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Jumping back into a parts build


DaveL

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  I don't know what happened but pricing on Nash's have jumped lately,  

This seems to make a parts build a more reasonable proposition so I'm giving it

a shot...    the neck in the pic I won't be using for this one... an  allparts SRO fat maple,

is on the way... basically,  going for a rough recollection of a cunetto blonde 57 relic

strat that I once owned and stupidly sold...   I'll be using gotoh aged parts,   fender

pure 65 pickups... although the lead pickup will be a slightly hot (8k ish) Gravelin.       

The body I got from a seller  Bloomdoom on ebay and Instagram,  really like his work.   

3.5 lbs, nice grain and finish...  I will be spraying the neck in nitro myself...   have some

stew mac aged clear but at the moment, I'm watching a bunch of tutorials and testing 

some maple scraps.       

 

  Significant other thought I was going to build the whole thing from scratch, and was

relieved that I'm not... she'll love the garage being turned into a spray booth lol...    

 

   If this works out,  I'll do either a 60's sonic blue strat  or a blonde esquire next. 

 

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Nice. Looking forward to seeing this come along. I’m in a bit of a holding pattern On my own build while I wait for some parts to become available. 

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This reminds me: I was going to tear the Stretchocaster back down for paint...  Running out of summer; I'd better get on it.

That's a great looking body.  I have the Allparts SRO Fat Maple neck on mine.  I wish I had discovered that neck earlier - it's perfect for me! 

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If you don't mind saying, what do you think your total cost will be when finished? I've always wanted to to my own build so just curious. 

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Parts builds are worth it, if you can do it yourself. As long as you know what kind of neck shape you like and wood choices its hard to go wrong. People get into trouble when they can have "What ever they want". Thats when they end up disappointed. 

Goes for Shishkov Builds too. ;)  

 

@DaveL that body is gorgeous! 

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Very cool to know I'm not the only DIY'er during this pandemic time!  Wet-sanding a neck on my lunch break isn't something I'd ordinarily do, but it's coming along nicely on one of the several projects I've got going.

This has been my summer of Telecasters, apparently!

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48 minutes ago, ZR said:

If you don't mind saying, what do you think your total cost will be when finished? I've always wanted to to my own build so just curious. 

I'm not sure yet,  I'll do most of the work myself,  then hand it to my local tech for a quick

leveling and rolling of the edges of the frets and check my work on the nut.  but we're talking

under a grand all in...  I've owned a handful of Nash's and have two Nash Esquire's that I love...

 I've always looked them over to see what he does  (allparts necks, decent weight, tight fit of neck

and body I think)  so I guess we'll see.   trying to keep it vanilla,  if it doesn't work as a complete guitar,

can always part it back out. 

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Looks like a fun project!

Got a couple in the pipeline here too - both Charvel bodies with Musikraft necks.  Stripped/prepped the first one and sent it off on an almost eleven month paint adventure (finally have it back, though!), and built the second one up in the interim using the neck/hardware from the first one.  Plan to strip and refinish that body on that latter one soon, in something a little more vivid.

I have another MK neck on order for the original project, and will be doing the finish on that as well.  Should come out nice! I really like their necks.

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6 hours ago, chromium said:

Looks like a fun project!

Got a couple in the pipeline here too - both Charvel bodies with Musikraft necks.  Stripped/prepped the first one and sent it off on an almost eleven month paint adventure (finally have it back, though!), and built the second one up in the interim using the neck/hardware from the first one.  Plan to strip and refinish that body on that latter one soon, in something a little more vivid.

I have another MK neck on order for the original project, and will be doing the finish on that as well.  Should come out nice! I really like their necks.

I use MK necks and bodies on most all of my builds.  It's a shame that they're not doing bodies any longer, but maybe that'll change.  Their hollowbody Teles (no F-holes) are my current favorite jam.  I bought several of them "just in case"...

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Yes, a shame they aren’t doing bodies,   I thought their strat and Charvel style bodies look the best contour wise.     Going to guess they had to reconfigure their workspace for social distancing.  
 

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I'm still debating on just grabbing aerosol cans or ponying up for an inexpensive HVLP system.  I haven't shot paint in around 35 years, but I used to love it and the new (to me) HVLP tech is really great.

And then there's the thing I posted in "Ask The Experts" like three years ago: what color?  Doh!  I'm still thinking either Mary Kaye or Sherwood Green... Arg!

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21 hours ago, ZR said:

If you don't mind saying, what do you think your total cost will be when finished? I've always wanted to to my own build so just curious. 

It can vary widely.

If you use all Warmoth parts and get a few extras like scalloped fingerboard or exotic woods, and a nice loaded pickguard, it's easy as pie to do (hardest thing is probably drilling the holes for the peg or screws of the locking tuners) but will cost close to $1k or could be more.

Or if you buy an unfinished body, wire up the pickguard yourself, watch for a clearance neck on Warmoth or MightyMite or one appearing used on eBay/Reverb, you could easily get it done for $500.

Or if you go with cheap stuff like neck and loaded pickguard from China off of ebay and leftover Fender Squier Affinity body, you might be able to keep it under $200, and still end up with a decent guitar, although that's a little more risky.

