I've decided to have a little bash at a new project. I've always loved the look of white vintage Fender Strats, but I've never owned one, because genuine vintage Strats are both hard to come by and extremely expensive, the Fender Custom Shop relic Strats are often almost as expensive as the real thing, and Fender's "affordable" relic strat, the Road Worn, is twice the price of the same guitar in new condition and the aged finish is, well, dubious. That and I'm a Gibson man at heart, so I could never justify slinging that kind of money at something that won't be my main instrument.
So the challenges here are twofold: Firstly to reproduce a Strat to 1963 specs or as close as I can get it, and secondly to age the Strat in a believable way.
Ageing, or artificially distressing, or "relicing" as it's known in guitar circles, is a practice that comes from furniture making, and it's a somewhat controversial topic. For those unclear as to what it consists of, basically its aim is to make a brand new, factory-fresh object look like it's been around for decades. Some people like the lighly-reliced look that you'd get on a guitar that's been well cared-for but still shows the unavoidable signs of ageing (some yellowing and slight cracking in the varnish, some tarnishing on the metal parts), and some people like heavily-reliced instruments that barely have any paint left on them and are covered in dull brown rust. It's only fair to mention that some people sincerely despise the practice and think it's a way for posers to pretend that they have something special. Personally, I just prefer the aesthetics of a worn-in instrument to the look of a shiny new guitar, and the reality is that on my budget the only way I'll own a quality instrument with that appearance is to artificially reproduce it.
The genesis of this project, so to speak, came about because I was lucky enough to be given a ridiculous deal by a friend, namely a very good strat copy for £45. I say very good, of course the pickups are junk and so on, but the body is excellent, and that's what we're interested in. The reason I specifically went for a 1963 Strat is that the body is already drilled to those specs, so I stuck with it. Other good parts include the pickguard, which is an unusally nice mint green, the knobs, which are a very pleasing parchment tone, and most of the metal hardware which is good quality. Everything from the heel upwards will be removed and sold on, because unfortunately the headstock is a slightly different shape to the standard pre-CBS Fender shape, and the neck has been shot with a thick unsightly varnish which I assume is supposed to be honey-coloured but is in fact bright orange.
The body is a very nice lake placid blue, which is a kind of metallic mid-blue with just a hint of green. Instead of sanding everything back to bare wood and starting over with sealer and primer and so on, we're going to do a "chop-shop" refinish, which is what a lot of musicians had done to their old strats, by taking them into auto body shops and having the guys put a coat of paint straight over the original. The beauty of this is that once the refinished body has been reliced, we'll see little hints of blue through the distressed white finish. I've found a photo of a body that's been refinished with the same scheme, although this one's a lot more distressed than I'm going for.
The parts that I'm keeping from the donor strat copy:
- The body
- The pickguard and screws
- The knobs
- The bridge plate and screws
- The bridge block and screws
- The neckplate and screws
- The jackplate
The items that I'll need to purchase:
- The neck
- The logo
- The machine heads (tuners)
- The string retainer
- The bridge saddles
- The pickups
- The rear cavity cover
- Vintage white spray paint
- Clearcoat
I've not priced anything up yet, because the original neck has not yet sold, so I don't know how much I'll make back on the purchase of the strat. I'd estimate around £150-£200 of additional investment (hopefully on the low side), but that's an extremely reasonable amount of money for a guitar with the specs and look I'm aiming to achieve.
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