Project: Franken Strat

[Optiskate]

Alright, here goes nothing. This is my first guitar build on a small budget. There is something you guys should know about me, I'm very methodical when I'm working on things. This build will probably be painfully slow because of that, being laid off and the tightness of money, and the wife not understanding why I need parts.

My squire strat recently was involved in a horrid accident leaving it cracked on both sides of the neck. It didn't really look that bad, but once I got the body stripped down it flexed pretty easily. I didn't feel like trying to repair the body, I just wanted to start with a fresh canvas. So I ordered a body off Ebay. The body was apparently an Epiphone strat knock off made of alder with tremolo. My pick guard was also cracked almost completely in half so I also got a loaded pick guard off Ebay. Its got two humbuckers, the pots are apparently from Allparts, its got a 3 position switch, and all the knobs. The pick guard has scratches, but what pick guard doesn't. I was going to try to buff them out and if that fails, then I'll get a new one as funds allow.

Here are my plans. First order of business will be a tremolo removal. I'm not going to settle for a blocked tremolo any more. I want it gone and I want a hard tail in its place. No negotiating on this. I have read and reread the guide on this site. It seems that the key is taking your time to perfect the body work, just like working on a car body (I 4 wheel and beat my jeep... so this concept is a tad foreign to me). The only thing that I think I need to figure out is the distance from the neck that the bridge needs to be mounted, which seems to be based on the scale of the neck. I haven't had time to google this and clarify it for myself. I still need to order a bridge and ferrules. My main reason for wanting this is the added sustain and to add to the simplicity of the look of the guitar.

For the finish on the body I plan on going with a matte black finish. I also plan on painting the face of the head stock matte black. I've toyed with the idea of making a Franken strat decal for the head stock as well. I really like a plain black, no frills, stupidly simple guitar. This could be why I like an Ibanez AS73B so much. As money dictates every shiny chrome part on the guitar will be replaced with something black. Call me boring, but for some reason I have had a desire to do this for the last 2 years. I'd probably have played the old blue bodied beast forever though if it didn't die.

Ultimately I'd love a neck that was 100% black. My neck is dinged up bad from the previous owner. I was actually wondering if there was anything I could do to fix this aside from buying a new neck because funds wont allow it right now. It could be a future option. I'll admit that I haven't looked up anything on repairing dings in a neck or refinishing a neck yet. I can live with the dings for now as they're on the back of the neck and I'd be the only one seeing them when I played it.

Electronics.... Well, I don't know what I like. I've played guitars with Perly Gates, Dimebucker and slash signature, EMG 81 & 85, and various other nice pickups. Every one I play with seems to rock the uber expensive guitars and I've always been totally content just with the feel of my strat. I play rock mostly and I love drop tunings. My new obsession has become Drop C and before that it was drop D. I'm honestly lost as far as what humbuckers will eventually make it into my guitar. After hearing a set of Blackouts I fell in love, but I've never played a guitar equipped with them. What ever I get will come down the road as funds allow. Until then I'll rock the cheap junk humbuckers that are coming with my pick guard. I will be shielding the cavities of the guitar with copper foil and when I start swapping electronics I will shield the wiring.

Well I'm sure I'm leaving lots out here. I have this big jumbled plan in my head. Unfortunately the wife says its time to watch a movie, so I'll leave you with a couple photo's of said body and pick guard that are coming in the mail... Hopefully I can turn all this stuff from uber cheap junk to a decent budget guitar. A little bit later on I'll post pictures of the neck and so forth.

[Optiskate]

I did a little research this morning and I'm just looking for some confirmation.

I mocked up my neck on my old strat body and measured from the inside of the nut to the center of the pivot screws. It came out to 25 and 3/16 roughly. Is this going to be where I want the fore most mounting screws of the hard tail? It makes sense to me based on what I read, but maybe I'm wrong. After all this is my first guitar build.

Edited April 4, 2009 by Optiskate

[StormLeader]

I "believe" that you measure the inside of the nut to the 12th fret, then you take that measurement and double that, and you get your scale lenght.

Like I said, I think that's the way you do it, I would wait for someone else to confirm though.

