pebber

well.. I just spoke to this guy who does custom finishes, and it seems he don't strip anything (meaning, he leaves the color and clear coats on the body), he just starts adding new color coats on top of this. I saw some pics of it and it seemed to work out fine. Of course, the finish of the existing body is not damaged in any way, so no dips, scratches, etc.., so the clear coat is for him a primer coat. Any opinions/remarks about this method? I myself spend a lot of time stripping the old finish and starting from the bare wood, filler, primer, color and clear. Thx!

yezzz.. it surely is good news! thanks again for sparing me a huge deal of work --> this site -and their members- rocks!!! respect! i'm also anxcious getting it back together and see how much lower I can tune compared to my regular strats. oh yes, I browsed through some of my literature, and appearently this scale length was for sure used on some dreadnought models.

yep.. I was mistaking with the body preparation (before grain filling and sealer/primer)! I was btw thinking using this neck raw and unfinished, so I'll end with the finest grit I can find!

I use a 3D palm sander myself, because -when you keep moving the sander- it's possible to maintain the profile of the neck. I've sanded this neck in a matter of 2 minutes. For the area round the heel and headstock (which isn't been done yet) I'll take some more time. Ok, to be honest, I got myself a little dip in the neck near the headstock when I got distracted and didn't move the sander at that moment. (so I wonder if I should fill this with some stainable wood putty or not)? Anyway, final sanding with 220/320 grit I will do by hand. One thing I always do before is measure (and redraw) the original neck profile with a contour gauge at the 3/7/12th fret, so you're always able to check.

ok, made some paper rulers with a great little program called WFRET, and yes, I got a match for a scale length of 25.65": [pic3] I don't have any idea if this length was deliberally chosen or not, but now I have only to make sure I get a correct saddle position in the body (and maybe use a slighter heavier string guide of 0.10 instead of 0.09) for better intonation.

wow guys, lot of thoughts here! ok, here are some answers: 1) I've looked at the original pic and it is a bit deceiving, so I took them again:pic1, pic2(maybe again not 100%) 2) To take out any misplacement of the nut, I made sure the ruler matched the 1st fret, but again the position of both the nut as the 1st frets align. Just to be formal, I'm pretty sure the ruler was used correctly (so starting at the end of the nut the nearest with the 1st fret) 3) there were never any modifications made on this guitar (no Buzz Feiten) 4) when performing the calculation suggested by lovekraft, I measure between center 1st and center 13th 306 mm, so the calculation result=648,39mm 5) interesting remark of Gorecki which got me thinking, there was no radius whatsoever first, and now got myself a nice 9" radius on top (made a cylindrical board), so I placed a few times the ruler both squared/center, as in line with the positions of the strings, and turned out the result remains the same 6) I will make today some cardboards for in-between 25.5" and 26", and assemble the neck and body, and see if I find a matching "in-between" scale, so I don't have to do anything -except refret- with the frets.. keep you posted

well, no, when I measure from the end of the nut to the 12th fret, I have +/- 648mm (25,51"), and an offset of +/- 1mm to the StewMac 25.5" ruler (which btw does seem to be quite accurate, measured some of my genuine strats, spot on!). But maybe it's not a bad idea to slightly relocate the saddle position so I have the least (or none at all) of work with the recut of fret slots. I'll make some new ruler templates in between 25,5" and 26" and check the one closest to the real situation. These former DDR's sure knew how to screw up, there was no radius whatsover on this neck and the fretslots weren't cut deeply enough (from the 15th even no depth anymore) on the bass side , but the neck is still straight as an arrow. Thanks for your comments!

During the rebuild process of my first Strat (Musima, East German), I did measure the current fret slot positions and when moving up the neck, the offset gets bigger and bigger. I remember having intonation problems in the past, but don't know if this was the (only?) reason, anyway, I wonder if someone has a good rule for deciding when to fill the fret slots and recut them at the right location ?.<br><br> I'll include this pic, visible offset fret slots, and approx these offsets: 5th fret:+0,5mm, 12th fret: +1mm, 21th fret: +2mm offset.<br><br> So, at which offset would you decide to have it recut?<br><br>Oh yes, I do want to keep this neck, overall they used good wood then, but poor workmanship

Hello Brian, thanks! it sure looks the place to be where i'll find some serious information. I spoke with a furniture restorer, and he came up with using Hydrogen Peroxide (H202) for un-staining (instead of chlorine bleach). Any comments/experience on this? After un-staining, I think first filling the dents with wood putty then and sand it with 120/220 grit. Oh yes, I'm not even there, but can I use Krylon Clear over waterbase lacquer?

hello, i took my very first guitar (a musima lead star strat clone) for my very first mods experience, so I hope some of you will help me further. The finish is now stripped off, and I've got following questions: -1) is there a procedure to get some sunk finish particles out of the wood (see pics using the link), other then steel wool? (I think about using water based finish, so this is no option). And is this necessary at all? -2) what type of wood was used here? do I need to use a grain filler before a sealer and primer? -3) what type of filler can be used for the scratches and dents? all help much appreciated! musima lead star project

will this be based on the Jackson RR LTD or PCS series?