavity, and with the pickguard also taken into account, it's pretty easy to see where the bridge should go. Anyway, just to be safe I consulted the Stewmac Fret Position Calculator to validate the distance of the mounting screws from the nut, and used the two E strings down the length of the neck to determine the optimal horizontal position. In no time I had the neck mounted, the bridge screwed in, and the tremelo spring claw installed. Choice as bro!

And now for some sanding...

cheers,
Gav.

[stan]

another awesome Gav creation on the way

[dave.king1]

G'day Gav,

I'll be starting to put stain on my STA this week, I picked up a Sikens ebony stain from the green shed which I hope goes on thinner and lighter than the FW Black Japan that I have just sanded of my PBH4 kit.

One thing that I have done with both of the F style kits is to smooth the belly and fore arm cut transitions, out of the box I find them very harsh.

I'm still tossing up on the headstock I have the F templates and am torn between the anniversary and Ibanez headstock, one of the guitarists on the "Don Williams Live At The Stagecoach" DVD has a really nice Strat with this headstock and it does look the goods the body finish sort of looks like blue sky and clouds its stunning.
The fact that he's a hell of a player probably does no harm either.

[gavinturner]

@Stan - I'm still not sure about finish for this one, but hopefully I can do something that I am happy with .

@Dave - Thanks for the heads up on the cuts. I'll definitely have a look at these. Some shaping with 80 grit may well be in order. I think I'll go with a traditional strat headstock this time around as it's my first keeper.

cheers,
Gav.

[stan]

Easy Gav, you like a tribute guitar (don't forget the lefty bridge...):

[gavinturner]

@stan - that's a bit hardcore for me . My playing would never in a million years be able to do it justice. But while we're on that same train of thought, what about building the Hendrix Monterey fire strat?? Ha! Awesome.



With my musings on blue, I am now leaning towards a trans-blue finish with blue grain fill. Something like this:



I've never done a trans finish before, but putting the Colortone into lacquer sounds like something I could stuff up spectacularly. Must be worth a try . Whaddaya reckon?

cheers,
Gav.

[stan]

absolutely worth a try, the blue looks good

[gavinturner]

Today I got stuck into the headstock. For a template I used my standard 50s Stratocaster shape that can be sourced from here: http://pdfcast.org/pdf/fender-headstocks.

With the template printed out at 1:1 scale, I could get to work cutting the bugger out. This involved tracing around the template in pencil and then roughing the shape out with the jigsaw. Once the I had the rough shape, it was a simple matter of taking the curves down to the line using a combination of sanding wheel (for the convex curves) and a flap wheel mounted in my drill press (for the concave curves). I changed the inside diameter of the tight concave curve a little so that it fit my smallest flap wheel and negated any fiddly work with the half-round file.

She's now ready for sanding down to 800 grit. Yay!

cheers,
Gav.

[stan]

nice Gav, the shape flows well

[gavinturner]

Thanks stan!

cheers,
Gav.