Solid-body Guitar with Bolt-On Neck

Long ago (longer than I care to admit), I traded a Marshall Bluesbreaker OD pedal for a piece of Alder. I had best intentions of carving a Strat style body from the wood and using an OEM neck. I love the tone of a Strat and I've finally (4 years later) completed the project. Below I document the construction process and some decisions I made along the way.

I selected Alder since this was one of the original woods used in the 50's and 60's by Fender, the other was Swamp Ash. My taste in tone leans towards the classic sounds, so this was an easy choice. I used my 90's Squier Strat as a template and traced the body shape on the hunk of alder. A band saw made short work of creating the initial shape:

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Here are some shots of the Squier, the alder body, and some parts - notice the unshaped headstock. Most metal parts plus the neck came from a mail order supplier called Stewart MacDonald. They have an amazing catalogue and quick service.

          
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Next up was to create the cavities for the pickups, controls, and tremolo system. I used a plunge router for this work which required much patience, especially since I did not have a template to work from. Again, I used the Squire's routes as an objective. Here's a pic of the routed chambers (pre-shaping). Notice the pencil lines that were used to locate the parts and for routing.

After this, I used two hand-held sanders: a belt sander for more aggressive removal of wood (required for the lovely contours of the strat), and a regular hand sander for finer work. I also used a band saw to create the neck headstock shape.
 

I think the crucial step in this project was ensuring that the neck (and strings) line up properly with the body, pickups, and location of the bridge. To accomplish this, I temporarily installed the high and low E strings on the neck, and tensioned them with the bridge holding it with my hands. This allowed me to correctly place the neck pocket, bridge, and pickguard prior to routing. Tricky business!

Drilling the holes for the neck mounting screws is a job for a drill press - don't even try it with a hand drill!

After routing (and before shaping and final sanding), I assembled everything together to confirm that parts placement was ok and I could tune properly. I snapped a quick pic since I thought this would be a short-lived stage. It ended up staying in this state for over a year!

I've always been fond of the sunburst colour scheme, but I wanted something different to stand out in the crowd. I love the Daphne Blue colour Fender used to use so this was my choice. I did final wood prep (wet sand, sealer), then Gord Miller of Strings and Things in Duncan, BC, Canada, shot the colour. I then did several clear coats of nitrocellulose lacquer (vintage style!) to finish it off:

I wanted this guitar to sound DAMN good, so I went after some of the most respected pickups available. I bought a set of Lindy Fralin pickups wound to the following specs:

     Replacement for Strats – 3 pickup SET
     LINDY FRALIN BLUES SPECIAL
     3% (custom THREE PERCENT overwind)
              neck = 6.0K
              mid = 6.2K
              bridge = 6.9K
     Hybrid Stagger (for necks with flatter than 10" radius)
     Bass Plate on Bridge, Antique White covers

The tone is outstanding!
 

After playing the guitar for a while, I found I was not very satisfied with the Stew-Mac neck. It is quite thin and has a 12" radius (quite flat). My wife graciously obliged and I found a replacement neck on eBay from a 1996 Fender Made-In-Japan 60's reissue Strat. It was expensive but the playability and feel is greatly improved. Way worth the extra expense.

I also completely shielded the pickup and control cavity with copper tape. I did the same to the back of the pickguard as well. It's very quiet now. At the same time, I made two changes from the stock-strat scheme:

   (1) moved the middle pickup tone control to the bridge (more versatile setup)

   (2) installed a small toggle switch to link the neck and bridge pickup together - this provides 
        the missing pickups options (neck+bridge, and neck+middle+bridge).

Here's a shot with a new mint pickguard, the Fralins, and neck: