In a earlier thread I brought up the topic of shaping a USACG s-type body to be more vintage correct: http://www.thefenderforum.com/forum/...ad.php?t=41690
The body was to build a 2-tone brown sunburst strat along the lines of Clapton's Brownie. The photo of that guitar on the back jacket of the Layla album has made it a permanent part of my guitar playing conciousness. I had owned a strat in this finish as one of Fender's 1st generation reissues. It was not very accurate to the contours of a real vintage '57, and for the one I had, was tonewise a dud. This Fender is shown here, the roundover radius is wrong.
I tried to revive this guitar with Fralins without success. This guitar is gone, the Fralins stayed.
Rather than chase another FMIC variable and having some luck with partscasters, I'd call Tommy at USACG for some good tonewood. The body was a web special 4lb 3oz 2-piece alder and the neck was a regular order. Medium V, 22 6125 frets 10" radius. So far, I have completed finishing the neck and have yet to apply sunburst and clearcoat to the body.
The neck was shaded with Behlen's brown mahogany - a tricky process where less is more. I reworked this neck 3 or 4 times to get the color correct as any lacquer spit or uneven tone can't be repaired and means back to square one again.
The body is stained with StewMac vintage amber, sanding sealer and a few coats of ambered lacquer toner in an attempt to bring out more yellow in the center. I sanded through on the body and also redid the body because a repair to stained alder looked too obvious.
The decal is buried in the headstock lacquer.
I will post updates as this gets farther along. This is the first body I have finished so the pace of progress is uncertain, depends how many mulligans I have to take with it. But what comes out the other end is a full nitro finished guitar spec'd exactly as desired. Good deal. Thanks for reading.
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