What type of wood was the body made of for 1962 Stratocasters?

Alder, like every other year.

_________________
No no and no

Thing is, I read that the originals were made of ash

yeah in 54. They soon stopped that though and switched to alder. Ash appeared every now and again, but nowhere near as popular as alder.

_________________
No no and no

Source:
http://home.provide.net/~cfh/fender.html
"Mid 1956 to current: All models used Alder as the body wood. The ONLY exception to this is if the model had a "blond" finish. In that case, the body would was ALWAYS Ash. For example, since the stock finish on a Telecaster is "blond" (a translucent white color), all blond Telecasters are made of Ash. If a post-1956 Stratocaster was ordered in blond, it too would be Ash. To summarize, if the Fender instrument is later than mid-1956, and was originally not blond in color, the body wood should be Alder! Most alder bodies are 2 to 4 pieces. Alder trees do not grow "big", so multiple pieces were used for Fender guitar bodies. The number of pieces has little effect on sound or value. "

_________________
I traded my car in for a microphone.

Beginning in 1963 Fender began fabricating some Telecaster and Esquire bodies out of mahogany. These guitars were still shown in the 1964-65 full-color Fender catalog. A limited amount of that lumber (mostly leftovers) found its way onto a few Strats that were sold in '63. Most of these Strats left Fullerton with the then-new lam-board rosewood neck. This is documented via photographs in Tom Wheeler's book.

HTH

Arjay

_________________
"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