Stratocaster Hardtail Conversion and Refinish

[RK13]

Hi everyone, new to all of this and looking for some advice. 

I have a Squire Classic Vibe 60s Stratocaster that I'm going to strip down to bare wood, plug the trem assembly and bridge holes to hardtail it, refinish, and replace the frets and bridge. 

I have a few questions about the finish and plugging the holes.

1) Does the wood used for the plugs matter? The body is Nato should the plugs be a similar wood to that? Or, Nato if possible? 

2) Does the cut and humidity matter? I was planning on using a quater sawn cut of whatever, but I'm clueless about humidity. 

Questions about the finish. I was planning on using spray can nitro for the natural relicing years from now, and ease of use

3) Since I don't have any experience with finishing wood or painting I'm going to buy 2 color and 2 clear, as well as the pore filler and primer, just in case I mess up too bad the first time. If I don't mess up, I wanted to try for a Fender factory refinished look, so I was going to cover the first coat of color with the second coat of color. When should I do that? Should I let the first color and clear coat dry for a few days before applying the second color? 

Anyway, I appreciate anyone takin the time out to read and help. 

 

Thanks

[mistermikev]

yes the wood matters... generally you look at how many ppul have issues with the skunk strip on a strat neck... because the two woods (maple vs walnut) expand contract more/less... it often results in issues of the walnut raising out of the maple.  that said... you could be totally fine with two very different species of wood that end up similar in density anyway... so it's not the end of the world.  I would say find the closest match you can that is decent wood.

humidity... well again it would likely be best to use wood that is seasoned and has a low moisture content. qtrsawn does tend to be more stable in one dimension... not entirely sure it would make a big dif here.  ymmv

I'm not really sure what you are asking about finish.  Perhaps someone else will chime in on that note.  

 

[Bizman62]

Hi and welcome!

As @mistermikev said different woods shrink differently. Wood is a living creature and even pieces of the same trunk may not behave similarly. Properly dried and seasoned is an obvious criterium. Quarter sawn or not, well... If you turn a quarter sawn piece sideways it's pretty much slab sawn... Humidity certainly plays some kind of a role but for such a small piece not too much. I'd choose a piece that matches the grain direction of the body and is of similar type of wood, preferably the same although I've managed to patch alder (soft-ish) with maple (hard-ish) pretty well.

One important thing to consider when filling the trem holes and cavities is that there's a lot of end grain joints. Not that big a problem on the bottom side as there's a large flat bed and long sides for the glue to stick properly. But on the top side the slot is mostly end grain where glue doesn't want to hold.

I would do the filling with three pieces: One large plate to fill the cavity, a small block to fill the hole between the bottom cavity and the top and another small block to fill the top opening.

A filler is recommendable especially if you're going to paint it. No matter how tight you make them there will be a minor gap and even when the paint shrinks the gap will more or less show. A solid colour allows for better filling and priming than just a clearcoat and for what I've read even regular car/carpenter fillers work just fine.

Sanding is the most crucial thing to do properly! Even with a solid colour paint every scratch will emphasize and when the paint shrinks over time, even more so. So use filler, sanding primer and elbow grease to get rid of every scratch before painting!

 

 

[curtisa]

You wouldn't be tempted to just crank the tension up on the tremolo and deck the bridge instead, or blocking up the trem from behind? Doing a hardtail conversion isn't exactly a trivial operation and is irreversible once done. Getting the finished product to look neat can be tricky too, due to all the joins and interfacing edges of the plugs and existing body material expanding and contracting at different rates. Even using filler it's hard to hide any witness lines where the pieces meet.

 

1 hour ago, Bizman62 said:

I would do the filling with three piece

The usual method to blocking up a trem is to reduce and simplify the number of 'bits' that require plugging. That requires routing out the majority of the tremolo footprint to one oversized rectangular piece at the back and one on the front.

There used to be a trem blocking tutorial on the old Projectguitar website. I wonder if I can find it...?

[curtisa]

Even better! - we've got an updated version of the original tutorial here on the forums:

 

[RK13]

I appreciate all the info everyone. While I am doing this mostly to learn, I want to come out the other end with a nice enough guitar. And one that will stay that way. I’m not confident enough in my ability to plug those holes well enough that it won’t cause issues at some point, and I change my mind a lot, so I’ve decided to just block the trem. Every other style of guitar I want, and plan to build eventually, is a hardtail, so it makes sense to keep this strat the way it is. Plus, playin around with a trem does look kinda fun. 

Still doing everything else, finish, re-fret, nut, etc. The original plan was only that. I got a little overzealous. Thanks for grounding me. 

[Bizman62]

36 minutes ago, RK13 said:

I change my mind a lot, so I’ve decided to just block the trem.

After having read @curtisa's comment that seemed like the best option to me as well.

You've got plenty to do even with the tasks on your list. Post some pictures of your progress!