Custom Stratocaster

I have always desired to have something unique, and of my own making, rather than something that anyone could buy. Also, I am very value-...

Here is one example of the sort of custom Strat you can design and build for yourself. It is more possible than you might think. Sure you...

I would really like to communicate this one thing, if you take away nothing else from this site. You absolutely can build a custom Strat ...

You need to decide what sort of Custom Stratocaster you want to build. Are you looking for something that faithfully recreates a guitar o...

Personally, I am highly drawn to vintage Strats . I love the look, the colors, the feel and the sound. They seem to transport me to a di...

You need to consider if you want to build your guitar from new or used parts and whether those parts are Fender or licensed by Fender (e...

Other factors that may constrain your custom Fender Stratocaster build project include: budget, tools, workspace, skills, time and patien...

There are many approaches to purchasing your parts. Each has its own attributes in terms of risk, ease of effort, cost, timeframe . Pu...

The numbers presented above are representative of an USA (mostly) Strat that was built with carefully selected parts and thrifty buying vi...

This sort of a project has some inherent time factors that mean you will have to have certain amount of time and patience. Here is an exampl...

Fiesta red custom Fender Stratocaster which served as the primary illustration project for this site: Fender USA Alder body with ReRanch fie...

Olympic white custom Fender Stratocaster: Fender USA alder body with ReRanch nitro olympic white and hand rubbed clear coat Fender USA vinta...

Seafoam green custom Fender Stratocaster: Fender USA Alder body with ReRanch seafoam green nitro and hand rubbed clear coat Fender USA Vinta...

Copper metailic custom Fender Stratocaster which also served as an illustration project for this site: Fender USA alder body with ReRanch ni...

Vintage cream custom Fender Stratocaster: Fender USA body with ReRanch nitro finish and hand rubbed clear coats. Fender USA Vintage tremolo ...

I used a caliper to measure the neck screws inner diameter and thereby select the appropriate drill diameter, also, marking the depth with ...

My first tube amp that was worth anything was a 70's era Silverface Fender Vibrochamp . I liked it, however, Fender had been, ironical...

For my Fiesta Red Strat, I wanted a vintage look all the way around, so I choose a classic 'F' logo neck plate.

It is my nature to want to adjust, refine and otherwise put my personal mark on anything I do. To that end, I could not stop with custom bu...

It is interesting to see how much of an impact can be made by merely changing the pickguard and pickup covers color. I started out with wh...

You should use a soft cloth to protect the finish on your body as you install the pickguard. If you have carefully trimmed and routed the w...

I had built this Stratocaster quite a while ago.  At that time, I had purchased a fully loaded pickguard with Fender 69' Custom Shop...

If you want to further distinguish your guitar as a custom guitar, you might add a custome neck plate. You can get them laser etched or st...

Like the smaller holes for the pickguard and output jack, I have filled the neck screw holes prior to painting and now clear them out with ...

Here you see that I am clearing out the filler that I had previously used to keep water out of the holes in the body. This filler nevery h...

I find that SwitchCraft makes the best output jacks. I am very carefull when performing this last soldering step. The last thing you need...

It is important to ground your tremolo to help minimize any unwanted noise your guitar might generate. You can also see the first steps wh...

As always, I am very careful to select the appropriate diameter drill and mark the depth so that I will neither drill to deep or too shallo...

The final product. The guitar looks great, sounds and plays even better. I thought I would sell it, so I left the stickers on, but I love i...

After all that hard work, you will want to transport your guitar in a way that ensures its safety. The new Fender hard shell cases are ide...