# Bdale's Custom Build of a Fender Stratocaster Clone #

For Christmas 2014, Robert and Elizabeth bought Bdale a beginner's guitar
book, and Robert offered to help with a guitar build project based on the
success of his Telecaster build.  This is the resulting project, Bdale's 
first guitar, started in February of 2015!

After a lot of reading and listening, a few core decisions got things rolling:

* build a "clone" of a hard-tail Fender Stratocaster (no tremolo)
* body and neck to be near-natural wood color with satin finish
* no pickguard (maximum exposed wood grain, rear control cavities
* pickups and all hardware in black
* standard strat-like 3-pickup, 1 volume, 2 tone design with 5-way selector
* noise-reduced pickups

We had a "spare" blank in alder big enough to machine the body, left over
from Robert's Telecaster project.  So the plan was to machine a custom body
and buy the rest of the parts from various sources.

Another intense period of study led to the decision to use 
[DiMarzio](http://dimarzio.com) Area pickups.  These are stacked-coil hum
reducing pickups in the standard strat single-coil pickup form factor.  The 
chosen "standard" set consists of:

* [Area 58](http://dimarzio.com/pickups/strat/hum-canceling-strat/area-58)
  for the neck position
* [Area 67](http://dimarzio.com/pickups/strat/hum-canceling-strat/area-67)
  for the middle position
* [Area 61](http://dimarzio.com/pickups/strat/hum-canceling-strat/area-61)
  for the bridge position

The rest of the parts were mostly obtained from 
[Guitar Fetish](http://www.guitarfetish.com/), with the exception of a nicer
[hard-tail bridge](http://guitarheads.net/products/bridges/hardtailrear.html)
sourced from [GuitarHeads.Net](http://guitarheads.net), and a 22-fret natural
Canadian maple neck purchased from eBay seller "bluelink88".

| Description | Part Number | Quantity | Price | Total |
|-------------|-------------|---------:|------:|------:|
|guitarheads.net|||||
|black hard tail bridge||1|16.99|16.99|
|ebay seller bluelink88|||||
|22-fret maple neck||1|35.99|35.99|
|guitarfetish.com|||||
|Push-Pull DPDT Pot 250K Audio|F20|1|8.79|8.79|
|Full Sized B250K Tone Pot|F22L|2|2.45|4.90|
|Full Sized A250K Volume Pot|F22A|3|2.45|7.35|
|USA Spec Stratocaster 5-Way Switch Black Tip|F158F164|1|11.45|11.45|
|Set of Three Black Strat Replacement Knobs|A27|1|4.95|4.95|
|Bag of BLACK Pickguard Screws|K60|1|6.45|6.45|
|Pair Classic Strap Buttons Black|K33|1|4.45|4.45|
|Black Vintage Spec. String Ferrules|K15|1|7.45|7.45|
|Strat Jack and Plate Black|K09|1|6.45|6.45|
|Strat Pickup Metal Trim Ring BLACK|K125|3|8.45|25.35|
|Pair Black Butterfly Strat String Trees|K36|1|5.45|5.45|
|Black Gotoh Style 14:1 tuners|E16|1|26.95|26.95|
|Ultra Thick Black Neck Plate with Screws|K03|1|9.45|9.45|

More to come!