Bloozcat
April 21st, 2008, 09:20 AM
Well, I've been working on yet another Strat project, and I thought I'd start posting the progress.
I ordered the body from KnE Guitars in California. I had noticed that KnE's guitar bodies were pretty reasonably priced, and the limited feedback I was able to find seemed pretty positive, so I thought I'd give them a try.
I e-mailed Mitch at KnE and gave him my specs for the body. Pretty straight forward - two piece alder body, S/S/S pickup route, routed and drilled for a vintage 6-screw mount bridge, 11-hole pickguard...
But I also wanted a lightweight body in the 3 lb. 6-10 oz range, and that usually is an upcharge with most body makers. Mitch just said, no problem, he usually kept a few lightwight blanks around for just such requests...same price. Mitch said the body would be around 3lb.- 9oz when finished. Now, the price of the body was only $109.95, which is an excellent price for a two piece alder body made to any specs I wanted. The additional benefit of getting it in a light weight with no upcharge closed the deal.
I PayPal'd the money to Mitch on a Thursday, and he had the body finished and shipped out the next day....pretty remarkable!
When the body arrive the next week, I pulled it out of the box for it's initial inspection. The work was neat and precise, and the body was sanded down to a ready to prime/paint smoothness. The weight of the body was just a hair over 3lbs 9oz. I have a USACG body that I use as my "template" for comparing any other guitar bodies I buy, so I pulled it out for a comparison. The USACG body for reference, was patterened from an original 1954 Strat body that Tommy at USACG owns himself. The only variance from the original is a deeper pickup cavity route to accomodate the generally taller modern pickups.
I compared the overall size of the two bodies, and they appeared identical. The horns on the KnE were slightly more rounded than the USACG, but subtley so, and not something you'd notice if the KnE body was standing alone. When I got to the forearm contour and the rear relief contour, I noticed the first real differences. The forearm contour was not as pronounced nor as wide, and the rear relief contour was not as long nor as deep as on the USACG body. So, I decided that it would be worth the extra effort to further relieve these contours. First, I marked the center point of the body at the lower end, then I used a straight edge and a pencil to draw a line from the center point to the side edge of the body where the contour should end. From there, it was just a matter of relieving the wood until the contour matched the USACG body. I did the initial relief with a belt sander, and finished it up with hand sanding.
Next, I turned to the rear contour. No belt sander here as it would be just be too easy to slip and take too much wood off, or to alter the sweeping angle too much. So, I painstakingly hand sanded the contour until it matched the USACG body. In reality, it didn't take all that long to rough out the shape, but to finish the contour to that graceful looking contour of the USACG body took a little more time to get right. Still, all in all, it was time well spent. The only other alteration I did to the body was to add a relief cut in the bottom of the bridge pickup cavity where it meets the control cavity, to accomodate the wiring from the three pickups. When twisted together in vintage fashion, the wiring creates somewhat of a "lump" that requires some extra space beneath the bridge pickup (the USACG body has this relief cut). I'm sure that I reduced the weight of the body by an ounce or two, but the scale that I used initially to weight the body, was not readily available when I finished the sanding.
With the body alterations completed, I then began assembling the guitar so that I could get all of the holes drilled for the neck, pickguard, tremolo cover, strap buttons, as well as the holes for the tunning keys and string trees on the neck. The all critical scale length with the bridge and neck installed was spot on. Once I was satisfied with the assembly, I disassembled the guitar to prepare the body for the next step - the sanding sealer.
Since this body is made of alder which is a closed pore wood, no grain filler was necessary. I bought a quart of Deft lacquer sanding sealer (nitro) from Ace Hardware (the only place I can find it locally any more), and mixed up a quart with a 1 to 1 thinner to sealer ratio. I applied eight coats of the sander sealer with my touch up spray gun, sanding the body between the first four, and the last four coats. I then final sanded it to a smooth finish.
Since this guitar will be finished in Lake Placid Blue metallic lacquer, the next step was to apply a white primer as a base for the paint. This is a step that is sometimes skipped, and even Fender did so a lot in the vintage years. But, a good base of white primer serves two useful purposes: 1) The paint goes on much more evenly without any dark or light areas. 2) It requires less paint to finish the job. Rather than order some flat clear lacquer and white pigment to make the primer, I just picked up two spray cans from Guitar ReRanch. It's easy and convenient to use, especially with one of the spray can handles that you can pick up at Home Depot. Plus, there's no clean up of spray equipment after each spraying session. I applied four coats of the primer, and after 24 hours I sanded it down. I got about four minor sand through spots on the body, so I applied another four coats to these affected areas.
This is where the project stands at this point. The body is hanging up in drying mode, to be final sanded this evening. I'll post more on the next steps of the process as I get to them, along with posts on the neck finishing after I take some pictures of that progress.
