Lockdown, so I'm putting together a tribute guitar

axisus · April 2020

I did mention in another thread, but for amusement I am putting together a 'tribute' guitar based on my fave guitarists no1 geetar. The player in question is Nick Barrett of Pendragon and the guitar is 'Woodie' a strat that he put together some years ago, with a design that his partner burned on. Here's the guitar in question:

I'm using an American strat neck, rather aged and the only maple fretboard I own. The body not so good, it's a crappy old many piece Squire. I do have an American strat body but I didn't fancy killing that with a burning tool!

I can't afford the Pups and other bits, so for now it's going to be stuff I have knocking around. May be upgraded in the future if I like the guitar.

axisus · April 2020

The Squier body was a bit weird, the top was damaged, and the front and back had some kind of thin veneer on them. I spent an age sanding off the old finish, and then sanding/using my shinto rasp to remove the veneers. They did hide to unattractive pieces of the body, but it was a solid colour so not sure why they were put on. This pic shows the body before, you can see the damaged state!

I was quite proud of myself come the end, a rather cr*ppy body looked quite clean, smooth and useable. I hate sanding but I put a LOT of effort in this time. Forgot to take a pic though!

This is the Neck I'm using:

axisus · April 2020

OK, so it was quite hard trying to sort out the artwork, as pretty much all pix are low lighting, somewhat distant, and at an angle. However, I did manage to assemble something that was near enough with some photoshop trickery. This is my template:

I transferred it using some of that blue paper that people used to use to duplicate letters. It worked OK but it is IMPOSSIBLE to get off! For the most part that was no problem as it was being covered, but the odd few bits that weren't I just couldn't get rid of, I ended up having to carefully sand them off, which was tricky.

axisus · April 2020

And having spent odd times all week attacking it with my soldering iron the image is sorted. I also oiled then waxed the body to keep it from getting dirty.

Funkfingers · April 2020

Spread and facing veneers is a standardised construction method. Prettier ones get transparent finishes. Plainer ones get opaque colours. Gluing on the veneers is probably less time consuming than grain filling the core pieces. Hence, lower production costs.

skippy76 · April 2020

Looking really good mate

Rocker · April 2020

Very nice work. Looking forward to seeing the finished guitar.

Andyjr1515 · April 2020

That's some clever work, @axisus

TheOtherDennis · April 2020

That's a damn good start, that is

PeteC · April 2020

Thats really impressive work - a tribute to be well proud of .

LastMantra · April 2020

Excellent work on the design that couldn't have been easy!
The body wood doesn't look too bad at all either. Good job.

axisus · April 2020

LastMantra said:

The body wood doesn't look too bad at all either. Good job.

Actually it's not great, about 8 pieces - the last less than 1cm!

My alternative was the American strat body that goes with the neck. I didn't want to ruin that with a bodge job but it came out better than expected so I kind of wish I'd just gone with it now!

axisus · August 2022

So er .... two years later and I finally sorted this guitar out! It got stuck in it's case and was out of sight out of mind.

It's not entirely finished as the small switches don't do anything at present, although it is finally playable. I will probably get back to the mini switches at some point but I will need to remind myself what they do. It's not that practical to get it the same though without a wiring diagram!

So here it is - My Nick Barrett 'Woody' tribute guitar: