Keith's ST1-L

[Keith Walters]

This arrived yesterday but I haven't opened it yet.
Currently my garage workshop is doubling as a pizza oven; last night it never got below 34ºC all night and that's outside in the open air! We had a work barbecue today in the 40ºC heat. It's so bloody hot there were no flies, so I guess every cloud has a silver lining....
So far I've verified the parcel was actually addressed to me and it says "ST-1L" on it in Texta pen, so it's not like I haven't made any progress... :-)


This time round I'm going to try my hand at some wood carving and inlay work. (Last time I did any of that was about 50 years ago, so I guess I'll practice on some pieces of pine offcuts first). My scheme is do some leaf and flower carving and then try colouring them in with dyes made from an inkjet refill kit. That stuff is damned near impossible to get off if you spill it on unpainted wood, so it should survive final the wax polishing process. I've seen antique furniture finished that way and it looks really nice if it's done properly.

I've always wanted to do something like this, and at just for $149 for the kit I figure I can't go too far wrong....

Actually, I'm hoping someone here can give me some advice on the best nut material to use. I tried the forum search function but it rejected the word "nut" as it said it was too short. Opinions seem to differ widely, but in my case, I would think for a Strat type guitar with a tremolo arm, non-binding-ness would be the most important feature.

[Joe3334]

Bone or graphite is the way to go (in my experience anyway).

[Keith Walters]

OK, the weather has cooled down a bit and I've able to work for short periods in my garage without needing a fireproof suit.
I've done the mock build and figured out how the bridge goes on. Not having a Strat to copy off, it took me a while to figure out how the springs are attached, and in fact I was forced to go to the Fender website for enlightenment!
My idea of using colour inkjet printer refills as wood stain looks very promising. I tried it first on a spare cypress fence paling, haven't actually done it to the guitar yet. I first mopped on three coats of yellow (about 2ml in 20ml of water) with cotton balls, allowing it to dry between "coats". Then I did the outer edge with a similar mixture of cyan ink. This produces green when applied over the yellow, giving a sort of green and yellow "sunburst" effect.
I then used the same Feast Watson Fine Rubbing Oil and Gilly Stephenson Cabinet wax procedure I used for my Jazz Bass.
It comes up really well, giving a sort of Watered silk or "watercolour" effect. I tried to take a picture but as with the Jazz Bass it seems almost impossible to photograph it in a way that does it justice. I'll try it outside in natural daylight tomorrow.

One modification I'd like to make is to re-mount the output jack on the edge of the body like it is with Les Pauls and similar, and put a phony "valve preamp" in the Fender-type jack hole. (It's just a valve with an orange LED glued to the bottom to make it look like it's actually running :-)

The only problem is that ideally I'd need a clear plastic cover to replace the original metal. Does anybody know if such a thing is available?
Failing that I suppose I could make a cover out of some old-fashioned copper flyscreen I have, and pretend it's for "ventilation"

My other mad scheme is to cut the headstock into a "bat-wing" shape using a holesaw and a special jig I'm building. I figure I could carve it to look like a platypus flipper and stain it pinkish-black, using more inkjet ink.
I could call it:
The Plato-caster!

Hello...?
Hello?!
Clack-clack-clack-
Operator!

[Keith Walters]

OK, I've been able to make some headway at last!
The mock build went satisfactorily:



This is what I've done thus far.
The first thing was to fit the neck which requires drilling some pilot holes through the holes already drilled in the body. Pitbull's drilling skills don't seem to have improved, so I had to basically fit all 4 screws at once to get the backing plate as centered as I could.



For doing the fret levelling and headstock shaping, I decided it would be a lot easier to mount the neck on a plain pine board. I drilled one hole to allow one of the neck mounting screws to be screwed into one of the screw holes just drilled into the neck....



...and then I drilled a hole through the centre of a short plug of 9mm dowel and placed that in one of the machine head holes. That allows me to move the neck around to access different parts of the headstock while at the same time screwing it firmly in position:

[Keith Walters]

My first step was to re-shape the headstock into the "platypus claw" shape I mentioned earlier.
I made the scalloped cutouts with a 50mm (2") hole saw. First I cut out a circle of plastic to use as a template, and then used that to mark the circular shapes with a pencil.



Once that was done, it was a simple matter to use the pencil marks as a guide to marking the holesaw's centre bit position.



It was then quite easy to cut the pieces out with just a lithium battery powered hand held drill.




The next step was to smooth the cutouts to a more "organic" shape. This is easily done with a cheap wood rasp, and although it might initially look rough as guts...



...it can be sanded smooth in no time. I bought a cheap packet of assorted sandpaper and started with 60 grit, working my way down to 250 grit.



I did the flutes on the other side the same way.

[JohnH]

Interesting headstock design. Curious to see how it looks with colour - are you still thinking pink?

[king casey]

Very interesting inventive approach. Intriguing what finish is going to follow.
Thanks for the tip about misplaced neck screw holes...it spurred me to check the placement on my project.
I'm gonna fill 'em in and drill them in the correct position.

cheers, Mark.

[Keith Walters]

Interesting headstock design. Curious to see how it looks with colour - are you still thinking pink?

Not pink; mostly dark brown. A platypus claw is mostly covered with dark brown fur, with glossy black claws, and a pinkish tinge around the "fingertips".
At this stage I'm sure whether to call it a Plato-caster or a Straty-pus...
It's mainly meant to not look like a cheap Chinese copy bought in a music store. The strategy is that nobody will know quite where it came from, and The Emperor's New Clothes effect will do the rest :-)

[Keith Walters]

Very interesting inventive approach. Intriguing what finish is going to follow.
Thanks for the tip about misplaced neck screw holes...it spurred me to check the placement on my project.
I'm gonna fill 'em in and drill them in the correct position.

cheers, Mark.

The finish is going to be the same as I used for my Bass project last year: Several applications of Feast Watson Fine Rubbing Oil applied with 0000 steel wool followed by more coats of Gilly Stephenson's cabinet wax.
I'm also going to try a "sunburst" colour scheme of yellow with a green border using colour inkjet ink.
I did have notions of carving some leafy designs into the body, but it seems basswood is not particularly amenable to carving.

[Keith Walters]

I've actually got more photos to post, but I ran out of time today. I've done the fret leveling; and it's VASTLY easier to do with the neck mounted on the pine board. The frets are now absolutely dead level and the neck is as straight as a laser beam.
When I ran the radius-ed sanding block down the frets, the texta pen came off almost completely even first go.
However I'm worried that things might go out of whack when I put the strings on, as it just seemed too easy. (Time consuming, but not particularly difficult). Anyway you'll see what I did when I put more photos up.
I've actually got as far as fitting the bridge, but not the spring assembly that goes underneath.
Can someone tell me what the procedure is for that, as in, where does the spring hook thingie actually mount. Is it with as much tension as possible, or is there some special procedure to follow?