Laundryroom David
Keyboard Cowboy 🤠
Well, since you asked, here’s my MIM. Nothing fancy. Dropped some 57/62 pickups in it a while back and love ‘em.
Anybody own a strat? 🤪
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Coda
Well-known member
I love a burst with a maple fretboard and a black guard and plastic…
steviejr92
Authorized Vendor
If I could sing to her....It would go a lil something like this:
Is you is or is you aint maaaa baby?!
No but seriously my first guitar ever and still my fave....
Is you is or is you aint maaaa baby?!
No but seriously my first guitar ever and still my fave....
Locrian99
Well-known member
What’d you do buy a guitar center and move in ?Oh man. I cant get them all in 1 photo!
there's about 20 more I don't have pics of.
Brett
Well-known member
Bruh…Oh man. I cant get them all in 1 photo!
there's about 20 more I don't have pics of.
Joben Magooch
Well-known member
I got this CV60s during the big pro audio star blowout last year. I quite like it a lot! I initially swapped the guard to tortoise and redid the wiring (along with some other random tweaks). Decided I wanted to try HSS; added the bridge hb and swapped out the plastics for black (apologies for out of focus pic). It sounds really nice but I don’t care a ton for the look after living with it for a bit, it feels kind of cheap looking to me. And the places I play lately are awfully noisy (even with decent wiring and power on my end, inasmuch as I can control) so I’m actually about to convert it to HH and a mint green guard. We’ll see. I really love Fenders in general as they’re just great fun to tinker with IMO.
The second will perhaps be a bit divisive as I know some have some strong opinions on “relics”. It started as a cheap Squier affinity Strat that I randomly got in a trade. Had no need for it but a guy offered it for some junk I was about to just throw away so I went for it. It’s super light but honestly I was SHOCKED at how nice it played after a tune up. But the original paint was pretty terrible and had very cheap electronics and ultra flimsy plastics. I decided to take the time to have some fun with it and try to model after one of my favorite “famous” guitars (which may also be a bit divisive), John Mayer’s “Black1”.
I stripped off the original finish down to bare wood. Put on some sanding sealer and got it smoothed up nicely. To get the same wear pattern I took a handful of photos of the real guitar and used them to make a template of the painted vs bare/worn areas. I then covered the whole body in painters tape and used spray adhesive to attach my template(s) and then an Xacto to cut out the areas that would be painted.
I’ve seen folks do it both ways - paint the whole thing then use a template to mark where to chip away the paint, or mask it off and use a template to not paint the “worn” areas. The latter sounded much easier to me. I ended up with a pattern that landed somewhere between Mayer’s Black1 and SRV’s “Number One”. I sprayed it with a few coats of black nitro, removed the template, and sanded/wet-sanded. The bare areas got hit with some gel stain in a few spots to darken up a bit as well. From there was a bit of redneck relicing, which basically entailed putting the whole thing in a cardboard box with some nuts and bolts and coins and chain and shaking it around a little. Dropped some keys on it, smacked with a wrench, you know… pretty precise and professional work. I used a faux-aging technique on the exposed wood as well as the neck (brush with strong tea, then vinegar that’s had steel wool dissolved in it… furniture aging trick). Then the whole thing got hit with a few coats of clear nitro and polished up little.
Aged guard and plastics went in, and fitted up with gold hardware. The gold bridge is a cheap no name one, but it works okay. I couldn’t find any reasonably priced tuners to match John’s - his I believe is gold with pearl buttons - so they’re just gold at the moment. Musiclily brand, which I have had good luck with. It just has the stock squier pickups, which are ceramics that sound okay but unspectacular. Once I finish the aforementioned HH conversion on my red Strat, I’ll throw the CV alnico pickups in here.
As I said I know many have a strong opinion on relics but I thought it was a fun project to try out on a basically free guitar and with minimal money invested it turned out pretty decent to my eye. And it plays really nice!
The second will perhaps be a bit divisive as I know some have some strong opinions on “relics”. It started as a cheap Squier affinity Strat that I randomly got in a trade. Had no need for it but a guy offered it for some junk I was about to just throw away so I went for it. It’s super light but honestly I was SHOCKED at how nice it played after a tune up. But the original paint was pretty terrible and had very cheap electronics and ultra flimsy plastics. I decided to take the time to have some fun with it and try to model after one of my favorite “famous” guitars (which may also be a bit divisive), John Mayer’s “Black1”.
I stripped off the original finish down to bare wood. Put on some sanding sealer and got it smoothed up nicely. To get the same wear pattern I took a handful of photos of the real guitar and used them to make a template of the painted vs bare/worn areas. I then covered the whole body in painters tape and used spray adhesive to attach my template(s) and then an Xacto to cut out the areas that would be painted.
