⅞ Roasted Ash Strat

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Here's my little build journal.

I ordered a ⅞ strat body in extra-light weight roasted swamp ash and a roasted maple 7/8 warhead neck The goal of this build is to hopefully end up with a strat at 7lbs or less. I had the body routed for a Wilkinson bridge and opted for the contoured heel. Other than that, everything is standard. The neck has is 42mm, compound radius, and stainless "narrow & tall" frets. I'm going to be using Hipshot locking tuners. I also ordered a "yellow tortoise" celluloid pickgaurd to emulate a cool old Bill Lawrence strat I saw from the '80's.

The body and neck looked great when they arrived, but I was surprised how light colored they were. I know roasted woods are supposed to darken, so I hoped for the best.
 

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Well, everything you read about roasted woods darkening is true! Here's the body with one coat of Tru-Oil. I'm really happy with how it's looking.
 

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In the last two days, I got a second and third coat of tru-oil on the body. Both of these were base/grain-filling coats, so I wet sanded (with tru-oil as the lubricant) them in with 600-grit. There's not a ton of difference between the two pictures, but on the 3rd coat, you can see a bit more gloss on the horns.

I also put a few light coats of nitro on the headstock and placed my decal (my last name is Bregman). The decal is still a little wet in the photo.

I also figured out how to put images in the post instead of attaching them...

2nd Coat
2ndCoat.jpg


3rd Coat
3rdCoat.jpg


Headstock
Headstock.jpg


 
Here's the 4th coat of tru-oil. It's starting to look a little more glossy now, which is great. I'm planning on doing at least 7-8 more coats over the next 4 days or so.

4th Coat
4thCoat.jpg


I also wanted to get a little more shine on the celluloid pickguard. I should have taken a before-pic, but it was very matte with numerous horizontal cutting marks on it. I called Warmoth up and was told it couldn't be polished, but I found a post on an acoustic guitar forum that said otherwise. I decided to risk it and give it a try. After wet-sanding (water with a few drops of dishsoap) with 1500, then 2000, then 3000 grits, I hand-polished it with Meguiars Ultimate Compound, and cleaned it off with some windex. Not perfect, but much much better. I could probably take some swirl-remover to it if i really wanted....but at the end of the day, it's a pickguard....it's supposed to get scratched up.

Celluloid Pickguard
Celluloid-PG.jpg


I've also been slowly burying the decal on the headstock in more coats of nitro...but that's less interesting to look at.
 
Per your other thread that is already starting to look good. When you have finished with the Tru-oil I think all it needs is to let it cure for a couple of weeks or more and then hand buff it with a lint free cloth, with a little gunstock wax or a natural beeswax type product.
 
This is looking amazing! Like you, I was very surprised how light your initial picture was, but the tru-oil is darkening it to perfection!

How often are you applying coats, and what are you doing in-between coats (nothing, steel wool, wet sand)?
 
Thanks for the kind and helpful words! I don't know how interesting it is to see every coat, but I like seeing the progress with each one. You can see my reflection (especially the pink filters on my respirator) more clearly with each coat.

5th Coat. This was about 6 hours after the 4th coat, no sanding in between.
5thCoat.jpg


6th Coat. This was about 12 hours after the 5th coat, and before putting this one on, I lightly sanded with 800 grit to get rid of some high spots.
6thCoat.jpg


7th Coat. This was about 7 hours after the 6th coat.
7thCoat.jpg


My plan is to lightly scuff with 1500-grit tomorrow if needed, then do two more coats ~8 hours apart, then do two final light coats on Wednesday thinned with some mineral spirits. It's hanging in a room that I'm keeping at 70 degrees with low humidity, so everything is drying really fast.
 
These last two regular coats (8 & 9) look nearly identical on camera, but I promise the surface is smoother when you hold it up to the light. I thinned the 10th coat 1:1 with odorless mineral spirits and applied it with a cotton rag. I think this increased the gloss significantly. I'm going to let that dry for ~8 hours and do one more thinned coat, and the body should be done!

8th Coat:
8thCoat.jpg


9th Coat:
9thCoat.jpg


10th Coat:
10thCoat.jpg
 
I got the last coat on the body, and I'm really happy with how it turned out. I'm going to let it cure for a few weeks (as I mentioned earlier, I'm keeping it in a room that's at 70 degrees with low humidity, so cure-times should be pretty quick). I also burnished the back of the neck (up to 3000 grit), and once the nitro has cured on the headstock, I'll sand and polish that as well. While things are curing, I can get started on the electronics.

11th Coat:
11thCoat.jpg


Raw neck to gloss-nitro headstock transition:
Neck-Headstock.jpg
 
With the body and headstock curing, I turned my attention to wiring up the pickguard. I noticed that the celluloid was pretty translucent and I wanted to back it with something first. I read that a lot of people have used manila folders, but I thought copper tape might look better, and I had a roll of it on hand. I think it looks great. It gives the yellow tort a flame-like quality. Once that was done, I wired up the pickups with a standard master-tone control (the ⅞ body doesn't have room for two tone controls). I used vintage Russian PIO caps for the tone and treble-bleed network.

Wiring:
PGWiring.jpg


Front:
PGFront.jpg
 
COMPLETE!!

Once the finishes had cured, I did the final wet-sanding/polishing and then put it all together and set it up. I am ecstatic about how it came together. I blew past my goal of it being under 7lbs (it came out to 5lbs 13.5oz!), and it plays beautifully. The pickups sound fantastic, and the neck feels wonderful. There are a few frets that still need leveling, but I've been thinking about getting it PLEK'd, since I've always wanted to to that with a guitar. I also made a few minor mistakes (scratches, one tiny chip-out, and one errant hole), but all-in-all, it turned out even better than I hoped.

Glamour-Shot.jpg


Final-Strat.jpg


Final-Headstock.jpg
 
That turned out great :glasses9:. Perfect match for the vintage tortoise.

Wow, 6 pound strat! What was the weight of the body originally?
 
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