Guitar Building: Alder Strat With Humbuckers, Part 2
This guitar sounded great unfinished, but the unsanded body was a little tough on my right arm, so…LOTS of sanding, two grain raises, MORE sanding, and plenty of RED stain seemed to be the next steps. This is the same red I used to dye my Bigsby Tele, but that body was pine, so I didn’t know how the alder would take it.
I laid dye on until I began to see the blotchiness (uh-oh) that you can see in the second photo above. I wasn’t sure what the Tru-Oil would do with that, but I trust its ability to clarify and deepen colors, so crossed my fingers and wiped on six coats. I like to apply two thin coats and then carefully scuff sand with 2000 grit sandpaper. Repeat until happy. I really like the color! Alder’s grain is generally unremarkable, but this looks good to me.
The Wilkinson VSVG is my favorite more-or-less vintage-style bridge, and the pickups are Voodoo ’59s from Peter Florance, the Mad Winder of Honesdale, PA! The pots are 500K, one volume and one tone, and the tuners are Gotoh locking tuners with the thumbscrews on the back. The neck is from Allparts, as you’ll see, and I made a nice bone nut for it.
I’ll post another photo for the big reveal, but this guitar came out really well. Plays and looks great, and sounds huge!