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Starting my scratch built strats Starting my scratch built strats
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Stratocaster Discussion Forum Fender's "other" great guitar the Stratocaster.

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Old February 6th, 2009, 04:57 PM   #1 (permalink)
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Starting my scratch built strats
I'm planning to make 2 strats in next few months, one for me and the other one is (I hope) going to be sold.

Both of them are going to be made of ash (body) and maple (neck).

My will be red with rosewood fingerboard and hardtail bridge. And I'll try to wound my own pickups

The other one will be 2 tone sunburst with tremolo and 1-piece maple neck.

This is what I've made in past 2 days after school:



Weekend starts tomorrow which means new progress and new photos!

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Old February 7th, 2009, 07:21 AM   #2 (permalink)
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Cavities are not finished yet, I need to remove those circles..
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Old February 7th, 2009, 08:18 AM   #3 (permalink)
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wow they sure look nice. Didnt expect someone my age could do such amazing work like that
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Old February 7th, 2009, 10:19 AM   #4 (permalink)
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Little progress:


Still few circles in holes, I'm afraid to route deeper because of the tremolo cavity on the other side..
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Old February 7th, 2009, 11:16 AM   #5 (permalink)
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Robi - Looks great - nice work. Love the grain pattern. Does not look like Ash though. What is the weight of the body's?
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Old February 7th, 2009, 04:35 PM   #6 (permalink)
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Actually, this is a real ash! Swamp ash is usually used for building guitars because it has fewer grains, so it's lighter. This ash is normal ash and it's used for making tables, chairs etc and it's a bit heavier, but sound should be pretty much the same.

I bought it last year when I didn't know swamp ash is better and I've already made a telecaster, and now I'm making two strats and lap steel guitar, tele is too heavy to make another of that wood..

If you are interested, here you can see the tele:
http://www.tdpri.com/forum/tele-home...irst-tele.html

I don't know what's the weight, but it will be heavier then original strat.. But not much heavier
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Old February 8th, 2009, 06:11 PM   #7 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Robi View Post
Actually, this is a real ash! Swamp ash is usually used for building guitars because it has fewer grains, so it's lighter. This ash is normal ash and it's used for making tables, chairs etc and it's a bit heavier, but sound should be pretty much the same.

I bought it last year when I didn't know swamp ash is better and I've already made a telecaster, and now I'm making two strats and lap steel guitar, tele is too heavy to make another of that wood..
I have to fill in and say my part, there are several builders who use regular ash by chambering routs into their bodies and by that reducing weight.
Sadowsky once said that most if not all of his customers thinks that his chambered basses sounds better than the light swamp ash basses he did previously.
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Old February 9th, 2009, 03:03 PM   #8 (permalink)
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I have to fill in and say my part, there are several builders who use regular ash by chambering routs into their bodies and by that reducing weight.
Sadowsky once said that most if not all of his customers thinks that his chambered basses sounds better than the light swamp ash basses he did previously.
I now it can be chambered, but I think I'm not able to do that yet. I don't have enough clamps to glue the top on, I don't have wood for the top (and I'm not allowed to drive a car yet so I can't go somewhere to buy it and my dad is at work when the wood store is open) etc. One day I'll do that..


Meanwhile, I've spent some time in my workshop, contours are mostly done, the elbow contour is bad
It's too low, lower outline should be 2-3 cm beneath the center line of the body, but it's 4-5.. And you can see that one part, on the left of the center line is lower than other parts. I will make other parts lower than they are now and it will look ok, but it won't bi like on the real strat

I mean, it's good, especially for a 17 year old kid, but... Arhg!!!


Back contour is good.


And the jack cavity is here! I have one neck plate at home so I checked it on the template before routing and it is perfect!
Tremolo slot is still a bit bumpy, but I won't touch it until the tremolo arrives..



I hope you could understand my English, I know it's bad, sorry
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Old February 11th, 2009, 03:05 PM   #9 (permalink)
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Hardware arrived today!
Edge radius is made, not finished though..





Contour fixed:
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Old February 11th, 2009, 10:58 PM   #10 (permalink)
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Nice job,looking to start my own strat build soon.
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Old February 15th, 2009, 05:57 AM   #11 (permalink)
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Weekend!!!

Here's another body...
The first one is still not finished, back contour is still a bit sharp and the tremolo slot is like a trapeze But that will be fixed and the body will be great!
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Old February 15th, 2009, 07:04 AM   #12 (permalink)
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Very nice work :) Looking forward to more pictures from you.
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Old February 16th, 2009, 04:41 PM   #13 (permalink)
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Routing.. A bit boring but cool :)
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Old February 24th, 2009, 04:12 PM   #14 (permalink)
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Old February 24th, 2009, 08:38 PM   #15 (permalink)
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Looking good ! Are you waiting for the necks to arrive before you route the neck pocket or are you making the necks too ?
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Old February 25th, 2009, 11:16 AM   #16 (permalink)
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Looking good ! Are you waiting for the necks to arrive before you route the neck pocket or are you making the necks too ?
Of course I'm making my own necks, I like 100% handmade guitars

Besides, I'm building a guitar(s), not assembling..
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Old February 27th, 2009, 08:29 AM   #17 (permalink)
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wow. are you REALLY just 17 ?
you sure you didn't miss at least 10 years somewhere in posting your age ?

