Rat Strat Project Finished

[HNB]

I got this guitar for a cheap price and it should be a fun project. Here are some of the auction pictures.

1 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

2 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

3 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

The wood tare out on the headstock makes me sad, but I had a different neck I can use with the body and the tuners are pretty ok. It is a shame what was done to that neck. It was a nice Allparts one. The bridge is similar to a US Fender hardtail bridge. Ferrules are good. The pickup is a DP100FS with a chrome cover which is cool. The pot is 500k and new which is nice. It has shielding paint in the cavities. The parts are pretty good overall. The body is Warmoth made. Maybe poplar wood. The neck pocket looks whiteish green. First order of action was to sand the finish smooth. It had several paint runs and such that I wanted to smooth out. I am going to use the existing paint as primer mostly. I like the cross, but it is kind of crooked so I figure I will just make it Olympic white.

20171025_191322 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

20171025_191336 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

[kdanie]

Looks better sanded down.. What color are you shooting for?

ken

[HNB]

Going for olympic white.

Here is the first can of white. I am leaving the dents and dings. I will get some stain rubbed in to them to give it a dirty look when the paint work is all done.

20171026_191154 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

20171026_191232 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

20171026_191247 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

[HNB]

Did some wet sanding. Still need to do one more round, but it is looking good.

20171105_123825 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

[HNB]

Before adding walnut stain.

20171111_122211_HDR by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

After.

20171111_122738 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

20171111_122751 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

20171111_122756 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

20171111_122744 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

I like how it gets into scratches and accentuates them. It also takes the edge of the white a little so it isn't so bright.

[HNB]

Back before.

20171113_181106_HDR by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

After.

20171113_181632 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

20171113_181708 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

20171113_181727 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

20171113_181640 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

20171113_181738 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

[HNB]

All done and assembled! So the reason it had those six holes just above the six holes for the strings is because the bridge was off so the holes for the strings were covered by the bridge plate. I filled the three mounting holes and moved it down a bit so the six holes lined up with the bridge plate and drilled three new mounting holes in the right spot. Also the jack hole was too small so the hot end of the jack couldn't get pushed in and click all the way. I enlarged the drilled hole. Other than that, the other stuff went together well.

Strung it up and tested it out. It was way quiet. Like quieter than a single coil pickup. I checked my color codes and it was fine. I also checked the pickup with the multimeter and it read about 15k. After much trouble shooting I figured out that the volume pot was bad/messed up and swapped it for a different one. I know stickers aren't everyone's thing, but I like it. It reminds me now of one of my first guitars which had the same stickers. I should have kept that one.

20171121_133644 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

20171121_133710 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

20171121_133656 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

20171121_133746 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

20171121_133753 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

20171121_133759 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

20171121_133804 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

[countertext]

Funky fresh dressed to impress ready to party. Thumbs up.

[HNB]

Thanks!

[NoiseNoiseNoise]

Looks good to me!

[leokula]

I really like your projects and how you make all of them unique with details like the neckplate and the logos. I like it

Why is it a "Rat Strat"? Didn't get the name.

[HNB]

I get the custom neck plates on eBay. If you search "Custom Guitar Neck Plate" it should come up. You send them a picture and they etch it on to the plate. I did the name rat strat because of rat rods. Old muscle cars that were pieced together and often had bad paint work.