Part One of My Guitars


This is my "personal Custom Shop" 1957 Fender Stratocaster in Foam Green. Back in 1979 ( long before the Fender Custom Shop was a dream in Bill Schultz's mind) I decided to build, with help, a dream Stratocaster. I had owned other strats, some new and some vintage before, but this model and color was my dream guitar. I must mention that at the time I also owned a 1955 Thunderbird that was the same color.


Anyway, I bought the neck and body then all the hardware. It was just the standard chrome plated Fender hardware and I wanted gold, so my dad offered to call in a couple of favors and had it all (even the screws!) gold plated by some friends of his who had a shop that plated trophies. Once I had all the parts, I took it to Steve Soest who was my guitar repair tech (and still is) and had him assemble all of the electronics and paint the body and neck. At the time there wasn't any market for reproduced water slide decals, so Steve found me a NOS Stratocaster from the late 50's. The result is what you see here. It has been my main guitar through thick and thin for the last 26 years. Now it has naturally attained the "Closet Classic" look and has been through more than a few electronics changes over the years, but it is still my favorite.



This is my other Strat. I kindly refer to it as my "FrankenStrat". It is a completly E-Bay built guitar. I bought a slightly damaged Fender issue Candy Apple Red body, then a real Fender Strat neck from Mexico that I stripped the finish off of, refinished the fretboard with a light coat of lacquer and painted the headstock as close as I could get to matching the body with a vintage re-issue decal. I then bought a pre-wired gold anodized pickguard and purchased all the gold hardware from separate auctions on ebay. Once I had all the parts, I got my solidering iron out and put the whole thing together. I was truly amazed that it actually played and sounded great when I was finished! A few electronics changes later, it is currently my favorite guitar for playing slide.