'75 Stratocaster Restoration...

[defaultoprime]

Thought I'd stop on by and share some pics of the '75 Stratocaster that I'm bringing back from the dead... I'm in the painful nitro finish cure phase right now, so much has already been done...

The gent I got it from found it at a rummage sale on the cheap... he stripped the evil finish off it and was thinking of doing the restoration... but he decided that it was above his level of ability... but he couldn't bring himself to part it out... so we did some horse trading and the guitar was passed along to me for the full resto treatment...

As you can see, someone did their best to ruin this guitar during the '80s... It was originally black, with a hard-tail... but the wood butcher saw fit to route it for a Floyd Rose (thank god he didn't route the neck)... but then apparently the Floyd wasn't cutting it, so it was routed again for a Kahler... and then painted a particularly awful shade of orange...

The body, neck and neck plate are all original to the guitar... I also have two of the three original pickups... everything else has been culled together from a variety of sources...

I think it's going well so far... Just thought I'd share, as there may be some folks out there who would take interest in this sort of thing...

http://www.masterthis.net/75Strat/PICT0583r.jpg
http://www.masterthis.net/75Strat/75strat-001.jpg
http://www.masterthis.net/75Strat/75strat-002.jpg

[defaultoprime]

http://www.masterthis.net/75Strat/75strat-004.jpg

[defaultoprime]

http://www.masterthis.net/75Strat/75strat-009.jpg
http://www.masterthis.net/75Strat/75strat-024.jpg
http://www.masterthis.net/75Strat/75strat-034.jpg

[gkoelling]

The 80's was a dangerous time for what we now call vintage guitars. If you can think of a nasty way to damage a guitar, it was done in the 80's.

I blame EVH for all of it. He made butchering an electric cool.

Thanks for saving one of the victims.

Please keep us posted on your progress. I love these restoration threads.

[defaultoprime]

The 80's was a dangerous time for what we now call vintage guitars. If you can think of a nasty way to damage a guitar, it was done in the 80's.

I blame EVH for all of it. He made butchering an electric cool.

Thanks for saving one of the victims.

Please keep us posted on your progress. I love these restoration threads.

Thanks for the support... I'll get a photo up when she's all done...

and yea... Eddie's frankenstrat was surely the inspiration for the death of thousands of perfectly good instruments...

Today... the ebay parts craze is killing even more that managed to survive...

[HurricaneJesus]

Big headstocks are cool. Wish I still had mine. Looks like that one's gonna be very nice.

[Lex Luthier]

Nice work! I also restored an equally butchered 70's Strat a while back, mine suffered a similar fate - Stripped, stained brown, and refinished with boat epoxy, Kahler, wacky pickguard that covered the entire face of the guitar.

[defaultoprime]

Nice work! I also restored an equally butchered 70's Strat a while back, mine suffered a similar fate - Stripped, stained brown, and refinished with boat epoxy, Kahler, wacky pickguard that covered the entire face of the guitar.

Ouch!

[JoeYello]

Nice job! Looks great!

[trower]

I got a 70's that was hogged out a whole lot less at the bridge but still just as annoying. Great that your giving this Axe new life, Critical to get the block as tight fitting as possible to get some transfer of resonance, Looks like you nailed it.. how do you go about sizing for this backfills?

[defaultoprime]

I got a 70's that was hogged out a whole lot less at the bridge but still just as annoying. Great that your giving this Axe new life, Critical to get the block as tight fitting as possible to get some transfer of resonance, Looks like you nailed it.. how do you go about sizing for this backfills?

Yea... I've got the block in there nice and tight... it was easy enough to make for a tight fit, as the route was originally a Floyd route, which is too narrow to take a regular strat trem... so I just widened it little by little until I got to where I wanted it to be... went with the vintage looking Wilkinson with a pop in arm, as I really dislike the regular screw in arms... as far as my method for sizing the fill, I just measured, using another strat as my template... think I got it just about right...

[kingsxman]

The 80's was a dangerous time for what we now call vintage guitars. If you can think of a nasty way to damage a guitar, it was done in the 80's.

I blame EVH for all of it. He made butchering an electric cool.

Thanks for saving one of the victims.

Please keep us posted on your progress. I love these restoration threads.

Yes, but of course the people who were doing it then were doing it to instruments that werent 30 years old. I mean, no one would think twice if you took a Highway 1 today and did those things. Now come back in 25 years when, for some unkown reason, a highway 1 is considered a prime vintage instrument.

I shudder also when I see a 60's strat like Brad Gillis has thats been modded to death. But you cant predict the future.

Looks great by the way. Are the marks from where you added wood visable through teh paint at all?