Fender Strat Starcaster Guitar Mod Project 3

Fender Strat Starcaster Guitar Mod Project

00:00 - lights, camera, action
00:04 - intro
01:05 - body planning
02:21 - just a little routing
03:31 - time to think
05:06 - forge ahead
06:14 - a little off the top
07:41 - get control of yourself
08:31 - cavity ledge template
10:03 - matching cover template
11:02 - add some bling
14:02 - thin coats of tru-oil

Stuff I use in this episode

Fender Starcaster waterslide decals:

Ebay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/204318494033
Pop's Decals
Custom Made or Reproduction Vintage Waterslide Decals
Each listing is for 2 of the same decal.
Guitar Custom or Vintage Headstock Waterslide Decals 
Made using the best Waterslide Decal Paper available...

Elementary school art class, simply tracing the as-built guitar routing onto a sheet of paper and doing an overlay of a '62 stratocaster dimensioned plan.
The overall shape is VERY close, but the cavities and attention to detail was lacking with this guitar. What to do...?

A initial "plan" was to remove a swath of the body, cutting away all the bad routing. The neck pocket, the pickup cavities, the bridge...and replace all that with some new Mahogany lumber right down the middle.
The routing went very well, as the wood appears to be basswood or some similar soft white timber.
A few surprises were unearthed along the way. The bridge cavity had what appears to be a factory repair patch-job. A very large knot was uncovered running directly beneath the bridge and pickup routes. A chunk of metal was hit at the rear strap button hole. Not sure if that was factory or something the owner did - not great either way.

Hmm, this isn't good - Time to Think!
I've already spent a lot of time cutting away one issue after another, maybe I should just remove the entire center... What to do?

After a few minutes of ponder, I chose to run the body through the bandsaw, cut the wings from the center and prep them to glue directly to the new mahogany center block. The mahogany will be a great improvement over the factory soft body lumber... I should have just gone this way to begin with.

With the body wings glued to the mahogany center, it was time to level the front and back of the "new" body. I set up a router/planer sled on the bench and took shallow advancing passed until everything was level and smooth.
I was surprised to see that this guitar had what appears to be 3 complete paint jobs, not 3-coats, but 3 complete paint jobs. I can only guess that the body didn't pass QC and was sent back a couple times for repair and refinish. Hmm, interesting.

The plan wonders, I suddenly decided to make this a rear-access control strat-style guitar. No more pick guard, not sire if that is a good or bad thing - just the way it's going to be. I drilled a few pilot holes through the back of the body, then cut and sanded the control cavity through. Like a window in the body.

I must have run out of ideas, so I started making a routing template for a cavity cover and the ledge it will sit on. Tracing the control hole on some paper, I then sketched a offset path, attempting to make it look "factory like". Cutting up some MDF for the template, I drilled, sawed, routed and sanded to find a final template shape. Looking pretty good!
Now for a matching template insert. I traced the final outer template donut-hole onto some paper, transferred that to more MDF and did the opposite, yet same work. Cutting, sanding and fitting the inside template to the outside. I now have 2 templates, a positive and negative, fitting like puzzle pieces. The inner template will need to be reduced further to allow for a painted finish on the body. The finish will change the opening dimension, and require a smaller cover template.

New fashion was added to the headstock. I chose the fender transitional logo and typeset the Starcaster name. Sent a vector PDF file to "Pops Decals", an eBay storefront. Swapped a couple messages with Pop's, placed the order and received the printed decals pithing a couple days. They look great, I couldn't be happier, thanks Pop's!

I didn't follow typical application instructions, choosing to embed the waterslide decal in tru-oil. This is a time consuming process, takes delicate attention, but the result is really nice!

Thanks for watching and I hope you enjoy the project.
Don't take anything you see in this video as proper proceedure, I'm making it all up as I go.
Just having fun, take care!

#fender #stratocaster #starcaster