Non Warmoth Cheap Strat Project

Soloshchenko

Senior Member
Messages
430
I've been thinking of putting together a guitar exclusively for slide playing but didn't want it to cost a fortune. I set myself a budget of 50-60 quid and wanted to create a workhorse strat that wouldn't take much or time or effort to put together. At the same time I wanted it to be "giggable" quality.


I found this on ebay. The bloke was selling it as a "textured custom finish". Yeah right! I thought it looked like someone had been sick on it! Anyway, it was 11 quid and came with all the annoying bits I couldn't be bothered buying like a scratchplate and volume/tone knobs. Bargain. 

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When I got it,it was worse than first imagined. The botch job finish was THICK and uneven and just generally very horrible indeed. It took some serious sanding work but I was encouraged by some nice looking grain underneath.

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I bagged a very nice Squier neck (with decent machine heads) for 16 quid. While sanding this purple/pink crap off I managed to score a Fender Tex Mex neck pickupfor 11 quid and a weird hotrails style thing from a decent looking strat copy whose name currently escapes me.

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Finished and really pleased with the results. I went for a tung oil finish on the body. I'm still tweaking the set up but the sound is fantastic. The blade pickup isn't as aggressive as it looks and actually has a lovely smooth sound.

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Certainly sounds more than 50 quid worth of guitar anyway! :guitarplayer2:

 
Very nice job!  That looks like a light walnut, not run-of-the-mill cheap-guitar poplar or basswood.  Congratulations on a sweet deal.
 
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