The Completed Stratocaster

Some late afternoon shots:

I like how clean the pickguard looks.

Nice deep vintage-style contours.

Some morning shots:

Outdoors, under the shade:

The color in these pictures are a bit more accurate. For whatever reason, the body looks really orange in the sunlight (not a bad thing) but the color seems to change drastically as the light changes.

I got a nice SKB case for the Stratocaster.

When I first began building, I was worried about the gap between the neck pocket and the body, but it ended up being pretty snug. I later found out the gap wasn't a huge issue anyway.

I really like how everything looks when it's all together.

This has been a really interesting experience and I'm really happy with the results. I did run into some problems and made some mistakes along the way, but I learned a lot from this build. I'm already thinking about building another Stratocaster in a more vintage style (7.25 inch fretboard radius, thick neck, single-ply pickguard, etc) but I'm going to wait until maybe next year before spending the money for yet a new guitar.

In the meantime, I've been playing the Stratocaster and getting used to the single-coil sound. I've got a Schecter C-1+ that I got a couple years ago that I really like, but it (and my Washburn) both have humbucking pickups (2 coils rather than 1, but they don't produce noise like single-coils do), which work for rock and metal but can't do some of the lighter stuff. The Schecter is nice since it has coil tap, which supposedly produces single-coil-like tone, but when I play the guitars back to back, there's a huge difference in tone.

This is the first time I've worked with single coils in a large amount, and I've been busy tweaking my amplifier and my pedals to find some great sounds. The DiMarzio Area pickups have been great, giving me a taste of the Stratocaster tone without producing any of the hum that's associated with single-coil pickups.

Anyway, I'll continue playing and tweaking and I'll put up some sound demos soon!