For me, there was actually a plan and I formulated what I wanted one night over a beer, talking to myself about the project, because my wife does not have a clue - to her all guitars are the same - just another cost....

I decided to make a list of things useful - it went something like this...

•  Light Guitar
•  Sustain forever
•  Ash Body
•  My tone
•  Great feel of the neck
•  Beautiful to look at
•  No hum
•  Powerful but great sounding pickups
•  Easy truss rod adjustment
•  Tremolo unit
•  Setup for 9's
•  Bone nut
•  Ebony fret board
•  Custom radius on neck
•  'Fender' replica logo (well It feels cool)
•  62 strat replica

As you can see, very quickly the cost could make this guitar completely out of the question and I was not sure that I could actually build this thing so that it would work, look good, and sound incredible. What budget should I apply and would the project actually be worthwhile.

Obviously, because I had never built a strat before, I was not sure of the cost of the components, and down the road, I did buy some things at the wrong price, although the parts were great.

In fact, many of the original hit list features for my very own custom strat were incorporated in the finished item, but as I progressed some of the things were dropped because there were better ways to go as I gained knowledge. My original specification was being updated and re evaluated and I think this made for a better strat at the end of the road.

For example, I originally set out to replicate a 62 strat cosmetically exactly, save for the hollow body. I even had a neck plate custom made for me with a 62 serial number embedded on it. For the price this was a great buy, and it remains on the finished strat to this day. But other things moved me away from the 62 strat design - in particular the neck radius for example. In my view there was no need to replicate that at all - the strat would have been a much worse player because of choking of the strings up the neck when playing lead guitar.

You don't have to make out a list of the features of your strat, but there is no question that it helps when you get down to locating the parts.

I did keep the bone nut on the final spec, also the original 62 tremolo from Fender. All of these choices remember are for 'my' strat and I have no problem if your strat specifications are completely different, but this site is about how I achieved the results for my guitar. You may well feel that a Floyd Rose tremolo and hum buckers etc are what you need. No problem, but the specific answers to how you fit the tremolo (for example) will not be here.

Checkout my site FIRST and see where I made changes etc, I am sure that it will help you to achieve your goal of making the best strat in the world (at least for you).....

OK - move on to the 'components' section and see what I bought and where from....