I am amazed. At 17, I was maybe one of the most irresponsible kids in my home town, if not the planet. (I was stupid enough to join the service)

GREAT work !!! love watching the progression
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Old February 27th, 2009, 09:43 AM   #18 (permalink)
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Hey that's really nice, really nice looking strat body, i like the way you work.
But the bridge hole doesn't seem to align straight in one of the bodies, ah well that's forgiven.
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Old February 27th, 2009, 01:32 PM   #19 (permalink)
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Well, yes, I'm only 17 :)
Thank you, I don't know what else I could say...

About the bridge hole, on the left side it's 18mm wide and on the right it's 16 or so, and it should be 20. I know that it's not straight, but it will be when I route it on size (I hope)... So, you see, I'm a bit irresponsible too..


I went to the guy that works with wood today and he cut my maple to be 20mm and 25mm thick for necks. (20mm + 5-7mm rosewood = 25-27mm, the other one is one piece maple). I hope I'll start building necks tomorrow (weekend!!!), but the only thing i can make is to route out the truss rod channel and cut out the shape. I don't have the truss rod nut (it was shipped a month ago from stewmac but still hasn't arrived) so I wont be able to put truss rod into channels. (well, I could but this is the first time that I'm putting nut on the heel so I would like to do all the possible testing before gluing fretboard/skunk stripe)

Once again, sorry if my English is a bit weird
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Old February 27th, 2009, 01:54 PM   #20 (permalink)
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Hi Robi,
Nice work!
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Old February 27th, 2009, 03:24 PM   #21 (permalink)
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Thank you!

I can't tell you how much it means to me when dozens of people older then me (most of them could be my parents) say that they like what I do and that I do it good! :D
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Old February 28th, 2009, 03:01 PM   #22 (permalink)
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Finally, necks!





Brass nut, just until the real one arrives..
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Old March 1st, 2009, 03:30 PM   #23 (permalink)
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Skunk stripe gluing..
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Old March 2nd, 2009, 04:09 PM   #24 (permalink)
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Skunk stripe looks good!










Coming next: fret slotting!
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Old March 2nd, 2009, 04:10 PM   #25 (permalink)
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Old March 3rd, 2009, 06:33 PM   #26 (permalink)
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Skola je pa se ne stigne previse radit al se ipak radi! :D
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Old March 3rd, 2009, 11:20 PM   #27 (permalink)
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Skola je pa se ne stigne previse radit al se ipak radi! :D
Yea me too . But in all honesty, these strats are lookin fantastic. Keep it up
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Old March 4th, 2009, 08:12 AM   #28 (permalink)
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Oh, sorry, C/P from another (Croatian) forum

Thanks!
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Old March 8th, 2009, 02:55 PM   #29 (permalink)
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I made a pickup today!!!



I wound (is "wound" the word? ) it today, and put it on my strat. It sounds even better then fender Texas Special (which I have on my strat)!

I'm going to make 3 more pups for one of the strats I'm making, for the other one I'll probably just rewind my old squier pups.
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Old March 12th, 2009, 02:51 PM   #30 (permalink)
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I was making the neck pocket template today! This was just the test fit on some extra wood, I routed 2.2-2.3cm deep pocket because I still have to buy shorter bit.

It's very tight:
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Old March 19th, 2009, 06:54 PM   #31 (permalink)
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Almost there...
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Old March 21st, 2009, 12:37 PM   #32 (permalink)
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very nice!! ill be watching these builds closely
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Old March 21st, 2009, 01:54 PM   #33 (permalink)
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Thank you!

Neck pockets: (not so clear but you can see it's not bad :D)




And the weirdest picture I've ever taken in my whole life:


The left one looks smaller...
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Old March 29th, 2009, 12:19 PM   #34 (permalink)
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Necks are almost finished!
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Old April 9th, 2009, 08:50 AM   #35 (permalink)
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I started finishing bodies, I put a clear nitro coat first and it's quite thick (because the grain filler didn't do its job) and needs to be sanded anyway, so I put an experimental burst on one part of the body... It looks good.

(sorry if my English is bad again)
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Old April 9th, 2009, 09:09 AM   #36 (permalink)
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Very nice work. I am impressed.
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Old April 10th, 2009, 01:37 PM   #37 (permalink)
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I'm impressed too, Robi you're doing really good work here, i love the necks.
Be sure not to route cold wood so that the router doesn't leave burnmarks.

Good luck!
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Old April 10th, 2009, 02:43 PM   #38 (permalink)
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Beautiful work, I admire your talent!
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Old April 11th, 2009, 03:57 PM   #39 (permalink)
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Thank you!

@Zmatko: it wasn't cold wood, router bit was blunt.. But thanks for advice!


Anyway, pickups are ready to be wounded!



The 6th pickup is missing, I lost one of its magnets...
I have to order new one from stewmac..
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Old April 13th, 2009, 06:34 PM   #40 (permalink)
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Half way there, first set is here, only needs to be potted!


And frets are installed on the rosewood neck!
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