Some of the Best Strats

basile865 · Post by **basile865** » Wed Aug 06, 2008 9:12 pm

yea Ive gone that route of building a non fender. Ordered parts from musikraft and have to say Im not satisfied. The guitar is not fully built yet, but the finish left something to be desired as well as the wood matching for the fretboard and neck. I chose both to be flame maple but their colors are completely different, looks like 2 different woods. I think itll be ok to mess around on but honestly I dont think it'll ever be a true serious serious tone machine with excellent craftsmanship.

Im looking for a life partner here is what Im saying - not something to noodle on and put away once or twice a week. Something to record with and tour and do anything, you know - the main squeeze. Something to connect with and write great music on etc.

For the money when its all said and done I'd prefer a really great actual Fender, just might take some time to find her!

jcmjmp · Post by **jcmjmp** » Wed Aug 06, 2008 9:59 pm

basile865 wrote:yea Ive gone that route of building a non fender. Ordered parts from musikraft and have to say Im not satisfied. The guitar is not fully built yet, but the finish left something to be desired as well as the wood matching for the fretboard and neck. I chose both to be flame maple but their colors are completely different, looks like 2 different woods. I think itll be ok to mess around on but honestly I dont think it'll ever be a true serious serious tone machine with excellent craftsmanship.

Im looking for a life partner here is what Im saying - not something to noodle on and put away once or twice a week. Something to record with and tour and do anything, you know - the main squeeze. Something to connect with and write great music on etc.

For the money when its all said and done I'd prefer a really great actual Fender, just might take some time to find her!

Too bad for you that you attempt at building a guitar didn't work out. Maybe you could hire a luthier. Someone suggested the Callahan guys.

A home made guitar and a luthier built guitar are two different things, unless the home made guitar is made by a luthier

The maple not matching in colour doesn't make the guitar less of an instrument though - in terms of tone. The colour of the Maple doesn't afftect tone, so I guess that you want something that is perfectly matched. A good luthier would have done that for you. Could also be a difference in finish types.

I don't know about the musikraft stuff. Never tried 'em. Just curious - did you finish the guitar yourself?

Anyways, depending on where you're located, you might have access to a really good luthier. For example: A Strat custom http://www.ormsbyguitars.com/galleries/ ... cs/vs.html

Other than a custom, a real vintage Fender might take a while to find and might be overpriced, but if that's what you want, then go for it. To me, its like a real Marshall plexi or a Metro.

Good luck in your quest.

basile865 · Post by **basile865** » Wed Aug 06, 2008 11:02 pm

Thanks.

Yea I know the wood color doesnt effect tone. Its all tinted nitro to look aged. It just looks like shit haha. The neck and headstock looks yellow and the fretboard looks golden. Just a bad match and annoying when youve dropped nearly 400 dollars on the neck. Not to mention the finish looked like it rubbed off in some very small spots. I emailed them pictures with no luck. Bad customer service.

The body was a 1 piece alder that I bought unfinished from them. I tried finishing it myself with not the best or worst of results. Painted a very light primer, couple light coats of a burgandy color and then about 1 or 2 light of clear. I didnt want to make it too thick. Black pickguard with aged white plastic parts.

One bad choice is a small fretboard extension to 22 I think it was, and the truss rodd adjustment is under that. Haha - its gonna be a royal pain to set this one up.

I think its just going to turn into a project style guitar in which I'll experiment and learn how to do things with. To me it was lesson learned. Custom warmoth and after market guitars are kinda cool but to me theres not the same quality as an actual high end fender. Call it ease of mind, but I suppose its just what I want in the end.

jcmjmp · Post by **jcmjmp** » Thu Aug 07, 2008 8:56 am

basile865 wrote:Thanks.

Yea I know the wood color doesnt effect tone. Its all tinted nitro to look aged. It just looks like shit haha. The neck and headstock looks yellow and the fretboard looks golden. Just a bad match and annoying when youve dropped nearly 400 dollars on the neck. Not to mention the finish looked like it rubbed off in some very small spots. I emailed them pictures with no luck. Bad customer service.

The body was a 1 piece alder that I bought unfinished from them. I tried finishing it myself with not the best or worst of results. Painted a very light primer, couple light coats of a burgandy color and then about 1 or 2 light of clear. I didnt want to make it too thick. Black pickguard with aged white plastic parts.

