While putting off finishing my Fender-neck-on-Gibson-body bass project, I have been acquiring parts to build a hard tail Strat-ish guitar. I began so long ago that I can't actually remember when it began. The closest that I can get is that shortly after I got the neck and the body, I purchased a 1960's vintage Eko case for it from Angela Instruments to put it in. I must have gotten the neck and body around that time. I still have the sales receipt for the case, so that dates it to early 1987. I put some finish on the neck to preserve it, as Warmoth told me to, so that began the build...
...and that was it, until a couple of years ago when I build a PB ESB-4 kit. During the ESB build, I took the bold step of putting some left over primer on the body. And that was it until fairly recently, aside from slowly acquiring parts to complete it, whenever I saw something interesting on sale.
A great deal of this build is the result of stuff being "on sale." The body started life as an HSS strat body made of poplar. I am guessing it was on sale because it's just not a very attractive wood for clear coats. The neck was a lefty Strat neck. I am not a lefty, but figured that just meant the head stock would be reversed. And it was "on sale" for a really good price.
I had a great deal of trouble deciding on pickups. I did not really want a Strat. I have an old Fender Coronado with D'Armond pups in it--close to P90s--so I did not want those. Maybe a couple of humbuckers? Then one day I saw a set of GFS Lil'Punchers for half price due to an open box...
Bit fuzzy...light was not good... but here's how it lays out at the moment:
You can't see the cool Klutson lefty vintage tuners I got for it...on sale, of course.
I had to rout a bit--and wobbled a little in a place under the pickguard, to accommodate the Tele bridge pickup. Also near the neck pickup for the truss rod adjustment nut. Typical for Warmoth, the body was not cut to accommodate the heel-adjust truss rod.
Bought a Dragonfire custom pickguard from TNT Custom Guitars in Klamath Falls, Oregon. They were a pleasure to deal with, and the pickguard fits beautifully. Much easier and more pleasant to deal with than the time I bought a pickguard from Warmoth...
I could not decide on switching so, decided to just go for broke. I haven't wired it up yet, but I have the parts...
Top pot is Volume. Bottom pot is a Tone with a push pull switch. In the middle position is a four-way rotary switch.
The rotary switch will switch humbucking and single coil modes. HH, HS, SH and SS. The SS setting from the switch is traditional Tele, so it is not humbucking because it uses the north coil of both pickups. The push-pull switches from the north to the south coil on one of the pickups to make the SS setting humbucking. Probably more trouble than it's worth...but thank you to WeirdBits for helping me to map it out.
So far the only other thing i have done...today...was to add fret marker dots. The build is right-handed, but the neck was intended for lefties, so it has dots on the wrong side for me. Followed the Dan Erlewine method from YouTube as best I could... Here's the result:
My hope is to set a record for the longest build that is actually completed... Am I a contender?
There is a very thin finish on the neck, but there are a couple of places where it has rubbed off. God only knows what I used to put the very thin protective coat it has on it. I have some acrylic poly drying on the underside of the heel to test whether it reacts with the ancient stuff I put on originally. I am thinking I will do a light acrylic poly finish over the whole neck if the test goes well. Shellac if it does not. Or maybe shellac then poly... Not sure. The neck looks pretty good now. don't want to leave spots unprotected, but I also don't want to do too much. Will be curious what others think!
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