Mandrake

Yeah, the previous owner of the shop, Charley Wirtz made the original one for Stevie. The reissues on the pics have kind of an flip-flop effect lacqer. I am not sure the original had one, so I chose just simple white.

After I have finished my relic SRV #1 project I couldn't wait long to get on with my first (re-)finishing project. It's Stevie Ray Vaughan's white Custom Strat "Charley". Already ordered a parchment white strat pickguard blank that will be customized for lipstick pickups from WDMusic and 1 volume and 1 tone pot. Will add the Hula Girl on the back, too ;-) Still haven't found the picture posting rules. Hope everything is fine now.

I haven't researched on that topic yet ;-) some also say the pickups were overwound and/or had gotten microphonic.. I don't know what to believe. At the moment I have some fender pickups from my 85 Japan Strat and standard 250 K pots and an Orange drop 47nF. Maybe I will change the electrics for more "SRV sound" later (1st I need to finish the "Charley"). Maybe I will even buy some Texas Special, although I know they don't come very close to the originals... But they are in the signature strat and Stevie had given his OK to them... By the way there isn't "the SRV sound" anyway. In 1989 he sounds much different than in 1985, even a bit "mid boost" like as Clapton on some songs... Amps did very much for the sound I think.

Well, although, I just checked "Austin, Texas (1989)" and there Stevie's No. 1 has a replaced neck and "Scotch" still? again? has a right handed neck. I am getting confused! I think you are right about the "Red"-neck after all. This page seems very reliable to me: http://www.stevieray.com/gear.htm and the sources for the information are mentioned (neck info comes from Rene Martinez).

Red had a left handed neck long before '89. But shortly after No.1's neck was replaced "Scotch" had a left handed neck. I think this guy knows a lot, maybe he has been interviewing Rene Martinez? http://www.geocities.com/jester241/srvax.html

This neck on the photo is not the original neck. No cigarette burn! In 1989 he replaced the original neck because of too many refrets with the neck of one of his other guitars "Scotch" (not "Red"). That was the neck that broke when a lighting fell on it. That was in '90. Then he got a Fender vintage replacement neck he used until his death, and then the original neck was reinstalled and #1 given to Jimmy. I read this here http://www.geocities.com/jester241/srvax.html and it makes sense. Btw. on the original neck with the cigarette burn he never had gold Kluson tuners. He always had nickel tuners until he got the gold Fender Elite tuners. On Scotch's neck that he put on #1 there were gold Kluson's, and after it broke he put them on the new replacement neck. So if you rebuild a SRV and you have a cigarette burn on the headstock you must either take nickel Kluson's or gold Elite tuners with white knobs... I chose gold Schaller because they come close enough to the Fender elite tuners for me ;-)

In Mardi Gras 1987 he has those Fender Elite gold tuners, too. He must have replaced the original neck some time after 1987. I have read he considered replacing the neck 1989 because it became unsusable due to too many refrets. (I have been investigating, too ;-) You really know a lot cole, I am impressed.

What font do you mean is the "right one"? Could you show a pic?

I have made some modifications to mine in the meantime. - I installed Schaller gold tuners with white/perloid knobs. They look similar to the 80's Fender ones that are on the custom shop tribute. I never saw a photo of Stevie with those tuners, but he must have had them at some point in his career, otherwise the Fender guys wouldn't have installed them on the tribute. And if not - well, he might have ;-) Those Schaller tuners are a lot better than the cheap kluson copies I had before, too. - I added some more wear on the body to make it look more like Stevie's in the late 80's. I applied some yellow stain on some areas of exposed wood to imitate the yellow base lacquer that can be seen on some photos. Maybe I will add some more wear (remove more lacqer) to the back, too. - oh, and very important: some electric wire isolation for the higher strings, like Stevie had ;-) http://www.koehrsen.de/roland/relic04a.jpg http://www.koehrsen.de/roland/relic14a.jpg http://www.koehrsen.de/roland/relic05a.jpg http://www.koehrsen.de/roland/relic06a.jpg

Looks great! very real! You might make some more worn areas so some more sunburst can be seen, like this http://guitarhq.com/colors/strat63b.jpg or maybe like this http://www.provide.net/~woodrails/oldpics/str62wsc.jpg (pictures taken from http://www.provide.net/~cfh/fenderc.html)

I think we are all wrong. Here's what the white area really comes from.

It's from heavy strumming.

By the way the gold hardware was installed very late, short before Stevie's death, so it shouldn't be aged too much anyway. Roland

Nice work man! Very close! Here's mine, just finished it a couple of days ago: http://www.koehrsen.de/roland/relic03.jpg http://www.koehrsen.de/roland/relic04.jpg http://www.koehrsen.de/roland/relic07.jpg http://www.koehrsen.de/roland/relic12.jpg http://www.koehrsen.de/roland/relic13.jpg http://www.koehrsen.de/roland/relic14.jpg This is my current project: Nice Guitar, Please read the rules regarding picture posting Sorry, I didn't know.. won't happen again!