Skyjerk Posted February 6, 2018 Report Share Posted February 6, 2018 This is your basic Stratocaster build. Not vey well documented from a perspective of process, though. Apologies. I didnt take as many photo's as I should have... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted February 6, 2018 Report Share Posted February 6, 2018 39 minutes ago, Skyjerk said: I didnt take as many photo's as I should have... This one says it all. SR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skyjerk Posted February 7, 2018 Author Report Share Posted February 7, 2018 I actually have more pix. I'll post them a bit later :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted February 7, 2018 Report Share Posted February 7, 2018 That's a nice piece of timber. Great figuring. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr_Riddler Posted February 7, 2018 Report Share Posted February 7, 2018 10 hours ago, Skyjerk said: This is your basic Stratocaster build. Not vey well documented from a perspective of process, though. Apologies. I didnt take as many photo's as I should have... Well that happens all the time, when you'r'e busy building you usually forget that part. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skyjerk Posted February 7, 2018 Author Report Share Posted February 7, 2018 no actually that photo is it. Its all done. what do you guys think? I'm gonna enter it in Feb GOTM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skyjerk Posted February 7, 2018 Author Report Share Posted February 7, 2018 Ok, so after my phoenix build I'm kind of "clearing my palate" with a much simpler build. I have a love of Strats since I was a kid and have actually built more of these than any other guitar. This one will be a typical Strat in most respects. One-piece swamp ash body, Hard maple neck, 25.5" scale length 22 Stainless steel frets 12" radius (because this one is for me and I like 12") Indian rosewood fretboard white MOP dot inlays Schaller tuning machines Gotoh hard tail bridge Unbleached bone nut CTS pots (250k and orange drop caps) Pickups are HHS, and all Seymour Duncan. Hot Rails in the bridge, Cool rails in the middle, and an SSL-1 vintage staggered at the neck. The only other non-standard bit is carbon fiber rods in the neck. Not that a good maple neck needs carbon fiber, but I've found that the necks are far less subject to temp and humidity changes and rarely ever need any tweaking once you have them set the way you want, so I use em even in maple necks. so heres the neck in the planer after I already flattened the other side and one edge on my jointer... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skyjerk Posted February 7, 2018 Author Report Share Posted February 7, 2018 So jumping back to the body, this is pretty straightforward. Plane it down to the appropriate thickness... Standard thickness for a Strat is 1.75", I leave it a touch overwised to allow for sanding later trace the outline (shown at the top post) and cut it on the band saw Attach the template and route the body Jumping ahead a little, I re-attach the routing template and route out the body cavities, and neck pocket, and put the roundover on the edge. Neck pocket is 5/8" deep, pickup routing is 3/4" inch deep, and the control section and output jack area are 1 1/2" deep. I use a 7/16" roundover for the edge. I use my edge sander to rough in the belly and arm carves Drill holes for the neck attachment and that pretty much wraps up the body... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skyjerk Posted February 7, 2018 Author Report Share Posted February 7, 2018 back to the neck, I'm definitely missing some chunks of time in this section. Here is my neck blank after routing the blank out, installing the carbon fiber rods and truss rod. I use my router table and fence to cut the channels while the blank is still square. Easy peasey. obviously I'm, using a spoke nut TR with access at the heel... Fretboard is a nice piece of indian rosewood. I plane the blanks dow to just over 1/4" use my radius jig to put a radius on the board... Fret slotting jig on my table saw... I made a couple at this time... a quick sand takes all the router marks off... voila! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted February 7, 2018 Report Share Posted February 7, 2018 49 minutes ago, Skyjerk said: no actually that photo is it. Its all done. what do you guys think? I'm gonna enter it in Feb GOTM Classic lines, lovely piece of ash....the scale might be a tad short. And then you throw in a set of pictures that makes me think if this is under-documented, what does a detailed build look like? SR 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skyjerk Posted February 7, 2018 Author Report Share Posted February 7, 2018 OK, again I missed a chunk here. Sorry for the holes in the build. My next move was to rough trim the fretboard to approximately the right width, leaving a touch of overhandm, and then glue and clamp the fretboard in my vacuum press. Then I trim off the overhang on my router table to make a nice flush edge. I thickness the headstock down to 9/16" on my band saw, and then sand in the transition from headstock to fretboard using my spindle sander. I set up a fence on the spindle sander thats a hair over 9/16" from the spindle and slowly feed the neck into the space and it sands the transition perfectly. Install dots. This is pretty straightforward. Drill out 7mm holes, and glue in 7mm MOP dots I bought from custominlay. Sand them flush once the glu is hard. I actually file in the access to the TR adjustment before I glue the board on... again, a big missing piece. Neck carving. I generally use a tool called a Holey Galahad on an angle grinder to rough in the shape, and then refine it using dragon hand cut rasps, and finish it with increasing grits of sand paper. Then install the frets. So that jumps us to here: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skyjerk Posted February 7, 2018 Author Report Share Posted February 7, 2018 5 minutes ago, ScottR said: And then you throw in a set of pictures that makes me think if this is under-documented, what does a detailed build look like? SR Theres some sizable holes coming up Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skyjerk Posted February 7, 2018 Author Report Share Posted February 7, 2018 So at this point, with the body and neck built, thats 99% of the work. The rest is hooking stuff up and seeing how she plays, which I've done and heres some pix of where its at today. I'm super happy with the outcome. This will get finished in a traditional tobacco burst once it warms up enough to shoot, but of course I wasnt gonna wait that long to play it! I'm super happy with the playability, even though I havent done the fretwork yet. The tones are exactly what I wanted. the neck pup is classic Strat tone, and the middle and bridg pickups absolutely scream Being a hard tail with a really stiff neck, the sustain is fantastic. The guitar just "thrums" end to end when you strum a chord I will update this thread again when I shoot the finish, and again once I've sanded, buffed, and wrapped it up Also note the neck plate. I had a few of these made up with the same phoenix that I used on the fretboard of my phoenix build. I'm making this part of my logo. the headstock will feature the same "Addict" logo in Fender=style font that I used on my previous Strat build. This pic here is from my last build to show the headstock logo... and this is where this current build stands right now... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted February 7, 2018 Report Share Posted February 7, 2018 Sweet! The phoenix is a nice touch. You gotta love what happens to strongly grained wood when you cut angles across the grain. SR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skyjerk Posted February 7, 2018 Author Report Share Posted February 7, 2018 7 minutes ago, ScottR said: Sweet! The phoenix is a nice touch. You gotta love what happens to strongly grained wood when you cut angles across the grain. SR Yup! Its definitely the nicest piece of swamp ash I've ever had. When I finish this guy I'm gonna keep the burst fairly close to the edge because I want a lot of that grain to show... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted February 7, 2018 Report Share Posted February 7, 2018 what a nice figure you have... I mean your wood... err... very nice guitar! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pan_kara Posted February 7, 2018 Report Share Posted February 7, 2018 a really nice no-nonsense strat build. I agree about that swamp ash piece. Super pretty. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skyjerk Posted February 7, 2018 Author Report Share Posted February 7, 2018 1 hour ago, pan_kara said: a really nice no-nonsense strat build. I agree about that swamp ash piece. Super pretty. Thanks Yeah, in the new and different department this build doesnt really stack up next to my last build, but I honestly love Strats and after a build with a much higher degree of difficulty I really enjoyed the simplicity of this build. Next build will be back to the harder stuff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norris Posted February 8, 2018 Report Share Posted February 8, 2018 Lovely stuff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pariahrob Posted February 9, 2018 Report Share Posted February 9, 2018 Got to love the swamp ash. Lovely clean build and plenty of photos! No problem there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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