Hey all,

I've been GASin for a sonic blue strat for a while now. With aged parts and a mint green PG I think it could very well be one of the coolest looking guitars ever. It looks like my cheapest route to this is to buy the Blacktop strat and change out parts until it's what I want. Problem is I'm a broke college student on a pretty limited budget. So those of you who have built or enjoy building your own guitars - Is it cost effective compared to buying and modding a standard model? And how easy is it to, say, finish a raw body from mighty mite or allparts (reranch paints)?

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[08 MIM Standard Arctic White] > [Danelectro Fish n Chips EQ > Radial Texas Bones OD > Tonerider British Distortion > Electroharmonix Russian Big Muff Pi > Vox V847 Wah] > FM65R

It's generally going to be cheaper to just wait and try to find either what you want used (or on sale), or to mod a cheaper guitar. A build can get expensive very quickly, unless you have several "donor" guitars to steal parts off of.

...maybe you could go to Guitar Center and steal you a guitar over a long period of time--a tuning key here, a pickup there, a bridge here...just like Johnny Cash's Cadillac from "Once Piece At A Time."

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Good Vibes To Y'all!



Screamin' Armadillos
Texas Roadhouse Music
Guitar/Slide Guitar/Harp/Vocals

Start with this......

http://www.allparts.com/Stratocaster-So ... sbf-sb.htm

Then pick up a "donor" neck from The Stratosphere on Ebay.

"Fill in the blanks" with hardware and electronics of your choice (Callaham, Fralin, Fender, etc).

That's what I do. I built a '62 Strat clone in Candy Apple Red using an Allparts body and a MIM '60s Classic neck -- it turned out gorgeous.



HTH

Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

im a student myself and i went the buy a cheap guitar and mod it way... the only thing standard on my squier now is the wood... bt then i bought a signature strat (61 model) and my squier is collecting dust...

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blues - its a religion...

Hi Brian: so thinking out loud... a Sonic Blue Strat with mint green plastics, a vintage type bridge, a 7.25" radius fingerboard with 21 skinny '50s style frets, old style tuners and a nice set of BareKnuckle Sultans single coil pickups?

Yes, I have found that cost effective to build from the ground up - provided you don't factor in the working time:














Cheers - C

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Or buy unfinished body and spray it yourself, even cheaper that way.

Just what I did, as it happens. After one or two minor adjustments first...:

viewtopic.php?t=17948

Cheers - C

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Sweet, I'm doing a build right now too, ordered unfinished body from Hefner, 50's Ash. Got me some nitro from reranch and that'll keep me busy for a while. Cant view pictures of yours from work though, those fascists got us blocked...

i'm a college student as well and i'm GASing a lake placid blue hss black pickguard wonder... and i happened to come across an amazing knockoff with the right colour see if you could come across a sonic blue knockoff

ceri -

that isnt exactly what i was looking to do but its pretty close. How much did that project cost you in the end?

Also, considering that I've never done any sort of woodworking or build, how easy is a reranch paint job on an unfinished body?

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[08 MIM Standard Arctic White] > [Danelectro Fish n Chips EQ > Radial Texas Bones OD > Tonerider British Distortion > Electroharmonix Russian Big Muff Pi > Vox V847 Wah] > FM65R

Reranch has all the step by step instructions on their site. Go very light with the coats, be careful of overruns, nitro takes a lot of patience that's all.