-Stormy

[SJE-Guitars]

I did a little research this morning and I'm just looking for some confirmation.

I mocked up my neck on my old strat body and measured from the inside of the nut to the center of the pivot screws. It came out to 25 and 3/16 roughly. Is this going to be where I want the fore most mounting screws of the hard tail? It makes sense to me based on what I read, but maybe I'm wrong. After all this is my first guitar build.

For a hard tail (I assume a Tune-o-matic?) for Fender scale the center of the high E string side screw would be 25.5" the low e string side is roughly 3.5mm further back to allow for greater intonation adjustment. Although when I say the screw really it is the high E string saddle that should be 25.5" from the string side of the nut (12.75" from the 12th fret) - and of course if you set your high E saddle a couple of mm forward at the install it allows for further intonation adjustment.

I remember seeing a good article on the Stewmac website about the placement of bridges - giving all the distances for the types of bridge they sell.

[Optiskate]

I did a little research this morning and I'm just looking for some confirmation.

I mocked up my neck on my old strat body and measured from the inside of the nut to the center of the pivot screws. It came out to 25 and 3/16 roughly. Is this going to be where I want the fore most mounting screws of the hard tail? It makes sense to me based on what I read, but maybe I'm wrong. After all this is my first guitar build.

For a hard tail (I assume a Tune-o-matic?) for Fender scale the center of the high E string side screw would be 25.5" the low e string side is roughly 3.5mm further back to allow for greater intonation adjustment. Although when I say the screw really it is the high E string saddle that should be 25.5" from the string side of the nut (12.75" from the 12th fret) - and of course if you set your high E saddle a couple of mm forward at the install it allows for further intonation adjustment.

I remember seeing a good article on the Stewmac website about the placement of bridges - giving all the distances for the types of bridge they sell.

Thanks. That's some really helpful information. It was pretty close to where I was thinking the bridge placement would be +/- about a 1/4". I did find the article on Stewmac about bridge placement. That's what got me mocking and measuring. Thank god I still have my old body. I'd probably be a bit more lost without it.

I was actually thinking about using a fender Hardtail, not a tune-o-matic.

[Optiskate]

My pick guard came in. I'm still waiting on the body. It should be in soon though. I'm considering buying the Hipshot tremolo cavity block instead of making my own to save time on the build. Any way, to the point. I've got some pics of the new pick guard, the old cracked body, and the neck. You can see the ding in the neck in one pic.

[Optiskate]

I've been sifting through tons of post, both relevant to what I want to do and not, and came across the Liability and Legal Issues with Copying Guitars thread. I had no idea that there was a book out there about making franken strats and my naming of the thread has nothing to do with any of that. It just sounded good to me. Any I don't plan on reselling this guitar. Its my project. Maybe the name to Franken Guitar would have been better instead.

Edited April 6, 2009 by Optiskate

[Optiskate]

Got my body in. I'll post pics a bit later. This thing is rough. Its pretty beat and the previous owner obviously tried to do some body work and botched it horribly, making it look even worse. For some reason who ever it was also routed out the back of the neck cavity and now the back is all wavy. This POS is going to be a hell of a lot of work.

[Optiskate]

Alright, new questions.

My main concern is that my neck doesn't fit snugly into its pocket. The pocket itself is not far off from fitting the neck. Probably some where between 1/8th to a 1/16th of an inch too big from top to bottom. I haven't measured it yet as my wife was in an accident and we didn't get home from the hospital until 2am. I know that the pick guard will cover the wavy cut at the back of the neck pocket. My concern is about wobble because of the fit at the top and the bottom of the neck. I was reading that if you took some screen from a screen door that it would bite into the neck and the body to prevent wobble. I don't want any gaps. I want the fit and finish of this guitar to be damn near perfect, even if its a fairly plain and boring looking guitar. A little bit later tonight I'll take some pictures to show you guys exactly what I'm talking about and maybe you guys will have some ideas. I was thinking about taking some cardboard and transferring the shape of the end of the neck and marking it out in the pocket. Then I'd add an epoxy based filler and sand it out until the pocket snugly fit the neck. This kind of seems like a trial and error sort of deal though and I'd like to avoid this. I probably wont have hours upon hours at a time to sit down and work on this guitar, probably just a few hours a weekend. Thus trial and error methods would be too time consuming and frankly rather irritating to me.