I'm probably going to put between $400 and $600 of Warmoth parts around the  pickguard I got from RobB. Probably a cheaper used neck and a clearance body from Warmoth, including buying a Wilkinson trem from them because I like black hardware and non-locking trems, and it's hard to find a used body that has 2-post trem holes drilled that you *know* are the right width for a Wilkinson. 

 

Edited to add:
I've done some research (finally) and the Wilkinson trems are made to fit the 2.22" trem spacing on Fender Strat Deluxes and American strats, so that opens up some possibilities for me. So I might be able to keep the whole thing just over $400.  We'll see.

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21 hours ago, ZR said:

If you don't mind saying, what do you think your total cost will be when finished? I've always wanted to to my own build so just curious. 

Seriously, if you're a patient sort, watch Reverb (eBay if you go there, I don't) for partscasters for sale. 

I found one at a good price with a body, hardware and case I liked and with and a Fender '57 reissue neck and spendy pickups I didn't want.  I bought it fairly inexpensively, sold the neck and bought the Allparts neck for substantially less. 

I still have the included set of "Gilmour" (The Black Strat) pickups I could sell (if I'd get off my hump) to reduce the cost even more. 

A little trading here and there and the end result is a nice guitar with very little net cash outlay.

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Dangit, I was just gonna suggest the same thing, but Velorush beat me to it!  :rolleyes: :lol:  I have four Partscasters that I bought from builders/previous owners, and I'm very happy with what I got...but I was very picky and cautious about doing that, as it can sometimes be a crap shoot when shopping for a used one.  And there is a lot of used crap out there.

 

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4 hours ago, crunchee said:

I was very picky and cautious about doing that, as it can sometimes be a crap shoot when shopping for a used one.  And there is a lot of used crap out there.

One of my two projects above originally came to me that way as a compete guitar. It was a ~$500 Ebay gamble since I couldn't tell specifics on most of its components, but it landed sporting a German Floyd, Musikraft neck, 80s Model 1 body and neckplate, and a DP100 pickup.  Probably would have cost me closer to 7-800 in parts and supplies to build up from scratch.

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Funny too... the second parts guitar was born due to the fact that I had a loose Schecter Superrock in the bin. A good pickup needs a guitar wrapped around it, right?

Plays to that age old question: "How many guitars to you need?"

Just one more :)

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9 hours ago, chromium said:

Funny too... the second parts guitar was born due to the fact that I had a loose Schecter Superrock in the bin. A good pickup needs a guitar wrapped around it, right?

Plays to that age old question: "How many guitars to you need?"

Just one more :)

I won't judge.  I've built an entire guitar around a part or two.  

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  • 2 weeks later...

pic,  not much progress because the maple neck took a detour around the US, but arkansas music supply did a good

job finally getting it to me...  big  1" at the 1st  1" at 12th...        Second body arrived,  a Musickraft in sonic blue,

lightly relic'd by the same guy as the first...      I had a nash s-63 last year that I probably shouldn't have sold, but

they have a wierd cut on the upper horn, looks oversized to me...  thought these bodies looked a little nicer

on the upper horn.    basically,  one will be a 50 something Mary Kay, and the other will be a 62-64 style...

       

   Going to finish fitting the neck pocket on the blue one,  then,  if weather isn't too bad this weekend,  will be starting on

the nitro on the necks,  did some test samples, didn't love the stew mac amber (really heavy orangey even on a light

coat). going with stew mac aged clear...   

 

i-bwrw6pZ-M.jpg

 

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this is a shot of a Nash strat style,  that left horn just bugs me.  Wondering if they avoid doing a really accurate cut on purpose.

i-7JbKBLJ-M.jpg

 

 

 

   

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37 minutes ago, DaveL said:

pic,  not much progress because the maple neck took a detour around the US, but arkansas music supply did a good

job finally getting it to me...  big  1" at the 1st  1" at 12th...        Second body arrived,  a Musickraft in sonic blue,

lightly relic'd by the same guy as the first...      I had a nash s-63 last year that I probably shouldn't have sold, but

they have a wierd cut on the upper horn, looks oversized to me...  thought these bodies looked a little nicer

on the upper horn.    basically,  one will be a 50 something Mary Kay, and the other will be a 62-64 style...

       

   Going to finish fitting the neck pocket on the blue one,  then,  if weather isn't too bad this weekend,  will be starting on

the nitro on the necks,  did some test samples, didn't love the stew mac amber (really heavy orangey even on a light

coat). going with stew mac aged clear...   

 

i-bwrw6pZ-M.jpg

 

this is a shot of a Nash strat style,  that left horn just bugs me.  Wondering if they avoid doing a really accurate cut on purpose.

i-7JbKBLJ-M.jpg

 

 

 

   

Oh, man. I never noticed the upper horn on the Nash guitars. Now I can’t unsee it...

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The StewMac Aged Clear is the way to go if you're doing an aerosol job.  MUCH more realistic looking than the amber, unless you're going for a MIJ or MIM Fender look.

 

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I just picked up an Allparts SMO-Fat to go with a parts pile on my shelf (something purple green and gold). The neck is nice no fret sprout and very clean.  The fretboard edges were slightly sharp so I rounded the fingerboard edges with a $10 set of needle files in about 20 minutes.  I also file the edges of the frets a little to eliminate the cheese grater effect when you slide up the neck.  Dave you might consider doing that before you get the finish on - a previous owner rolled the edges on my Daytona and it's slightly ugly doing that after the finish.

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