Build # 3 - Olympic White Stratocaster
While Build # 2 (link) was a huge improvement over Build # 1 (link), it was not perfect. I was happy with the neck but not the body. So, I decided to make a new body. Having made an Esquire and Tele previously, I decided to work on a Stratocaster this time. I upgraded some of my tools and even bought a '60s Strat MDF template to use for more precise routing.
My plan was originally to make a matching walnut body and neck. But my overly-ambitious, one-piece neck attempt failed. Everything went well (pic below) and then I realized I put the truss rod in facing the wrong way!!!! So, I simply used the neck from Build # 2 to complete this guitar.
Body
I used three pieces of locally sourced walnut for the body. It was surprisingly light in weight, with a deep colour and nice grain too. The guitar weighs 3.6 kg or 7.92 lbs.
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The Fender Stratocaster, introduced in 1954, is one of the most iconic electric guitars in history. Designed by Leo Fender, George Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares, it was a revolutionary instrument with its contoured body, double cutaway design, and three single-coil pickups, offering players unmatched tonal versatility. The tremolo system allowed for expressive pitch modulation, making it a favourite among rock, blues, and jazz musicians. Over the decades, the Stratocaster has been embraced by legendary players like Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, cementing its place as a symbol of innovation and timeless musical expression.
This time, I opted for a simple top-load bridge instead of a hardtail bridge. Why? I still haven't set up an overhead drill machine, and drilling through the body freehand is too difficult to center accurately. Plus, to be honest, it feels like an unnecessary complication, and I can't really notice any tonal benefit it offers.
My prior experience with nitro spray can paints was that it was too messy in my small workshop that had limited ventilation. So, this time around I went with brush paints. I used Annie Sloan's "Upstate Blue" satin paint and sanded the guitar for a light relic look. But after about a year, I felt like I really wanted an Olympic White Strat, so I used Annie Sloan's "Old White" chalk paint for a unique texture. I painted over the blue and relic'd it like some of the old two tone guitars. I finished it off with some chalk wax - one coat of clear wax, then a coat of dark wax to create a slightly dirty and old look, and then again a coat of clear wax. With paints, I am not looking for anything close to a perfectly smooth and glossy finish. There was no wood filler used to attain that perfect smooth finish - I wanted to wood to look like it can breathe! I am happy with a fatigued and imperfect look because I know the guitar is going to take a beating from the weather in my city anyway!
The pick-guard is three-ply mint green—my favorite color! I had to shape it from scratch since my build's pickups and body dimensions don’t perfectly align with a standard Strat. A key functional design element is the easy-access cutout I made for the truss rod, along with a custom-length Allen key, allowing me to adjust it without removing the neck or pick-guard. This is a huge convenience for me, as I typically need to tweak the truss rod 2–3 times a year due to my city’s extreme seasonal shifts—intense summers, humid monsoons, and dry winters. However, this access left part of the pickup cavity exposed, which didn’t look great. So, I inlaid my logo in abalone mother-of-pearl to cover it up—because the small details matter, right?
Neck and Fretboard
As explained already, the neck was transferred over from Build # 2. It matches traditional Fender specs with a 25.5“ scale length, and is made of maple with an ebony fretboard. I stained the maple dark brown and then finished it with boiled linseed oil. I chose this particular oil finish to keep with the theme of being organic. As far as the neck profile is concerned, I was aiming to replicate the 1957 Fender dimensions to give it a soft V shape.
The fretboard radius is 9.5. All the vintage Fender designs in my collection are 7.25 radius and so I really wanted to explore a 9.5 radius. This is definitely a more comfortable radius for playing lead, in my opinion. I used vintage style small Fender frets that were pre-cut and radiused. I know they aren't as comfortable as the modern jumbo-style tall and broad frets but these look too ugly to me! For the dot inlays, I sourced some clay dots because the tone best complemented the colour scheme of my guitar.
Headstock
The headstock is based on a 60s Strat template. I prefer the idea of two string trees to guarantee an appropriate break angle. Unlike some builders, I do not find them ugly at all. The trees are made of TUSQ material so that I don't need to worry about corrosion, lubrication, and strings snagging and going out of tune. The nut is TUSQ too, for added durability and to support tuning. The tuners are Gotoh SG 381 model. They have a 1:16 gear ratio, with some pretty impressive technology to ensure smooth movement and strong locking.
I inlaid a strip of 2mm rosewood and stained it to be darker and match the fretboard. This move was in fact a cover up! I had messed up inlaying my logo into the maple fretboard and had given up on this neck because of it. Then it occurred to me that I could just route out the mistake and inlay a piece of rosewood as a design element that tied the fretboard to the headstock. I was quite happy with the result, especially after I successfully inlaid my logo in gold mother of pearl! Another unique design element is the copper plate instead of a boring waterslide decal. It says Wabi-Sabi (侘寂), which I interpret as being a celebration of the reality that nothing is perfect and nothing lasts forever. The guitar's fatigued paint-job and overall finish attempt to tell the story of an instrument that is almost living and breathing, organically changing over time as it grows older.
Pickups
I wanted to have the best of all three - the Tele, Esquire and Stratocaster in one guitar! I put matching neck and bridge custom pickups inspired by David Gilmour's 1955 Esquire. They are wound with period correct hand scatter, heavy enamel AWG42 wire, wrapped with 8 strand white cotton string, and are wax potted. The bridge pick up has a copper plated steel baseplate, raised D and G magnets, and North up polarity just like the '50s original. It presents around 6.9k Ohms resistance. The neck pick up has a vulcanized fibreboard, with vintage staggered and bevelled Alnico V magnets, and South up polarity. It presents about 6.0k Ohms resistance. The pickups are supported by two 250k Fender pots with a treble bleed network that I wired myself. The control plate has a two way switch (no middle position because I never use it) and one tone and one volume knob.