Another solution that I've thought about based on things I've read is that I could use the finish to help fill the gaps on the top and bottom if they're small enough. Say its 1/16th of an inch. Well that would be 1/32" of a gap top and bottom. That's not a huge gap. If my paint and clear coat is thick enough, then maybe it will eat up this gap???

Any ideas guys? I've got a couple, but I'm not sure if they're worth it or would turn out an end product to my standards.

[Optiskate]

Here are some pics of the neck bolted on so that you can see the gaps I'm talking about.

It looks to me like the guitar didn't originally accept a strat neck and was routed out by the previous owner. Who ever routed it didn't do a good job. When I bought it, it was claimed that strat necks did in fact fit. The screw holes for the neck don't line up with the neck plate either. They're off just by a little bit. I could actually get the screws in and it would move the plate and seat it. I'm not sure if the neck is straight though.

Another thing I noticed is that the strat pick guard doesn't fit this guitar. I'm not talking about screw holes being in the wrong place either. It flat out does not fit. Its like the guitar was originally set up for a smaller scale length. When I tried to drop the pick guard on the first thing I notice was that it hit the tremolo, so I pulled the tremolo off. Then I noticed that the bridge pickup was hitting the body and so were some of the pots. The back of the cavity for the pots might not even get covered by the pick guard....

I'm wondering how much work this body is really going to turn out being. Especially if its even worth it. Maybe I can find a real fender or squire strat body setup for the proper scale length that will take less work. I'm not sure though because my budget is really tight at the moment. My wife would most certainly kill me if another new body showed up. Any advice is appreciated, especially on working around my current issues. I mean, I have ideas of how to work around most of the stuff, but maybe your ideas are better than mine.

[jaycee]

There are so many Strat's out there, non fender parts etc that getting the right sized body to fit your hardware is unlikely in my opinion.

Regarding the gap in the neck pocket, get some veneers and build the sides up then re cut where neccessary. As the body is being painted then if there are any small gaps you can fill them in later.

[Optiskate]

There are so many Strat's out there, non fender parts etc that getting the right sized body to fit your hardware is unlikely in my opinion.

Regarding the gap in the neck pocket, get some veneers and build the sides up then re cut where neccessary. As the body is being painted then if there are any small gaps you can fill them in later.

I'm really just theorizing here, but I think that before it possibly had a 24 3/4 neck on it or something. I'm kind of wondering how likely it is to find a pickguard that will fit it, since it would have to be quite a bit smaller than a normal strat pick guard. My solution to this problem was just to go out and get an actual strat replacement body made of Alder. I'm keeping this epiphone body though. Unless some one else here wants it as a project. Then they can have it for $30 + shipping. If no one wants it and I can find a pick guard, then I'll see what I can build out of it and I'll probably go HSS on it instead of HH. The trick will probably be finding a neck. I'll probably have to rework the neck pocket to even use it.

Either way, the project continues. I'm just stuck here waiting for another body before I can do anything.... all over again.

Its amazing. I haven't done hardly anything yet and I've learned a ton.

[Optiskate]

Well, heres a little update.

The pick guard and electronics wouldn't fit in the new body. Solution, slap the guitar on the mill and mill away. 25 minutes later it looked like my guitar body came from the factory with ability to accept a humbucker at the neck. The cuts are literally perfect. God I love having access to a machine shop. So I dropped the pick guard on, bolted the neck up, and dropped in the jack plate just to feel like I actually accomplished something. I took some pics of it... sadly there's still a ton of work to be done. I have to fill in the tremolo cavity still, which my dad had a pretty slick way of doing.... with the mill and a block of wood... Then I need to locate the bridge and it'll be all down hill from there. I think my dad and my friends are more stoked about this project than I am.

Here's a couple mocked up pics... nothing special... nothing really bolted on except the neck...