My Samick Strat Upgrade Journey

[Guitar Dude]

So I've had the Samick Strat knock off laying around for a while. Was gonna put it on Craigslist for maybe $45 or so because I already have a real Strat. I decided to give it a little setup before listing it, and it was in horrible shape - the pots were iffy, the plug jack was noisy as all Hell, the tuners were really loose, etc. A total piece of crap. Well, a total piece of crap except for two things - [1] the neck is perfectly straight, and [2] the action is ridiculously low (like 1.5mm at the 12th fret) for a cheap guitar, with absolutely zero buzz anywhere along the fretboard. So I says to myself, I says, "Self, let's turn this into a project guitar.". And, agreeing with myself (as I usually do), I decided to turn this into a project guitar because I've never done one before. Well, except for painting an SG style Gibson Melody Maker flat black in the 80's, but let's not go there right now...

So, I'm gonna leave the neck as is (because I like maple necks), but decided to strip the finish off of the body and stain it and give it some sort of oil finish. I'm thinking light cherry color with a linseed oil finish at this point. I might add some hot rail humbuckers to it. And there are some really cool looking wood pickguards available on Reverb that I'd like to use too. But nothing's written in stone just yet. All I've done so far is disassemble the guitar and started stripping the finish.

Here are a few pics of the project so far...

Before:




Disassembled:



Partially stripped:

 

[Guitar Dude]

So, I've decided to replace the guts.

I found some single coil sized humbucking hot rail pickups that I think I'm gonna go with. This is just a cheap Samick Strat copy, so I don't want to put a crapload of $$$ into it. It's also my first time doing this, so if I screw it up there's not too much wasted money. I did replace the SSS pickguard on my real Strat, but that's the only upgrade I've ever done. I've decided that the body is definitely gonna be a light cherry oiled finish. I've added a screenshot of my parts list from Reverb.

 

[Guitar Dude]

Finally got that Samick Strat copy body stripped all the way, and...

LUUUUUUUCY!!! JU GOSSUM SANDING TO DOOOOO!!!

I started the top left, and it looks like it'll have a nice maple grain for the light cherry stain I'll be using on it. I know it's a cheap guitar, but plywood? Really??? I was thinking maybe a burnt finish effect to hide the plywood layers, but as I was stripping it, the layer look started to appeal to me. Something different, ya know? So I think I'll leave it as is and just stain it. Gonna finish it with a few coats of satin polyurethane using 1000, 1500, 2000, and 3000 grit wet/dry sand/polishing paper.

 

[Guitar Dude]

Gettin' there...

 

[Guitar Dude]

My arms are getting tired

 

[Guitar Dude]

 

[Guitar Dude]

First coat of cherry stain and rough pickguard placement just to see the colors together - me likey! This is wet sanded with p1000 paper - I continued wet sanding with P1200, P2000, and P3000 and it feels so smooth now, almost like glass. Well, except for the end grain.

I'll let it dry overnight, then do another dry sand with P3000, followed by a couple of P3000 wet sands with the clear polyurethane. Then one more P3000 dry sand. I'll be soldering the internals and assembling them onto the pickguard tonight.

 

[Guitar Dude]

Crap! I forgot to order knobs! Should I do black or chrome? All the other hardware is chrome/stainless steel.

I'm leaning toward black...

 

[Guitar Dude]

I just ordered the black ones.

 

[Guitar Dude]

Gave it a polyurethane wet sand with P3000, then another dry sand with P3000. I think it has a nice semi gloss finish.

 

[Guitar Dude]

Shielding is all done. Not the most professional job, but it's 100% functional.

 

[Guitar Dude]

I've never done any guitar wiring, but found this diagram that I'll be using for the pickup wiring.

 

[Guitar Dude]

As I'm known to do, I changed my mind about the knobs and decided on these:

 

[Guitar Dude]

Oops! I never added a finished pick to this thread! Here ya go...

This is without the knobs

 

[Guitar Dude]

I decided to replace the pots and a few other upgrades. You see the upgrade post in this thread.