One bad choice is a small fretboard extension to 22 I think it was, and the truss rodd adjustment is under that. Haha - its gonna be a royal pain to set this one up.

I think its just going to turn into a project style guitar in which I'll experiment and learn how to do things with. To me it was lesson learned. Custom warmoth and after market guitars are kinda cool but to me theres not the same quality as an actual high end fender. Call it ease of mind, but I suppose its just what I want in the end.

I know what you mean. A lot of home builders end up a little dissappointed with the end product. The difference with a luthier is that he'll match the woods and he'll know how to make it look right and feel right. Kinda like an amp build. A lot of people build 'em but only a few know how to do t right.

basile865 · Post by **basile865** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 9:15 pm

I decided to complete the project strat, even though I dont have any electronics. I just wanted to play the damn thing! so I bought a cheap nut and neck plate and bolted her up. I had an old tremelo from a japanese 68 reissue I used to have and used that. I didnt have any springs so i just cut a piece of wood and blocked it. I even used long black wood screws to screw in the bridge up top haha. Its pretty ghetto. The funny thing is that when I sit down and go back and forth between my american standard and this home built one - the home built is actually louder.

6string · Post by **6string** » Sun Aug 24, 2008 1:57 am

If you don't care that it's a Fender, I can tell you you that there are guys out there that make superior guitars for generally less $. There's a guy in Nashville that is really gifted... knows how to match the right body to the right neck: http://jeffsennguitars.com Jeff really knows his **** and makes exceptionally fine Fender style guitars.
I've played a couple of nice Callaham's as well.
I have a pile of guitars... among them a '56 and two '63 strats. I have a great strat that the Fender custom shop built for me also. The first neck they put on it was flaky... figured maple... very unstable. Not a good idea for guitar necks. Then they made one out of the plainest, hardest maple they had, and it's great. It's a road guitar. I don't trust myself or crew guys enough to take vintage stuff on tour. I am fortunate enough to have companies give me their instruments to play, but if I were looking to buy a strat like what you're looking for, I'd contact Jeff, or just go to every store in your area and play 'em all. Hopefully one will reach out and speak to you. Someone earlier in this thread spoke to that fact that a guitar resonates and reacts to your playing before you ever plug it in, and I have to reaffirm this fact. You know if it's a good guitar by how it sounds, feels and reacts to your input accoustically.
Anyway, happy hunting.

basile865 · Post by **basile865** » Sun Aug 24, 2008 4:52 pm

Thanks for the post man - some good info.

I went to the Bee-3 Vintage Guitar show in charlotte today. Lots of really interesting stuff. Saw an original 54 and it looked like an alien. It was the strangest thing to see up close - all the contours were completely different than I'm used to. The headstock was really thin and the body was really thin too. The whole thing looked skinny and kinda frail it was weird.

Got to play an all original 68 as well which was great to get to try. In all honesty I wasnt THAT impressed. Maybe I just wasn't used to the 7.25 radius. Felt like a regular old strat to me though, didnt jump out and feel like the secret to all my tone quests haha.

I had a theory that most the old headstocks were 5/8s of an inch thick. They always looked thicker. I saw a few real fat ones and a few that seemed not as thick as 5/8s but still thicker than todays stuff.

One thing that I definately noticed was the saddles and saddle springs on the bridge. They were MUCH more beefy than high end american reissue fenders. I compared them side by side with a 62 reissue to the original 68, and a 65. The vintage stuff had saddles that were cut out of thicker steel. The springs also were mostly compressed all the way from the bridge to the saddle and were thicker material too. Im hoping that callaham saddles are cut out of the same thickness.

After having so much fun assembling that guitar though from musikraft I think I'm going to be doing that for my next few strats haha. We'll see.

Vintage stuff didnt do much for me suprisingly though. They were beat up and felt like they couldnt really be played smoothly. I guess its the luck of the draw. But my new theory is to get necks and bodies cut to exactly your spec and then use a vintage or quality bridge. I think thats more than half the battle right there.

thousandshirts · Post by **thousandshirts** » Sun Aug 24, 2008 9:27 pm

Call up VG at MetroAmp and talk to him about his Nash Strat. If I remember correctly he said it compared very closely to a real 1963 Strat (63 gets WOT's endorsement I see) in the same room there at Elderly Instruments, and found to his senses that the Nash had 90% of what the 22,000 dollar 63' Strat had. I think VG got away under 2k FWIW.