Manchester Guitar Tech
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 …
For some reason known only to Fender, the US American Standard Stratocasters and Telecasters use a 1/8″ Allen key to adjust the Bi-Flex truss rod. It’s okay if the rod is working well and whoever adjusts it used a tight-fitting key of the correct size, but if not, the nut can quickly be trashed and require replacement. Replacing …
Tony is another regular customer who has produced some superb guitars painted using my nitrocellulose lacquer. I think he has excelled himself with this superb tribute to an early Fender Stratocaster using neck and body from Musikraft. Take a look at Tony’s post on TDPRI where he shows how be sprayed the sunburst and aged the …
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’m building a Stratocaster using this beautiful one-piece ash body from GuitarBuild.co.uk. It is made from Phil’s special order only premium wood stock and weighs just 3½ pounds. I’m expecting the finished guitar to weigh in at about 6½ pounds (about 3kg). This premium wood might cost a little more but this is one of the nicest …
Marty sent me some pictures of his Mexican Strat refinish that he’d done. Marty wrote: “Thought I would share my before, during and after pix of my lefty strat. I must say the paint and advice was spot on – has a beautiful almost factory finish that I’m now reluctant to relic! Thanks again for …
Here’s another LSR roller nut rescue, this time on a rosewood board Stratocaster, the previous LSR roller nut repair being on a maple ‘board. This time the fitter had cut the slot too far back, and had removed the rosewood behind the existing nut, rather than just 3/32″ in front of it. They had also …
Last week I refretted this maple board Stratocaster with huge wire – 0.057″ high. I removed the old frets, left the finish intact and laid the new frets onto the strips bare wood that were exposed. I used Sintoms fretwire which was an absolute pleasure to work with. It held the slot tightly and the …
This Stratocaster was built by one of the UK’s best makers of relic guitars. The owner, who’d had it from new, complained that the back of the neck felt sticky and so it did. I found that a good clean and polish helped matters a lot, but the owner wanted the neck de-glossed. Once I’d …