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Base theme by DesignModo & ported to Powered by Vanilla by Chris Ireland, modified by the "theFB" team.
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Just to see what the hardware looks like:
The control cavity, with the jack socket detail working perfectly as planned:
The neck bolt ferrules are perfect flush fit as well, very pleased with how this has come out:
The neck bolt placement also echoes the machine head arrangement - I admit this is accidental, but I really like the look now I see it:
Thank you John, I can really only take credit for the design, which I admit I am a bit proud of. Phil at Guitarbuild deserves credit for doing such a great job of skillfully turning my plans into reality. But it is a great outcome, not long ago I just had a neck with an awkward to use 25" scale length, now it is turning into a gorgeous guitar!
Thanks Stu! I'm glad you like the black chrome hardware - I nearly went with gold lol, but I think that would have been wrong on this guitar, the black looks sharp I reckon.
I'd better not show you my strat or tele then... But I do think it would have been very wrong for this build, so a lucky escape there!
I think it can easily look like it's trying too hard, or a bit bling - not in a good way. But (just my own view) I think on the right guitar, if well-judged, it can work. I bet it looks fine on your Stonebridge - kudos for that btw, those are really lovely acoustics.
So, finish then - discuss
A lot of people are going for these Wudtone kits too, though I've not tried one myself, but the results look pretty impressive. Might be worth a shufty
As an (possibly the only, to be fair) Starfield nerd, what happened to the old body?
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Thanks for liking the project dch - I still have the old body - hmm, I can hardly bear to tell you though, not my proudest guitar modding moment, but here's the sad tale: The Starfield Altair which donated the neck for this project looked like this:
It was a Japanese-made one from 1993, best I could find out. I bought in second hand from Mansons in Plymouth (not sure if they still have a branch there) either late '93 or '94 - I was looking for something strat-ish at the time for under £300, and this seemed the best option (there were no classic-vibe Squiers or the like back then I recall). I never found it quite satisfactory as a strat-type guitar, and in that pic I've changed the pickups to a Lace Blue in the neck, an old '80's SD classic strat stack in the middle, and alnico magnet Artec rails type in the bridge. That was a great pickup combination for me, and is basically what will be used in this new build too. The guitar did have flaws I have to say - the bass strings in particular sounded a bit dead and lacking in sustain, no matter what I tried - I think the body wood on this one was maybe not the best somehow. When I bought the guitar the scratchplate was badly aligned, and I had to fill and re-drill all the mounting holes to fix that. More recently I decided, unwisely, to try to strip the finish and was going to do a stained natural wood, oil-finished kind of thing - there were a few ugly dings on it at this point. The old finish proved very hard to remove - quite thick, I believe it is polyester, and the stuff is totally impervious to paint strippers, and very hard to remove with a heat gun (and gives off really noxious fumes if you try). Probably I needed some sort of heavy duty sanding gear, but I just ended up damaging the old finish, and what wood I did expose did not look like a good bet for a natural finish - quite a few strips glued together, with a couple of thin veneers of some soft-ish wood over the front and back (I guess to help with getting a smooth factory finish). So I was then left feeling really bad - I'd effectively wreaked the guitar, and it just sat sadly in bits on a shelf for a couple of years. The neck is nice though - I would say the best bit of the old Starfield, so a couple of months ago I contacted Guitarbuild to see about the possibility of getting a new body made for it, which I would design. And the results you can see! I do still feel bad about the demise of the Starfield though, I know these are becoming quite highly thought of lately, but at least I have done something positive with the neck. And I think it's fair to say that the new body is superior to the old one - lovely resonant one-piece swamp ash, very nicely made as you can see. But I still must apologise to fans of Starfield guitars out there, sorry...