My latest passion/diversion
Friday, May 30th, 2008
What have I been up to lately? Building my own electric guitar. William and Ashley both have Fender Stratocasters, and I have bought, then sold a couple different Gibsons to try to find something I like, spent quite a bit of time at Guitar Center playing various axes. Eventually I realized the Strat just seems perfect.
Designed in the early 1950’s by Leo Fender, it is STILL the mainstay guitar of SO many successful musicians. The list of guys that consider(or considered) it their main guitar stretch from Buddy Holly, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pink Floyd, to John Mayer and Kenny Wayne Shepherd. The Strat’s where it’s at.
Rather than buy another of what we have, I decided to build my own from parts I selected myself. It’s still the same guitar, just a ‘custom’ version done exactly like I want. I started with an unfinished body mostly shaped and routed, then started searching for the neck and other bits and pieces I needed. William helped me with soldering, polishing, installing the tuners, and in general, being another set of hands and eyes to help be sure everthing was set right.
Basically, it has become my obsession over the last couple months to get it finished. Of course, it took much longer than I thought, but I really couldn’t be happier with the result. I have a full picture gallery of the complete process here http://daveharperphotos.irun100s.com/GalleryList.aspx?gallery=95730 You can click each photo to read the description of what process I was working on, and also access full size photos.
I used a Swamp Ash unfinished body. A birdseye maple neck, with rosewood fretboard. I wanted to build a pretty much vintage correct Strat, with my own upgrades as I saw fit. The basic inspiration was from Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Number One Strat(pictured at bottom of page), thought I obviously did not try to ‘copy’ that guitar, with the enhanced grain, different coloring, different wood, etc. that I used But I used vintage style tuners, tremolo, saddles, string tree, and real bone nut just as would have been on a 1950’s or 1960’s Strat. I did the contouring on the body to be similar to that era. An amber tint to the neck gives that older, vintage, yellowed vibe rather than the bright white maple of a brand new Fender. The decals on the headstock are Fender inspired, but my own take on them. I even stuck a small quote from Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones on there. The finish is old school Nitro Lacquer, just as used back in the day. At one time used for automobile finishes, it’s too toxic for that use these days. I replaced the modern, cool abalone fret marker dots with cream colored clay dots, to also give a more vintage look. I think it came out pretty nice. It’s a joy to play, when I can wrestle it out of William’s hands.
This is the body that I actually started with.
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Above is a copy of the actual Stevie Ray Vaughan guitar that was the starting point for what I was wanting to do. Below is a Fender replica guitar of the same. I wanted to do something like this, but actually build a better guitar than I might buy off the shelf, with my own twist on it.
SRV was killed August 27, 1990 in a helicopter crash following a concert in East Troy, Wisconsin, headed to Chicago. Also on stage that night had been Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Robert Cray, Jimmie Vaughan. (though obviously none of them were onboard the helicopter)
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LENNY
TEXAS FLOOD
LOVE STRUCK BABY
