My First Guitar Project

When I first started learning Guitar, my mother brought me a 1998 Squier affinity Stratocaster in the classic sunburst finish. It had nasty cheap cast tuners which constantly kept on breaking and knocking the guitar out of tune. At the time, I thought this guitar was the best thing since sliced bread. But after about a year and a half or playing, jamming and occasionally busking, you get allot of damage on your guitar, especially if you play with clumsy people.
I love playing the Strat, renamed the 'shitocaster', because it had a nice warn in neck made of rosewood and is very fast, and the guitar is nicely balanced. So after about a year and a half, the finish was pretty nasty. There were dings and dents were it had fallen of the strap buttons, it had been dropped a few times and it generally just didn’t look nice. So one night I was browsing my local guitar shop website, (http://www.guitarjunction/) and I saw a nice natural finish Stratocaster. I was inspired, so I though I would make my own.

So this is my documentation of re finishing the guitar to natural. The links at the top of the paragraph are photo bucket albums with the progress photos. Click on them to see the photos.

Day One:
http://s142.photobucket.com/albums/r101/robertlucky/stratocaster%20project/day1/
I first came up with the idea at around 19:00 (7:00). I had about three hours light left and I didn’t want to disturb the neighbours, so I went into the shed. I grabbed an old Woolworth’s palm sander and a 15-20 year old bosch sander.
I didn’t have any sand paper, but I had 2 sheets of wet and dry paper which I used without water. It worked for around 1 hour before it split and then had to change it. The Finish came off pretty Good for how long the paper lasted. As you can see on the back of the guitar, the finish isn’t in good condition due to belt rash and a few dart match mishaps.
I called it a day at 21:00 (9:00) due to the neighbours complaining and the loss of light.
I had dreams of what I could accomplish the next day...

Day Two:
http://s142.photobucket.com/albums/r101/robertlucky/stratocaster%20project/day2/

I woke up at around 14:00 (2:00), got some clothes on and set up the sanders. I procured a used work bench from a near-by alley and a few pieces of wood to cushion the guitar so it wouldn’t get damaged. I didn’t need to use the bench just yet, but it would come in handy the next day. I got an old news paper and put it on my garden bench and then placed the guitar on it. This was to make sure no paint and dirt rubs off onto the body of the guitar.

I got the palm sander and sanded for what seemed like 1 hour but I looked at the time, and it was 16:00 (4:oo). I had sanded most of the nitrocellulose finish off, so I called it a day. I packed up and had a shower to get all the dust and rubbish out of my hair and off of me. I dried off and went to the computer to upload my progress photos. I did that and got bored quite quickly. I then remembered I needed to change the machine heads because the nasty original ones had finally given in.

Back to the guitar, the shaft of the tuners where the string goes through had broken off. I then remembered I had some spare ones from a £10 aria pro guitar I got off of a good friend. It was called ' The Cat II' which was an Ibanez road star II Copy. I put the tuners on the strat neck and they didn't fit because the holes were too small. I went back to the shed and dug out the drill. I can't remember what size the drill piece was, but it was exactly the same size as the machine head. Everything was great. I drilled out the machine head holes and they fit snug. I forgot to drill out the stay screws which are those tiny screws next to the tuners. I thought I may as well attempt to put the screws in with a screwdriver in to the UN routed holes. To my surprise it worked, so I did it to all six tuners. (Makes sense!) All in all it took me around fifteen minutes to install the tuners.

Day Three
http://s142.photobucket.com/albums/r101/robertlucky/stratocaster%20project/day3/

Again, I woke up and set every thing up. I used the vice bench which I found and some wood to cushion the guitar whilst it was being held. I sanded the left and right wing of the guitar and I moved on to the edges. This was the hardest part because I didn’t have a contour sander so I had to improvise with what I could find. The day before, my dad went out to Wilkinson to get some sand paper which I needed to finish the guitar. I found a metal bar and wrapped some course sand paper around it held in place with some double sided tape. This whole process took me about 3 hours to do. I just had the left and right wing to do, which turned out to be just really slow and boring.

Once I had finished this part, I started to sand the edges of the guitar. I used the palm sander because it was the most effective. I did this for around 2 hours and by the time I finished the edges, it was around 18:00(6:00) and I was tired. Again, I had a shower and retired to my bedroom.

Day Four:
http://s142.photobucket.com/albums/r101/robertlucky/stratocaster%20project/day4/
Day four was the part you have been waiting for! The down side was that the weather was drizzly but that didn’t stop me. I grabbed some steel wire wool and smoothed down the rough edges. It wasn’t enough, so I used some special profiling sand paper. I then went over the whole thing with the wire wool. It looked great! I had 30 minutes break before I moved on to the next task.

With the guitar all sanded down, I needed some varnish. I only had only £5 which wasn’t enough. I needed £7:39 so I borrowed some money from my mum and we headed down to Wickes. I got some 'natural oak' varnish which was the perfect colour. It complemented the maple neck and the white pick guard of my guitar perfectly. I prepared the shed and wiped down the guitar with a damp cloth to remove the dust and left it dry. While waiting, I shook the hell out of the varnish tin. I put a sheet of rag over the vice bench and laid the guitar on it. I got some brushes and began varnishing. In total, I did three coats in three hours. I let it dry for around another 3 hours and had a rest.

By around 21:00 (9:00), I went into the shed and checked up on the guitar. It was dry and sexy. It was a dark oak colour hence the name of the varnish. I went inside and assembled the guitar. It looked so damn nice compared to how it was before. Once it was assembled, I got some wire wool and lightly sanded the finish making it ultra smooth. The guitar was finally sexy!
Here are some images of the finished product:
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r101/robertlucky/stratocaster%20project/100_1557.jpg
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r101/robertlucky/stratocaster%20project/100_1560.jpg
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r101/robertlucky/stratocaster%20project/Image004.jpg