The Strat build project – part 1

My sweet new Warmoth Vintage Modern Stratocaster-style neck.

The first piece in the puzzle that is my Strat build project arrived today. I chose a Vintage Modern neck from the Warmoth showcase, and added stainless steel frets, and a black Graphtech TUSQ XL nut. The specifications are as follows:

• Stratocaster®,
• 25-1/2 in. scale
• 22 frets
• Vintage Modern right handed
• Standard thin neck shape
• 1 piece maple/ maple fretboard
• 10-16″ compound radius fretboard
• SS6150 stainless steel frets,
• 1 11/16″ nut width
• GraphTech Black TUSQ XL nut
• Gotoh/Grover (13/32″, 11/32″) Tuner Ream
• Abalone face dots inlay

I’m going to finish the neck myself with a spray-on polyurethane that I’ve used before and was very happy with.

Abalone inlays and medium jumbo stainless steel frets.

The next step is to get a body. I’ve finally decided that I am going to try and get a Squier Classic Vibe body. The Classic Vibe series of guitars have had really great reviews from people as a bang for buck guitar, and the alder body they have should be a fairly decent cost compromise.

Hardware-wise I’m not sure what bridge or machine heads I’ll go with yet, but I plan to go with black hardware across the board. I do plan on the bridge being a vintage Strat 6 hole type tremolo though. Something completely different to all my double-locking floating tremolo equipped Ibanez guitars.

I plan to have two pickguards set up for this guitar. One with the traditional 3 single coil setup, and one bare-bones single humbucker. This should give me the best of both worlds for reviewing and testing stuff.

Hopefully I’ll be able to sort out a body soon, and save up for the rest of the parts required to complete the build. Watch this space for more updates!