Ok, thanks to it being suddenly a lot colder last week when I spray my second lot of clear I ended up with trapped solvents: Solvent pop.



It still had to properly cure before I could sand out the marks from the solvents so I had to improve a warm breeze.



I also put together the electrics, sans output jack.



I'm a little rusty at soldering.

woo! it's nice to see the wiring started. What kind of pickups did you end up going with?

Is that one of those electric lawn mowers lol

www.rockmonkeyguitars.co.uk

I got them them second hand a while back, but it's a 62 Smooth Groove in the neck and middle and a Swinging Warm in the bridge. I'll probably still replace the bridge with a tele pickup or a p90 or something.

Also that's actually the wiring done apart from the output, I'm using a master tone and the 3rd knob is just going to be a dummy for now.


You mean the lawn mowers that everyone uses?

My lawn mower is gas powered...

I bet you need quite a damn good lawn mower for as much as the grass grows in Scotland. The next time I fly to Europe, Scotland is a visiting priority for me, My Mother went there with her church group and to investigate our family Heritage. (Dammit I was jealous!) Anyway your guitar is looking real nice so far.

So I've taken down the solvent pop with some sanding and shot another couple of coats of clear. Since this stuff shrinks as it cures there's still some divets in the finish from where the pop was, but I reckon I can sand away at some of it. If there's anything that REALLY bugs me about it I can always strip and refinish it, but I'm not too fussed to be honest as you can't see anything from about 5 feet away.

Hey look it's some stuff that isn't the body!





Installing the tuners was interesting seeing how apparently the sides of these Gotohs aren't entirely square with the shaft, but I think I got them on straight.



Finally, a little sanding and whatnot to get the nut to fit the slot. I haven't glued it in, but it seems fairly solid without it just now. The internet seems to disagree with the instructions on the packet that the nut came in, but I reckon I should probably go pick up a little bottle of wood glue.



I'm thinking about what I could possibly put on the headstock where the Fender name would usually go. I reckon blank heads look a little odd, but then I don't particularly want my name or anything on it and I'm not keen on putting a Fender logo on a non-Fender guitar, though I suppose I could put on a decal and not finish over it so that it can be removed if I ever want to sell it. Any ideas?

So today I decided that the clear was finally solid enough for me to do some final sanding and whatnot.



Turns out I was wrong and when I was buffing it and whatnot I ended up with a fabric imprint from my jeans. BOLLOCKS. Oh well it's still marked with divets from the solvent pop and whatnot and it doesn't look like I'll be able to fix that without stripping it back to the colour. That said there's also a small gap at the side of the trem route which is apparently thanks to the guy that modified the body for a floyd before I got it so it's going to look a little odd anyway.



Mockup looks ok I guess.

ROFL, not even going to bother with the bridge/middle tone pot? :p

It doesn't exist!

I've wired master tone, that's just going to be a dummy pot once I actually bolt it all together.

Hey, remember that time I built a guitar?



The clear hardened in the end and after a little struggling to fit piece together [yay project bodies that some guy modified!] it's done. I still need to take it for a setup as the neck has absolutely no relief in it whatsoever so it's barely playable, but I'm happy enough. The whole thing was just meant to be a learning experience anyway.

cool, so how much did that end up costing you?

I didn't really skimp on the Bridge or Neck so about £300. I could have had it cheaper but that's still a little less than an MIM Fender.

And finally those little touches that I neglected to install before. Knobs, string tree and strap buttons.



I also spent this afternoon fiddling with the truss rod and the rest of the setup. After managing to raise the action enough to make it playable it sounds like an awesome strat.*


*Awesome strats only really use the neck pickup.

Beautifully done!

Awesome, nice work. Any audio/video to hear it in action?

bro

broski?

broseph