My Koa Strat: Together again...

[Bloozcat]

Well, I've finally finished re-doing my Koa Strat. Both the body and the neck are from Warmoth. The neck is a 10-16" radius, maple/rosewood, and the body is a multi-piece solid Koa with a bookmatched figured Koa top. The tuning keys are Sperzels, the pickups Kinman AVN Blues. I had originally finished this guitar in an oil finish, and it had a two-point Wilkinson tremolo with a cast trem block. The oil finish didn't do the beautiul wood justice, with the open grain of the wood showing, and the less than glossy finish look. The tone with the cast trem bloc left much to be desired as well.

So, I stripped the finish, pulled the two bridge inserts from the body, and plugged them with hardwood dowels. I then filled the wood grain, applied sander sealer, and shot ten coats of clear lacquer on the body. The neck also had an oil finish over the plain, white colored maple. I stripped it down, and re-finished it in a neck amber and clear coats. Finally, I added the abalone knobs, and the gold string trees to the rest of the hardware. The lighting played a few tricks with the pictures I took. The amber on the neck really has a more reddish tone to it than the orange look in the pics:

[Robert****]

Holy Mother of Strats! I am awestruck by that beauty! I want to play it!

[Katastrophe]

Gawd, Blooz... That strat is gorgeous. If it plays half as good as it looks then that's one guitar to never sell.

[just strum]

Holy



- look at that thing, she's a beautiful guitar!!!

[luvmyshiner]

Wow Blooz! Just wow! I'm speechless . . . and that almost never happens.

[Guitar Gal]

She's gorgeous Blooz

Nice job with all the mods

GG

[ET335]

That is one of the most Beautiful Strats that I've ever seen Blooz.You have done a Fantastic job on that one.Great work my friend!!:

[warren0728]

oh man...that's a keeper! nice job!

ww

[Rabies]

That is one jaw-droppingly beautiful strat!!!:

One question...about the fretboard radius: When you say 10-16" do you mean 10 to 16 inches (somewhere in the middle) or do you mean 10 and 1/16"...Or something else altogether? :

[marnold***]

One question...about the fretboard radius: When you say 10-16" do you mean 10 to 16 inches (somewhere in the middle) or do you mean 10 and 1/16"...Or something else altogether? :

It's a compound radius. At the first fret it's 10". By the time you get towards the 22nd it's 16".

[M29]

Blooz Blooz Blooz...... That is the nicest Strat I have ever seen and probably will ever see. Absolutely exquisite beyond words

I am curious where does the Koa come in in tone? What would it be like? Is it hard like walnut or harder? Is it Somewhat like mahogany? Just curious, I am planning a build down the road but not a Strat.

M29

[Rabies]

It's a compound radius. At the first fret it's 10". By the time you get towards the 22nd it's 16".

Ah. Thanks for the info Marnold. I wish every guitar had that same radius scheme. For the folks that play 7.5"s I have no idea how you can dig it.

I used to have a Tele Special FMT. It had 15" all across. I dug it up high, but wished it was a little curvier down low. 10-16" sounds awesome to me. :

[ted s]

Holy of all things everything.. ya. WOW.. speechless..
Blooz, that is truly beyond words. Exquisite, I have never used that word before.

[Algonquin]

Like everyone else prior said... :

Beautiful

[duhvoodooman***]

You, sir, are an ARTIST, and that is a MASTERPIECE! : : :

[robert43]

Thats the best looking Strat I have ever seen . Its too good to play , I think Warmonth should buy it off you & display it as what can be done .
Again I am lost for words on it

[marnold***]

I used to have a Tele Special FMT. It had 15" all across. I dug it up high, but wished it was a little curvier down low. 10-16" sounds awesome to me. :

My Model 7 was a compound radius but not typical Jackson/Charvel style. Most JC guitars have the 10-16 compound. Mine was something around a 12-14. Kinda weird.

Forgot to mention before, I'm not the hugest fan of amber tint necks, but that body is absolutely to die for. (Honestly, honey, I was talking about a guitar!)

[Bloozcat]

Thank you very much, one and all. I really appreciate your kind words.

When you start a project like this, you have a certain vision as to how it will turn out. Rarely does it end up like you originally envisioned. In this case, it not only fulfilled my expectations (which were pretty high), but it exceeded them as well.

Koa as a tone wood is roughly between mahogany and walnut in tone. Not as warm and dark as mahogany, and not quite as bright as walnut. It has a resonant acoustic tone unlike the alder and ash Strat bodies I have, but is decidedly different from the mahogany bodied Strats I've played.

I'm not really sure that the Kinman AVN Blues pickups are ideal for this guitar. They sound pretty good, but don't have the snappy presence that I would have liked. Given the nice woody, acoustic tone of the guitar, I have to believe it's the pickups themselves that are the reason for this. At some point in the future (next string change?), I might wire in the set of Lace Holy Grails I have (that also have black pickup covers). If that fails to deliver the amplified tone I think the guitar should have, I may try going back to straight single coils. I've had sort of a love/hate relationship with noiseless pickups. It's easy to be seduced by the noiseless aspect of them, but no matter how "close" they get to the tone of regular single coil pickups, something is always lacking.

Yes, the neck is a 10"-16" compound radius, which is Warmoth's "vintage modern", as they call it. It's very nice in that it allows for setting the action quite low to the fretboard. The drawback as some would say, is that Strats for some reason, derive a portion of their famous tone from a higher action. I figured that this was enough of a departure from the traditional Strat that I wasn't going to worry about that.

A note on the bridge: I can't recall the exact model it is, but it's a Wilkinson with a steel trem block that has the staggered string through holes that are a hallmark of many of the Wilkinson tremolo bridges. What sets this one apart from the traditional vintage style Wilkinson tremolo bridges, are the superb bridge saddles. They all have nice polished grooves for the strings, and the intonation settings are unique and quite positive. It's one of the most solid 6-point mount Strat type tremolos I've tried.

So now that this project is happily completed, it's back to the Lake Placid Blue Strat project...

[just strum]

So now that this project is happily completed, it's back to the Lake Placid Blue Strat project...

What, your not going into full production now that the prototype is complete???