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Many of you know that I don't care for relics so it may seem odd that I just built...a relic! This one has a pretty cool story though:
Back when I ran music store in the 90's, I took in a parts mutt Strat on a trade. My main lines at the time were Gibson/Epiphone, Jackson, Parker, and BC Rich (I added Anderson later)...nothing really "strat-like". The trade in mutt actually sounded fantastic so I decided to keep it as a store guitar for people to use when demoing amps if they wanted to use a strat. I also used it to gig with every once in awhile as it got a great, spanky funk tone (I was in a funk band at the time). I would also occasionally put it in the store window simply to entice some traffic from the Fender crowd.
One early morning I received a phone call from the police that the store had been broken into. I rushed to the scene, only to see the strat mutt laying on the sidewalk outside the store. Its neck was broken, pickguard and electronics crush in (swimming pool route), and the body was a mess with chunks of wood missing and the finish generally scarred all over. The amount of damage was rather odd and I nor the police could figure out what the motive would be for someone to take the time to trash a guitar while robbing a store.
Although the body was a mess, I asked the insurance adjuster what they planned to do with it. He said they usually try to sell them but that this one looked like a lost cause and I could keep the body if I wanted and he would take the neck and pickguard as "proof" of the destroyed guitar.
I slapped on a Fender neck and loaded pickguard (Gilmour EMG set) and planned to use it full time in the funk band. Plans soon changed when I was literally getting splinters from some of the "wounds" in the body. I simply hit these spots with some sandpaper to get rid of the sharp edges and played it for a few more gigs until I quit the band. At that point I parted it out but kept the body with plans to patch the scars and refin someday. I never got around to doing anything with it and it travelled with me through several moves in a box full of parts, old pedals, etc.
Fast forward to a few months ago and I "rediscovered" this body that I forgot I had. I remembered how great it sounded so I decided that I'd do a project around it since I had most of the parts that I would need laying around.
Although I usually don't care for relics, I absolutely loved Brian's "Fucker" strat and it was my inspiration for this one. I sanded a bit of remaining finish off of the forearm contour as I had only previously sanded actual damage spots which left a "splotchy" look on the contour. Everything else is actual damage from the burglary and from living in a box for 10 years with lots of sharp metal objects.
And now back to the actual damage. A few weeks after the robbery, the thieves were caught. Turns out the store owner hired them to rob the store so he could collect on the insurance claim. He instructed them as to what to take, but the dumbasses didn't know anything about guitars and they took Epiphones instead of Gibsons
I was able to read a copy of the police report where they describe breaking the window with a rock and reaching through the hole to grab a guitar (the strat mutt) to bash out the rest of the glass so they could walk through the opening. It was then dropped on the sidewalk and apparently stepped on and kicked around as they did their thing.
So, here she is what she is today:
Mahogany strat body of unknown origins (no markings), Warmoth birdseye neck, rosewood board, SS frets, '59 roundback profile, Sperzels, brass hardware (trem from a recent GMW), tortoise guard, volume/tone/3-way, Duncan Custom in bridge/Pearly Gates in neck.
I finished this one on Saturday and I've barely put it down since. The '59 roundback profile is awesome if you like some meat to your neck without venturing into Louisville Slugger territory. The SS frets feel like freshly polished nickel frets but even better...bending is almost too easy they're so slippery. What shocked me was the tone. Much brighter sounding than I remembered (and it used to have single coils)...seems odd for a very lightweight mahogany body which by definition should be a midrangy sounding guitar. Perhaps the switch to brass hardware contributed to this. That said it sounds awesome. The bridge pickup get a slightly scooped tone, but very big sounding. The neck almost sounds like a very fat sounding single coil...I've never come as close to the SRV tone which is odd for a humbucker. Up the gain and its sweep city on the neck pickup and rude and mean with the bridge.
And finally, a few pics:
Back when I ran music store in the 90's, I took in a parts mutt Strat on a trade. My main lines at the time were Gibson/Epiphone, Jackson, Parker, and BC Rich (I added Anderson later)...nothing really "strat-like". The trade in mutt actually sounded fantastic so I decided to keep it as a store guitar for people to use when demoing amps if they wanted to use a strat. I also used it to gig with every once in awhile as it got a great, spanky funk tone (I was in a funk band at the time). I would also occasionally put it in the store window simply to entice some traffic from the Fender crowd.
One early morning I received a phone call from the police that the store had been broken into. I rushed to the scene, only to see the strat mutt laying on the sidewalk outside the store. Its neck was broken, pickguard and electronics crush in (swimming pool route), and the body was a mess with chunks of wood missing and the finish generally scarred all over. The amount of damage was rather odd and I nor the police could figure out what the motive would be for someone to take the time to trash a guitar while robbing a store.
Although the body was a mess, I asked the insurance adjuster what they planned to do with it. He said they usually try to sell them but that this one looked like a lost cause and I could keep the body if I wanted and he would take the neck and pickguard as "proof" of the destroyed guitar.
I slapped on a Fender neck and loaded pickguard (Gilmour EMG set) and planned to use it full time in the funk band. Plans soon changed when I was literally getting splinters from some of the "wounds" in the body. I simply hit these spots with some sandpaper to get rid of the sharp edges and played it for a few more gigs until I quit the band. At that point I parted it out but kept the body with plans to patch the scars and refin someday. I never got around to doing anything with it and it travelled with me through several moves in a box full of parts, old pedals, etc.
Fast forward to a few months ago and I "rediscovered" this body that I forgot I had. I remembered how great it sounded so I decided that I'd do a project around it since I had most of the parts that I would need laying around.
Although I usually don't care for relics, I absolutely loved Brian's "Fucker" strat and it was my inspiration for this one. I sanded a bit of remaining finish off of the forearm contour as I had only previously sanded actual damage spots which left a "splotchy" look on the contour. Everything else is actual damage from the burglary and from living in a box for 10 years with lots of sharp metal objects.
And now back to the actual damage. A few weeks after the robbery, the thieves were caught. Turns out the store owner hired them to rob the store so he could collect on the insurance claim. He instructed them as to what to take, but the dumbasses didn't know anything about guitars and they took Epiphones instead of Gibsons
I was able to read a copy of the police report where they describe breaking the window with a rock and reaching through the hole to grab a guitar (the strat mutt) to bash out the rest of the glass so they could walk through the opening. It was then dropped on the sidewalk and apparently stepped on and kicked around as they did their thing.So, here she is what she is today:
Mahogany strat body of unknown origins (no markings), Warmoth birdseye neck, rosewood board, SS frets, '59 roundback profile, Sperzels, brass hardware (trem from a recent GMW), tortoise guard, volume/tone/3-way, Duncan Custom in bridge/Pearly Gates in neck.
I finished this one on Saturday and I've barely put it down since. The '59 roundback profile is awesome if you like some meat to your neck without venturing into Louisville Slugger territory. The SS frets feel like freshly polished nickel frets but even better...bending is almost too easy they're so slippery. What shocked me was the tone. Much brighter sounding than I remembered (and it used to have single coils)...seems odd for a very lightweight mahogany body which by definition should be a midrangy sounding guitar. Perhaps the switch to brass hardware contributed to this. That said it sounds awesome. The bridge pickup get a slightly scooped tone, but very big sounding. The neck almost sounds like a very fat sounding single coil...I've never come as close to the SRV tone which is odd for a humbucker. Up the gain and its sweep city on the neck pickup and rude and mean with the bridge.
And finally, a few pics:
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