Guitarnut - Stratelecaster

[guitarnut]

I've been woring on this build for awhile. I thought I had started a thread here but I guess not...If I did, I didn't subscribe to it because I couldn't find it in my Subscribed Threads panel...anyway, sorry if it's a duplicate.

Some of you may have follwed my recent walnut Tele build,. In that thread I was looking at possibilities for the pickguard and the only pearl white PG I had on hand was one for a Strat.

This pic has been rattling around in my brain since then and I felt it was time to do something about it. I'm sure it's been done before but I wanted to give it a shot.

Just putting a Strat PG on a Tele doesn't do it for me...they don't mesh. So, I've decided to make a hybrid body...3/4 Tele and 1/4 Strat. The lower horn is all Strat and the rest is all Tele.

I did a mockup in Photoshop just to be sure it would look the way it does in my head.

[guitarnut]

And so it begins...

I have some left over alder and some nice flame maple that will be great on this build.

Cutting the alder and maple into bite sized pieces.

Set up to resaw the top.

The building blocks are done. Time to get gluing.

[guitarnut]

I glued up the top and blank.

While the top is setting up, I laid out the body. I traced 3/4 of the way around the Tele template, then lined up the center lines, and the neck pocket and then just drew around the Strat horn until it met up with the Tele pattern. Worked out great!

Rough cut and it looks like what I was going for.

[guitarnut]

To get the body profiled, I had to go thru a number of steps.

First was to attach the Tele template. You can see the big difference in the Strat profile.

Then routed it about 2/3 of the way thru.

I stopped routing in the area where the Strat profile would blend in. And attached the Strat template. I lined it up with the top of the neck pocket and tweaked it ever so slightly to the treble side until it met the the Telle profile along the bottom of the body. This might leave the neck pocket a touch wedge shaped on treble side but it can be blocked flat later.

After I matched up the routing I had done with the Tele template, I flipped the body over and changed to a flush trim bit. I used the routed edge of the body as a guide to trim the entire body flush.

Here it is...

[guitarnut]

With the top out of the clamps, rough cut and test fit, I'm all ready to clamp it up.

Clampzilla!!!

OK, I've routed the neck pocket Tele style. All good. I want to move onto the PU and control routes, Strat style, but I'm trying to figure out the correct placement of the Strat template.

Now, I've read that a Strat neck works on a Tele body but a Tele neck on a Strat body won't intonate correctly. So this leads me to believe that, while looking down on the neck pocket, the center of the Tele heel and the center of the Strat heel are in the exact same place along the scale.

I took a Strat pic and a Tele pic and overlayed them in Photoshop. I sized them so the 20th and 21st frets and the dot maker inbetween line up. This would show that my thinking is correct.

According to the overlay, the Strat neck would fit into the Tele pocket but leave a gap in the corners. The Tele neck would get hung up in the rounded corners of a Strat neck pocket and not seat all the way forward...thus causing the intonation problem.

[guitarnut]

This morning I trimmed out the top and even being ever so careful not to run into end grain, the bit snapped off a chunk of maple and alder. I quickly grabbed up eveything on the bench that wasn't a shaving. I glued the largest piece back in place.

I set that aside to cure and started work on the neck. I had a piece of maple that has some nice flame but not too flamey.

I laid out for the truss rod...

[guitarnut]

I rough cut the neck on the bandsaw...

...and routed the profile with a pattern bit. After doing 2/3 of the thickness, I flipped it and used a flush trim bit to finish up.

I had a nice fretboard blank that I found in a stack from another build. Used the StewMac miter box and fret saw to slot it. I'm really just marking them at this point. Since I started using the depth guage on the saw to recut the slots after radiusing the fretboard, I don't worry about final depth at this point.

Truss rod installed, pins in place. All ready to glue up. I'll apply glue, then remove the tape that's covering the trusrod channel.

Clampzilla!!!

[guitarnut]

Some of these are out of sequence but I think I covered all the steps. I set up to route the neck pocket. This was easy since 3/4 of the body is Tele. I just lined it up as usual.

Nice fit. It needs a bit of shaping along the heel to get it to sit in all the way.

Next, using my results from my earlier post about neck/heel shape, I lined up the Strat template to route control and PU cavities.

I took everything to .75" then added a stop to guide the bit as I took the control cavity down to 1.5".

All finished...

[guitarnut]

A quick pass on the spindle sander to clean up the edges.

Then I added the radius. I used a .5" bit but took a shallow pass so the round over is somewhere between Tele and Strat. Just right.

Back to the neck. I set up my resaw fence and used the edge of the fretboard to give me a parallel path down the headstock.

Here's a tip you might not know. If you turn the StewMac depth guage over, it cuts deeper.

I set it to just past the top of the bandsaw kerf so I could saw away without having to worry about going too deep.

[guitarnut]

With the fretboard trimmed to the neck and the fretboard extention shaped, it's all coming together.

The radius opened up a void from the tearout repair...easy fix.

The full hot order...including white pearl pickguard and dot markers at the 12th fret...I just placed 2 beacuse that's all I had in the drawer. I could gop with all 10.

Getting a bit too glamorous?

I didn't go this way...read on.

[guitarnut]

More progress on this one...it's getting close. I hope to start the finish this weekend.

I set the neck up on two blocks to give access for the calipers while I'm setting my depth of cut at the nut and heel.

