| Note from
GuitarAttack: This is a good story on several levels. We
particularly like the "practice on scrap" procedure for the headstock.
From
Jim Cobb:
Hi, here are some pictures of my Saga.
I have three telecasters that I built from parts purchased from eBay, even this
way they cost $300-$500 per. I wanted a Strat as well and stumbled across
your website. Encouraged by this I purchased a Saga kit and built it up,
this guitar is all Saga, I did not substitute anything.
From my experience with the Tele's I had no problem with the assembly and
setup. I was very very grateful that I did not have to do the electronics.
The new things to me were the head stock and painting. As you can see from
my "woodshop" I am not a pro at this (see photos below).
I did the headstock template from a download of Strat plans I found on the
internet. I printed the headstock portion out scaling it up and down until
it fit the blank. I cut out the template and taped it to the headstock and
traced it with a grease pencil.
The cut was practiced on several pieces of scrap wood with my bandsaw so
that I would not screw up the neck. I am really glad I did that, it showed
me the proper approach to get the template shape. It turned out quite well,
if I do say so myself.
I went down to Manny, Moe and Jack's (PepBoy's Autoparts) and picked up some
"SUV Red" lacquer. It took about 2 cans of color and 1 can of clear. I did
not do as good a job on this painting as I would have liked, but I sure
learned a lot about painting. I'd say the most important thing was to have
patience and let the paint dry solid before moving on to the next coat.
Without a doubt use automotive lacquer rather than enamel, it is much easier
to work with. Also make sure you get enough paint on the radiuses or you
will sand through the paint when you do your wet-sand.
I really like the guitar and marvel at how much I paid for it, $89 for the
kit and $20 for the paint. I play it just about every night (my way of
unwinding from work). The sound is very nice, I don't have a "real" Strat so
I don't know how it compares. But my Teles have an array of Seymour
Duncan, Lollar, and Dimarzio pickups and this Strat sounds just fine to me.
I really like how the Strat gives you a much broader array of tones than a
Tele, and is much more comfortable when your preferred stance for guitar
playing is kicked back in a Lazyboy.
Jim
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