My first build - STA-1 custom

[omad1]

Hi to all who browse ,
Thought I would have a go at my first build after stalking the page for a year or two
Not aiming for perfection being my first go at a build but thought i could share my experience and thoughts on the process , I am already 4-5 weeks into my build so i will spread this out over a few posts

So first step I ordered a STA-1 guitar but decided I wanted to go down the super strat route thus got a custom order with only 2 humbucker routes and also routing for a Floyd Rose trem , the guys quoted me about 6 weeks for delivery and it turned up in 5 = me stoked

[wokkaboy]

Hi Omad welcome to the forum and a cool kit to start on !
Interesting super strat build look forward to seeing the progress !!

Good luck with the build and ask any questions you have in your build diary

[Fretworn]

Welcome Omad (or is it Damo?).

[omad1]

thanks mate yeah it is Damo , username was gone so reverted to my alternate when that is the case

[omad1]

next step headstock design eventually settled on a combo of 2 of the designs I came up with, still fairly traditional in terms of strat design with a enough variation to make it feel like i had come up with something I hadn't seen before

[omad1]

so the next thing i did was routing a channel and drilling a hole for a 3 way toggle on the lower horn, my plan was to be able to use this guitar for playing Rage Against The Machine songs at an annual 90's music tribute night I've been involved in the last few years. My dilemma here was how to drill out the hole for the switch with out going right the way thru the body, after a bit of internet searching found out about forstner drill bits and it made light work of the job leaving a very clean hole, then borrowed a router from work to dig out the wiring channel and she was ready to move onto sanding and finishing the body

[omad1]

Next step was sanding and raising the grain as its an Ash body so I followed the tried and true method I found online of sand with 240 grit, wipe with wet cloth and repeat until the grain stops lifting, this took about 4 process repeats spread over 4 days until I was happy

Next I applied grain filler, I went for an ebony colour as i planned to dark stain the guitar with a walnut stain and wanted the grain to really show through ,I let it dry for 24hours then began sanding with 320 grit, I put it on a bit thick so it took a bit of sanding but once I'd finished I was pretty happy, it looked and felt pretty well filled and I decided to risk it and move onto the next step of staining the wood

[omad1]

So I used Brown Walnut Colourwood interior stain from bunnings , I have actually already used this before on a re-housed amp head and I liked the colour as it had a bit of a red tinge to it and I already had a tin of it so thought lets give it a go and it came up looking really good i think

[wokkaboy]

nice work so far Damo, so with the switch in the lower horn what controls will you have in the usual area just 1 volume and 1 tone ?

EDIT just saw the stain looks great !

[omad1]

nice work so far Damo, so with the switch in the lower horn what controls will you have in the usual area just 1 volume and 1 tone ?

EDIT just saw the stain looks great !

Thanks mate , so for the controls I have gone with 2 volumes so I can turn off a pickup and use the 3 way switch for the Tom Morrello tricks, and 1 tone which is also a push\pull pot, setup to split the coils of both of the pickups for a bit of enhanced tone tweaking, the volumes are CTS 500k audio taper and the tone push\pull is a Bourns 500k Audio taper.The 3-way toggle and input jack are both switchcraft. I had to get a blank strat scratch plate it was shaped on the outside edge but I had to cut out the holes for the humbuckers, vol/tone pots and also widen the back of it to fit the Floyd Rose.

I am using 2 pickups I already had in my collection of stuff , the bridge is a Seymour Duncan Custom 5 (basically a hotrodded PAF) and the neck is a Gibson Tony Iommi Signature pickup, I've also installed a Mallory mustard capacitor .uf22 on the tone pot after watching a really good tone cap comparison video on the youtube and because i have an orange drop on another guitar so thought I would try something different