Body pictures in the next frame....
I ordered the body from KnE Guitars in California. I had noticed that KnE's guitar bodies were pretty reasonably priced, and the limited feedback I was able to find seemed pretty positive, so I thought I'd give them a try.
I e-mailed Mitch at KnE and gave him my specs for the body. Pretty straight forward - two piece alder body, S/S/S pickup route, routed and drilled for a vintage 6-screw mount bridge, 11-hole pickguard...
But I also wanted a lightweight body in the 3 lb. 6-10 oz range, and that usually is an upcharge with most body makers. Mitch just said, no problem, he usually kept a few lightwight blanks around for just such requests...same price. Mitch said the body would be around 3lb.- 9oz when finished. Now, the price of the body was only $109.95, which is an excellent price for a two piece alder body made to any specs I wanted. The additional benefit of getting it in a light weight with no upcharge closed the deal.
I PayPal'd the money to Mitch on a Thursday, and he had the body finished and shipped out the next day....pretty remarkable!
When the body arrive the next week, I pulled it out of the box for it's initial inspection. The work was neat and precise, and the body was sanded down to a ready to prime/paint smoothness. The weight of the body was just a hair over 3lbs 9oz. I have a USACG body that I use as my "template" for comparing any other guitar bodies I buy, so I pulled it out for a comparison. The USACG body for reference, was patterened from an original 1954 Strat body that Tommy at USACG owns himself. The only variance from the original is a deeper pickup cavity route to accomodate the generally taller modern pickups.
I compared the overall size of the two bodies, and they appeared identical. The horns on the KnE were slightly more rounded than the USACG, but subtley so, and not something you'd notice if the KnE body was standing alone. When I got to the forearm contour and the rear relief contour, I noticed the first real differences. The forearm contour was not as pronounced nor as wide, and the rear relief contour was not as long nor as deep as on the USACG body. So, I decided that it would be worth the extra effort to further relieve these contours. First, I marked the center point of the body at the lower end, then I used a straight edge and a pencil to draw a line from the center point to the side edge of the body where the contour should end. From there, it was just a matter of relieving the wood until the contour matched the USACG body. I did the initial relief with a belt sander, and finished it up with hand sanding.
Next, I turned to the rear contour. No belt sander here as it would be just be too easy to slip and take too much wood off, or to alter the sweeping angle too much. So, I painstakingly hand sanded the contour until it matched the USACG body. In reality, it didn't take all that long to rough out the shape, but to finish the contour to that graceful looking contour of the USACG body took a little more time to get right. Still, all in all, it was time well spent. The only other alteration I did to the body was to add a relief cut in the bottom of the bridge pickup cavity where it meets the control cavity, to accomodate the wiring from the three pickups. When twisted together in vintage fashion, the wiring creates somewhat of a "lump" that requires some extra space beneath the bridge pickup (the USACG body has this relief cut). I'm sure that I reduced the weight of the body by an ounce or two, but the scale that I used initially to weight the body, was not readily available when I finished the sanding.
With the body alterations completed, I then began assembling the guitar so that I could get all of the holes drilled for the neck, pickguard, tremolo cover, strap buttons, as well as the holes for the tunning keys and string trees on the neck. The all critical scale length with the bridge and neck installed was spot on. Once I was satisfied with the assembly, I disassembled the guitar to prepare the body for the next step - the sanding sealer.
Since this body is made of alder which is a closed pore wood, no grain filler was necessary. I bought a quart of Deft lacquer sanding sealer (nitro) from Ace Hardware (the only place I can find it locally any more), and mixed up a quart with a 1 to 1 thinner to sealer ratio. I applied eight coats of the sander sealer with my touch up spray gun, sanding the body between the first four, and the last four coats. I then final sanded it to a smooth finish.
Since this guitar will be finished in Lake Placid Blue metallic lacquer, the next step was to apply a white primer as a base for the paint. This is a step that is sometimes skipped, and even Fender did so a lot in the vintage years. But, a good base of white primer serves two useful purposes: 1) The paint goes on much more evenly without any dark or light areas. 2) It requires less paint to finish the job. Rather than order some flat clear lacquer and white pigment to make the primer, I just picked up two spray cans from Guitar ReRanch. It's easy and convenient to use, especially with one of the spray can handles that you can pick up at Home Depot. Plus, there's no clean up of spray equipment after each spraying session. I applied four coats of the primer, and after 24 hours I sanded it down. I got about four minor sand through spots on the body, so I applied another four coats to these affected areas.
This is where the project stands at this point. The body is hanging up in drying mode, to be final sanded this evening. I'll post more on the next steps of the process as I get to them, along with posts on the neck finishing after I take some pictures of that progress.
Body pictures in the next frame....