80s superstrat project begins...

[Heavy Rock]

The story begins when a few months ago, I got a cheap body from Reverb, because I had a few cheap parts lying around and wanted to turn them into a complete guitar, although to be a beater cheap one. So I went on searching and found this Rockwood by Hohner black body for 58 euros including shipping and I assembled the guitar with whatever crap I had around. Well, to my huge surprise the guitar sounded so good that I couldn't stop playing it. Since then it's the guitar I play almost all the time and whatever pickup I put in it, it brings the best of it out, the notes jump as long as I touch the strings and it's crazy how much the whole body vibrates while playing it.

So a couple weeks ago I decided that this body really deserves to be a better guitar than what I had matched it with. I made a quick research on what this body is made of and looks like many people believe it's made of plywood or basswood. It's a 1996 Rockwood body which in fact is a Korean Cortek body. It's surprisingly well made. For a while now I wanted to make a red superstrat, so I decided to use this body instead of getting a new one. I'm currently in the process of sanding the original color off and it's not plywood. It's a 3-piece body (one center piece and two sides), I don't know what wood it is but it has the tonal character of maple, super tight, super clear etc. I have a maple Warmoth soloist body which is almost identical in shape but the Rockwood is not as heavy as that though. Maybe it's a lighter piece of hard maple or it's soft maple, I don't know.

So at the end of this month I'm ordering a new Warmoth neck for this project, which will be a paddle headstock one. I want to make a guitar along the lines of the Hamer Californian model which I love the looks of. That headstock is pure 80s but not too bold, really perfect.

I'm attaching some pics of the body as it was originally and how I progressed with the sanding so far. I have made it down to the sanding sealer (I'll leave that on) and sculpted the heel a little. I'll be updating this thread as I go. Sorry for the lengthy post. Thanks for reading! See you around...

 

[Heavy Rock]

Some more progress with the sanding on the body. I'm gathering the parts at the moment.

This guitar is going to get all the mods I wanted to make over the years and didn't get to do. I'll make it my "signature" model so to speak. I want to make some slight mods to the body as well as the pickups and the bridge.

The bridge will be an original Floyd Rose I had since two years ago, that I modified with Graph Tech saddles and a stone block.

The bridge pickup will be a Gibson Dirty Fingers with an AlNiCo II center magnet instead of the ceramic one. The neck pickup will be a Fender Yosemite and the middle either a Seymour Duncan Quarter Pound or a YJM Fury bridge. Haven't decided between the two yet. I'm going for a fat sounding pickup in the middle for more classic rock riffing and a Fender style sound from the neck pickup. The bridge must have that super tight clear distortion of the 80s.

I'm thinking to put all three pickups in plastic covers for that 80s look but not sure yet if I'll do that. Also I want to try the Graph Tech Un-Lock nut. If it works I'll keep it, otherwise I'll replace it with a standard Floyd Rose nut.

The Yosemites can be bought only as a set but I have plans for the other two in another project. Also I painted the neck plate black and sprayed a clear coat on too, I hope it will last long enough, we'll see.

I'm currently working on the body mods.

So here are a few pics with the parts I have s far.

 

[Strat Avenger]

The Yosemite pickups suck (very microphonic). I would suggest the Texas Special, or Dimarzio Area 61 or 67 for neck, and Injector for middle.