I have decided not to wait for Fender to release my guitar and have been inspired by my friends here to start it from now. Am building currently 2 strats one is a parts caster and the other an authentic 93 neck and 2005 placid blue 62 RI. My signature strat will have Godwilling

1. 57 V neck with repro signature signed Vinny Pop.
2. Repro 54 Pic Ups, if not available the standard 2009 Fender USA Alnico.
3. Gold Plated hardware, tuners, bridge, input jack.
4. Highly Contoured Ash Body
5. Pale Blonde Sunburst Finish with thin Nitro Cellulose Coating.
6. White Pic Guard.
7. Gold Plated Chrome Dome knobs.

This is a beautiful guitar and will have the pictures up asap.
Any interest please talk to me here.

Well I am not famous YET but have been launched in the USA now with my haunting whale song where I sing like a whale with whales singing with me so I am half way there. And no I do not deserve my own strat but I cant get this out of my head until I build it, wish me luck guys and gals.

I'll buy the 62RI. how much? I may even buy one of the partsocasters. will the neck have a fender decal?

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Gday Chanman hope your cruising nicely today. I havent set a price on the 62 RI with 93 neck still building it. The parts caster is a VERY nice strat copy with License by Fender Neck, dont know exactly which company made it, it did have a fake decal but have sanded it back and refinished the headstock gloss black so you can write your own name on it. The neck is a superb maple with DARK stripe and finished beautifully in laquer very fine job with fantastic grain better than some Real fender necks. The body is an almost mint dark grain natural solid possibly ash wood not sure loaded with Fender electronics pic ups from a 2008 standard strat in a mint perloid creamy coloured guard ( sorry am slightly colour blind ). I placed the neck on today and it fits perfectly with a tight join, so I am happy about that.
Do not know what price to set on this either as I still have to buy the gold plated bridge and jack input to match the gold plated schaller tuners already on the neck. Stay in touch, PS another member here is also possibly interested in it.

Please note all, that this is going to be a Vinnypop strat Yes you heard me, a VINNYPOP strat.

Forget your pre-CBS custom colour, your Custom shop, your Masterbuilts... or your mint '62 in sonic blue....

The Vinnypop strat is where its at folks- get 'em while you can.
Each one is made to Vin's specs, and he will make them one at a time. Each with a signed copy of the most amazing band in the world- The Vinnypop Band


...as soon as he has his morning coffee of course!!!

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Lol Blerties hello my friend, yes one at a time and after coffee. A signed copy of my album sounds good to me, great idea and bobs your hairy uncle toooooooo. Seriously folks I am serious ok.

Hi vinnypop: tell me about those "gold plated chrome dome knobs". You mean Telecaster style knobs, right?

But have you thought about solid metal Strat type knobs? The metalicised plastic ones that most aftermarket sellers stock look so cheesy, I know. But have you seen these? The real deal:

http://www.wammiworld.com/u8003.html

That knurling on the side is just too tasty, to my eye...

Cheers - C

Gday Ceri how are you mate . hope your well and good to see you here my very cluey friend. Thanks for that link, I dont like the look of it though its in brass, price is reasonable though. Yes you were correct, the Vinny Pop strat will have the real metal gold plated dome knobs like the tele. I do like the Fender white plastic knobs they are classics but have always admired the tele knobs too, so really the VP sig will have a tiny touch of tele, if thats acceptable I hope. Ceri do you know how to stain a natural body to sunburst. I read that Fender plonks all their bodies in a blonde paint anyway then stains them, Ceri do you rub in the stain on natural wood or does it go on the blonde paint smeared with a woolen cloth ? I appreciate your fine cluey mind Ceri.

"Cluey mind": that's a nice compliment I don't deserve, but thank you anyway!

Stain is applied different ways. Some people use a rag, some the palm of their hand. Some spray it on, because that is reasonably controllable.

It's a highly skilled job: PRS are famous for their staining, and they have guys who do that job and no other all day long. Which is the only way to get really good at it.

Stains sink into the raw timber and dry very quickly, and a classic problem is "lap marks": where wet stain has overlapped with some that's already soaking in and so you get a double dose in that spot and therefore darker marks. Very unsightly and almost impossible to put right.

Therefore, to keep things easy and achievable in a factory situation Fender apparently just mixed up a huge vat of stain to the right consentration and then dipped their whole bodies quickly in and out of it. Supposedly, back in the day they stained all their bodies as a matter of course, regardless what finish ended up on them.

What they do nowadays I couldn't tell you, though. I don't remember seeing pictures of staining in recent factory tour photo sets.

Stain tends to go on in more concentration on end grain, so it often looks darker around the edges of solid guitars, especially at either end. You can counteract that by wetting the end grain first so that it doesn't soak up the stain so much. But I bet that to cover up uneven stain around the edges is one of the reasons sunburst guitar finishes were originally used (though of course they did exist before solid bodies came along too).

My advice: if you plan to try staining wood practice a lot on waste timber first. It takes much getting used to. Also, waterborne stains are a bit easier to use than spirit based ones, because they dry slower so you have more time to manipulate them.

All of which is a very good reason for beginners to start with solid finishes on guitars!

Good luck - C

PS Vinny, I just caught the latest cricket score. Let's not talk about that, OK?

Thanks for that Ceri, you make an excellent teacher. I will start with water based stains. You've helped me a lot. Will practice on a few bits of wood. I also read that amber is the first colour sprayed over whole body and then you do the dark mahoganny or black edge. The middle red to brown is the hardest. Also just read that you have to waste a lot of paint and spray away from the edges only allowing the mist to fall on the edges of guitar. I really need to find a cheap copy strat body to experiment with.

That is an excellent plan.

Also, another nice tip is to spray a couple of thin coats of clear lacquer between each color layer. That way, if you have a mistake you can sand it back and the clear is a sort of safety buffer above the good layer below, so you don't risk sanding into that and damaging it.

Doesn't help with the stain though: you just have to get that perfect straight out the gate...

Good luck with it - C

If you are doing a blond finish over ash, wouldn't you use some kind of dark stain to soak into the grain so that it can be seen better through the blond?

How long have you been playing Strats, vinny?

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

Only 4 months Orvile hi mate gday.

Blonde bursting out to what colour? Just a darker blonde? Wouldnt that darker area need some staining underneath the blonde or would you just apply more layers.

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What if in 3 more months you are "off" of Strats. Perhaps you become a ES-335 player. Then what becomes of the vp signature strat?

It seems to me, that you might want to put in a few more months investigating and exploring the wonder world of stratocasters: neck shapes, locking tuners, locking tremolos, humbuckers, etc. Then you might have a solid idea what features are REALLY YOU.

Cart before the horse.

Chicken or the egg.

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

Vin its a valid point that theres plenty of options to choose from and decide what really suits you. Starting with colour options is a excellent start point. Slap a neck you like on the coloured body you choose and stick with that a few months whilst you decide your next upgrade.
Carefull mate its addictive.

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