Old Man Winter Strat

On an overcast winter day, I decided I needed a new project to keep my mind engaged rather than sit and play video games all day. I had always wanted to modify a guitar and to see how difficult it would be to make a bad guitar sound good. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to give that a go.

So like any bargain hunter, I started looking around for options. I knew I wanted to spend as little as possible to begin so that I could have some cash for upgrades. That meant looking for a Squier. I also wanted it to have a hard tail bridge for ease of use. After a bit of digging, I was able to find a Squier Bullet Strat that came with a Vox practice amp for $100. The guy was moving and decided he would take $80 for the package. SOLD!

From there, I decided I was going to not only put in new electronics, but hand-carve the body of the guitar (I should have thought about the plywood body before…oops). In typical designer fashion, I got out a dry erase marker and started laying out ideas on the guitar itself.

I chose the Old Man Winter theme partly due to it being a winter project, but I also wanted the flow of the wind to move around the guitar. It gave me the chance to mix a little fantasy with music.

Once I was ok with the design, I had to sand the whole body down and get ready for the carve itself. This is where my first biggest mistake came into play. I thought I had sanded deep enough, but as I would find out later, I didn’t go all the way through to seal coat which made for an acrylic-like surface that did not take well to gouges. Due to the different colors of the plywood, it also became very difficult to see how deep I had carved. Because of this, I would rub flower into the wood to give me an even color and get a better gauge on where I was.

I had to take it very slow to make sure I didn’t chip any parts of the wood. There were some areas that I had to fix once it got time to seal it with grain filler. I applied the filler over the full surface and pushed it into the wood to fill the cracks as best as possible. Once it had time to dry, I sanded the surface and then sprayed the whole thing with white spray paint for the base. The headstock was also carved to continue the design across the full guitar.

Now that the carving was done and the initial white coat of paint was down, I could begin airbrushing in the details. I wanted the wind to have a soft & flowing feeling to it. The whole piece was meant to feel “cold”. It’s also important to note that this was my first time ever touching an airbrush, so there was a bit of a learning curve. I assumed I could do finer details with it. I was wrong. Once the airbrushing was done, I went back in with a paint brush and added highlights and details to give the guitar more depth.

After paint was done, it was time for clear coating the whole guitar using polycrylic spray. This was the next biggest mistake. I chose polycryclic since it was compatible with the paint, but it later reacted with the foam of the guitar stand and basically melted foam onto the body.

Now that the guitar was painted, I had to go about swapping out the hardware. I chose Hipshot Grip-Lock 6 inline 21mm Locking Tuners for the headstock. I liked the look and they stayed in tune very well which was important for these beginner guitars. I also decided to go with a Tex-Mex Special Loaded Pickguard. While this pickguard was OK, I wish I had gone with some fuller-sounding pickups. The Tex-Mex Specials sounded very thin (great for certain things, but I was going for SRV). The bridge was changed to a Fender 6-Saddle Hardtail Classic/Standard Series Bridge. And lastly, I was able to find some really cool acrylic domed control knobs that matched the paint perfectly!

I was really happy with the way it turned out! It looked amazing and it certainly sounded way better than it did when I got it. All told, I spend about $250 for the guitar and parts.