I’m putting together a Stratocaster for a friend. It’s to match a Telecaster he has so will be painted in a creamy colour. This is the look we are going to achieve: The body, as is usual, is from Guitarbuild and it’s a beauty. Made from alder, it arrived really well sanded so virtually no preparation was …
A regular customer of mine has built this great Jazz Bass replica. The body is alder and finished in Olympic White with a beautiful NOS tortoiseshell pickguard. The bound neck has a matching headstock. You can read the full story on BassChat.
I covered fret dressing in this earlier post but will repeat the steps here for completeness. The pictures should tell the story but I’ll add some text where I think it’s necessary to explain further. The first job, before the frets can be leveled is to remove the lacquer from them. The easiest way to do …
Before spraying I sanded the neck again, checking that everything was clean and wiped over with a tack cloth to remove any dust. I then sprayed another couple of coats of Clear Gloss lacquer to seal before moving on to the tinted coat. You can spray with the neck hanging vertically, but I like to …
I put this guitar together today for a customer. The body is from guitarbuild.co.uk and the owner finished it using my Butterscotch nitrocellulose lacquer. I fitted the Joe Barden pickups, with the bridge mounted to the body, G E Smith style. There is a 4-way switch fitted, giving in-series as well as in-parallel pickup combinations, …
I had a request to make one of these so made a few whilst I was at it! These pickguards are made from “Bakelite” sheet and lacquered in clear gloss nitrocellulose . They’re made to fit replicas of Leo Fender’s 1949 “Snake head” prototype that he used to take around to clubs for artist to …
Here is the Telecaster assembled. I’ve used the bridge from a Fender USA 62 Reissue, Fender jack cup, AllParts parchment ‘guard and some great sounding hot AlNiCo V pickups from The Creamery. I’m considering giving it the freezer treatment once the lacquer has hardened sufficiently.
I put this Telecaster together over the weekend. It has a Warmoth replacement body and a neck and bridge from a Fender Classic Series guitar. I cut the scratchplate out of 2mm acrylic sheet and painted the back with Plasti-Kote metallic gold paint to complete the look.
The final chapter – the guitar is now complete with cream pickguard and on its way to Italy.
The La Cabronita is complete. Well, almost. I’m sending it back to Italy without a pickguard as the owner is undecided whether it should have one. Here are a few shots of the guitar for Daniele with different colour pickguards. The 3-ply one was supplied my Guitar Mill and I made the singly-ply ‘guards.