I’ve seen folks do it both ways - paint the whole thing then use a template to mark where to chip away the paint, or mask it off and use a template to not paint the “worn” areas. The latter sounded much easier to me. I ended up with a pattern that landed somewhere between Mayer’s Black1 and SRV’s “Number One”. I sprayed it with a few coats of black nitro, removed the template, and sanded/wet-sanded. The bare areas got hit with some gel stain in a few spots to darken up a bit as well. From there was a bit of redneck relicing, which basically entailed putting the whole thing in a cardboard box with some nuts and bolts and coins and chain and shaking it around a little. Dropped some keys on it, smacked with a wrench, you know… pretty precise and professional work. I used a faux-aging technique on the exposed wood as well as the neck (brush with strong tea, then vinegar that’s had steel wool dissolved in it… furniture aging trick). Then the whole thing got hit with a few coats of clear nitro and polished up little.
Aged guard and plastics went in, and fitted up with gold hardware. The gold bridge is a cheap no name one, but it works okay. I couldn’t find any reasonably priced tuners to match John’s - his I believe is gold with pearl buttons - so they’re just gold at the moment. Musiclily brand, which I have had good luck with. It just has the stock squier pickups, which are ceramics that sound okay but unspectacular. Once I finish the aforementioned HH conversion on my red Strat, I’ll throw the CV alnico pickups in here.
As I said I know many have a strong opinion on relics but I thought it was a fun project to try out on a basically free guitar and with minimal money invested it turned out pretty decent to my eye. And it plays really nice!
Attachments
drgonzo1969
Well-known member
That's a great relic job! you turned that trash guitar into treasure. I naturally relic every guitar I build because I am clumsy and bash them into everything. But i also prefer a well loved guitar. Shiny new guitars feel sterile to me for some reason.
Fingolfen
Well-known member
jeffwhitfield
Well-known member
The one on the left is kind of my #1…a Gretsch Electromatic Jet modded with a Les Trem.
The one on the right is my #2, a PRS Silver Sky SE. Wonderful guitar. Best Strat style guitar I’ve ever played on.
The one on the right is my #2, a PRS Silver Sky SE. Wonderful guitar. Best Strat style guitar I’ve ever played on.
szukalski
Well-known member
One of the first guitars I had was a Strat. Then I got into super strats for a couple of decades. When I got back, I was in love all over again.
The one which got me back into Strat loving. A roadworn 50's I bought in 2014. The fret work was shocking, overhang, tall frets. I eventually made it a compound radius because the 7.25" radius would fret out on massive bends. I put in Rose pickups and and I can't see any improvements I can ever make on them.
My red, it no longer has the Gilmour EMG set in there (maybe it goes back in one day):
The one which got me back into Strat loving. A roadworn 50's I bought in 2014. The fret work was shocking, overhang, tall frets. I eventually made it a compound radius because the 7.25" radius would fret out on massive bends. I put in Rose pickups and and I can't see any improvements I can ever make on them.
My red, it no longer has the Gilmour EMG set in there (maybe it goes back in one day):
SillyOctpuss
Well-known member
This is a partscaster I had put together by Feline guitars in London.
USACG neck 7.25-9.5 compound radius, big jumbo frets. '63 profile.
Fender ash body
Earvana nut
Mojo pickups
Wudtone trem
It plays and sounds fantastic, it also never goes out of tune no matter how much you abuse the trem.
USACG neck 7.25-9.5 compound radius, big jumbo frets. '63 profile.
Fender ash body
Earvana nut
Mojo pickups
Wudtone trem
It plays and sounds fantastic, it also never goes out of tune no matter how much you abuse the trem.
KR Sound
Well-known member
That’s when I got mine as well. Still can’t believe it was so cheap.
Nostradoomus
Well-known member
No pics handy (maybe later) but I have a late 80s USA made Peavey Predator I got for 200 dollars that ended my strat buy/sell hunt. Love it so much!
damianvila
Well-known member
I don't have a Strat (or a Les Paul, for that matter).
I do have a Mustang P90, and a Duo-Sonic HS (my favourite, actually). So, more into offsets, I guess.
Not a fan of only having single coils, or more than 2 pickups.
I do have a Mustang P90, and a Duo-Sonic HS (my favourite, actually). So, more into offsets, I guess.
Not a fan of only having single coils, or more than 2 pickups.
I love this thing. 
almondcity
Well-known member
I have this exact guitar! I'm thinking about selling it even though it plays so easily. I'm just not a strat guy anymore