Figured wood can have the grain run in several directions within the same piece. I watch for nice, long shavings to come off the plane. This tells me I'm running in the right direction. Going against the grain will create small, stubby chips and a chattered look to the planed surface.

Here the two edges are cut away to allow the callipers to access the center of the neck while I take it to thickness.

[guitarnut]

I'm trying a different approach to carving this time...actually, I used this method on my first neck but got used to laying it on the bench recently...this works nicely because I have access to the entire neck from both sides. I can check thickness from both sides without repositioning the neck.

All roughed in with some detailing to go.

I decided to take a break from carving finish out the headstock. I kept a cutoff from a previous neck to use as a guide for my rasp. It protects the top of the headstock, too.

[guitarnut]

I left the fretboard about .040" too thick to allow plenty of room for leveling and radiusing. I used a piece of aluminum box channel and 80 grit to level it out.

It's down to .010" over at this point.

Next, I layed out the fret markers.

After drilling and gluing them in, I used 80 grit on a 12" radius block to radius the fretboard...took all of 10 mins after taking the time to level it first.

[guitarnut]

I didn't have the camera handy while I was fretting the neck but there was nothing special going on there...just the usual. Used my "no cost" fret wire bender to over radius the wire, tapped them in, trimmed 'em up and did a quick dressing on them.

I should also mention here that before fretting, I used my fret saw and the depth guage to take the fret slots to spec and radius the ends to match the fretboard.

Here's how things are looking so far.

I still had the bridge cavity to route. I didn't do tis before because I was still unsure if I wanted go with a tremolo or hardtail...guess which one I chose.

I started by lining up the template with the previous routes and drilling a starter hole for the router bit.

I made a couple of passes...

...then when I was within .50", I drilled the srater hole thru... you can't see it in this shot but the body is sitting on another block of wood to keep the back from tearing out when the bit came thru.

[guitarnut]

With the thru hole located, I switched to a flush trim bit and used the route on the other side as a guide.

I then lined up the template and took everything dwon to .75".

Added a space to guide the bit, and took the area in front fo the arrow down 1.25".

The finished route.

[guitarnut]

All routing completed. I still need to bore for the output jack, drill tuner holes, mount the neck and drill a couple of holes for wiring.

The hardware will be here tomorrow! I'll locate the bridge, do a dry fit and then start final finish prep.

I had some time this afternoon to do a little more on this one. Actually, I finished all the machining. It's ready for finish prep.

Used a horizontal boring setup to drill the output jack.

I went in about 1.25" with the bore so I could shoot across with a wiring channel. Worked out nicely.

I also drilled the tuner holes, and mounted the neck.

[guitarnut]

I'm considering a new direction on the finish.

Blue is speaking to me. But I did it red and gold too. Decisions, decisions.

[guitarnut]

The hardware came in yesterday, so this morning I'm locating and mounting the bridge.

I used my string jig to line evetything up. I did this one a bit differently. Since I had alraedy mounted the neck, I didn't need to clamp it at the heel. I did add a clamp on the headstock just to get the guitar up off the bench and level with the jigged end.

The string spacing for this bridge is a little different than the one I use for my Teles... wider by 2.36 mm. So I had the drill the other side of my jig to match. Note the Strat designation written on the jig.

With the bridge lined up I marked the 4 middle holes, then removed the jig and marked the 2 outer holes.

Here, I've amounted the bridge and pickguard.

Then I installed the spring claw and added 3 springs.

Then I strung up the 2 E string positions and checked the alignment.

[guitarnut]

Moving on with finish prep.

I've had real good results using a glazing putty on alder before doing final sanding. It fills in all the little nicks and scratches. Two thin coats and let it dry for an hour.

With the glazing putty sanded back, you can see al the little imperfections it takes care of...very important with an opaque finish. Some of this would be taken care of in level sanding during color and clear coats, but getting it done now, allows for a thinner finish.

[guitarnut]

With the back and sides ready for color, I moved on to dying the top. I lightly wet the maple to raise the grain.

Then applied a black dye to highlight the figure. As I understand it, the figure in maple is alternating side and end grain. When the dye is applied, it is soaked into the end grain more than the side grain.

Sanding back takes the color off of the side grain and leaves it in the end grain.

After this, I follow with the final color...Yep, I went with blue. The top is still wet in this shot so the contrast between the black and blue isn't quite there yet.

As the dye dries, you can start to see the contrast in the figure. It won't really pop until the clear coats start bending light thru it.

[guitarnut]

I have a couple coats of sealer on...just waiting for time to focus on the burst. Hopefully this week.

I still need to spray the back and sides as well as the burst. My plan is to spray the back and sides opaque first, then blend them with the top during the busrt step.

Sanded and ready for more work.

A little water spread on the surface to check my work...looks pretty good considering this is just sealer.

[guitarnut]

Well, I have the burst done. I'm pleased with the way it came out...it's a bit of a color-shifter. In the shop, it looks very dark midnight blue. In direct sunlight...well, you can see it here. The sun was setting, I'll try to get some better pics tomorrow.

[guitarnut]

These are a bit better. I took them with a flash after the sun set...in more controlled lighting.

This one's ready for clear coats!

Peace,

Mark

[WezV]

nice, good detailed build thread too!

[Narcissism]

Very nice!