DIY $65 eBay Stratocaster guitar kit (Step by Step)

Hi, I'm Jen Casses. I'm going to show you how to take a $65 Stratocaster

guitar

kit from eBay and go from this to this stay tuned, but the

guitar

came well packaged, it was in a bag, the pick guard, all the controls, the pickups. everything is already attached to it and, uh, I'm pretty impressed with the body of the guitar, for the most part it looks good, now it's definitely two piece, you can see it right here, where there's some lamination and some nicks and stuff , so I'm going to want to sand a little bit with this and then eventually it will be a solid color, so this will mean I'm going to want to use some grain filler on this.

What I have chosen is plastic wood and we will put it. I'll show you how it works very soon, but for the most part here, between the body, everything is pre-wired, that's cool, all your extra parts come in a bag. It even came with the strings and a guitar cord. The main thing I was most worried about is the neck and for the most part, we'll check the level, but I was looking at this and this is it. a fairly straight neck. I am very happy with this. I was a little surprised by the other guitar kit I had purchased.

This was a block. This one comes already pre-cut in the traditional Fender shape. Okay, but it's kind of interesting. Amazing. Now I'm going to have to do some fret work on this and show you how to double check to make sure all your frets are level, but the main thing I've noticed is that the frets are level. It's rough like if I put it together right now and started playing this, the edges of this would break your fingers pretty quickly, so you know, but that's no big deal, you can work around it. Looking at this too, it felt like the spar. for the most part it fits, I don't think it's going to be a bad build so I'm excited to see how it goes let's see how it works okay now we'll start with the basic body of the guitar.

It's not in bad shape, but we're going to use plastic wood and I'm going to put a thin layer on the entire body of the guitar. What we're going to try to do here is basically fill in all the little grains because If I'm going to do this body in a solid color, I don't really want to see the wood grain. If that's possible, you'll use 220 grit to start and start removing all of this wood filler as you work. the direction of the grain all the time and then eventually you will go up to 400 grp. Now I'm going to take a wood prep and I'm going to seal it with that once and then I'm going to start staining to get the body is done now you're going to take a damp cloth and you're going to wipe it down and you're going to use a Minwax pre-stain and you're just going to give it a single layer on all sides.

What this does is it helps get the pimples out again. into the wood and once it dries you're going to give it another light sanding, well now that we sanded the guitar and cleaned it with a damp cloth, I think the body is as good as before. I'm going to get it, feel free to take your time to make it as smooth as possible. Now I'm going to start with how I want to color this. Now I want to use a classic color style, so I'm going back. to use this original set of acrylic paints these are water based acrylic paints and I used them on the Telecaster guitar kit that I made and you can go back and look at that and I'm going to mix these paints and water for type turquoise or seafoam green .

I think this is close to the 72 uh Fender strap. Okay, I'll start. I'm going to add a little bit of water to this. I'm looking for that color. It doesn't have to be exact but it has to be close. Now I'm going to put a little bit of color on this because I want to make sure that when I stain it it's a good color. Look at what we have in terms of colors, I think it will be pretty close to what I want using a clean cotton cloth. Basically, I rubbed the paint like you would a stain.

I put two solid colors in there and now I cleaned that up again. and you're ready to go back and start applying the real oil. Now I will also use new, clean cotton rags and start applying a single coat on both sides of the guitar along with the sides, let it dry overnight. Come back and do it. Another coat and depending on each coat, I sanded between each one using 500 grit wet and dry paper, so wipe that off again and keep layering the real oil on there and working that into the finish. Now I tried to let it dry. between coats approximately 24 hours and then lightly sanding even using Real Fine steel wool.

I held the guitar together using a board where the neck would fit, so now that I have all my layers there, I've given it a final coat of real oil this time I'm going to use nylon gloves. I'm literally just going to hand rub real oil on the surface okay now we want to start with the neck of the guitar now the neck that was I thought was pretty straight and looking down the guitar the neck actually looks like pretty straight, but what I'm seeing is that there is a definite arc towards the neck, so now in the kit it comes with an Allen wrench and you can adjust the tension of the neck.

Over here now, trying to get a good look at this, I'm going to hold up an aluminum rod and you can see there's definitely an arc here, so now we're going to need to see if we can tighten this. go up and get that level enough to then level these frets, so you're going to do about a quarter turn at a time and about a quarter turn and then check your level. I had to do this about three times on this, but on my third time I came back and it looks like it's going to be pretty close, so now you're going to need to be able to sand these frets, so we're going to create a sanding tool, so I'm going to use a cheap one. $3. level I bought at Harbor Freight uh you can probably get one at Walmart for the same price and using 220 sandpaper.

Mark the thickness on the back of the sandpaper a couple of rows and then grab a pair of scissors cheap and cut both. sandpaper strips Now, using Craft Bond, you're going to spray the back of each of these pieces of sandpaper, then go back and apply them level. Now, using a Sharpie, mark the top crown of each of these frets with just a Light Mark so you can see the black marks. What this will do is help you see that you are filing the frets evenly, so now, using the level and sanding back and forth, you will eventually sand away all those black marks. and you can see that you have now leveled all the frets, so now take painter's tape between each of the frets leaving the fret exposed, but you want that tape to help protect the rosewood and this will allow you to take more. 220 and you're done sanding these frets, you're going to want to sand down any of the rough edges on the ends and then fold the sandpaper over, you're going to want to re-crown each of the frets once you've done that, come back to that. fine steel wool and re-polish each of the individual frets um now it feels pretty straight um placing a metal edge on top the frets are level now let's move on to the next part and that is sanding the neck and preparing it for sealing as well with real oil so like the body of the guitar you will want to sand the neck to protect it by taping the rosewood with all the painter's tape and once again using the real oil and I didn't take too many drops and then I was wearing latex gloves and just rubbing your hands with the real oil, make sure you cover everything so it doesn't drip and then you can sand with steel wool between each coat now too.

For this guitar, I built some logos that I wanted to use for the top. Now you can remake them with the original Fender logos. I created new logos using slider stickers and will make a video on how to recreate your own stickers. I'm surprised how far real oil goes. You can go many miles with real oil. This is a bottle and he finished the neck and the entire guitar, and the guitar had several layers depending on the time of year. The temperature at which true oil can sometimes be reapplied in as little as 2 hours. Now I usually try to let things dry for up to 24 hours so they really have a chance to cure a bit.

Well, I've applied about six or seven coats. of the um true oil on this, it has a nice shine to it, but there are a lot of little bits of fiber that I'm going to want to polish off now, how I'm going to approach this is I'm going to use a paste, paste car wax, rub it in and polish it, like this I have that and a pack of polishing pads that should fit a drill that I ordered on Amazon, so we'll try them out and see how they work. Now, using the applicator that comes with the Auto Polish, apply a nice liberal coat by putting a little pressure on that thing and rub that paste on after letting it dry.

I'm going to go back with the polisher on the drill and there are several different ones. pads and I just took the thicker pad that it comes with and gave it a coat once while working through it and I was amazed at how quickly you started to polish it when you flipped it over. I did the same approach for the face and edges, after polishing everything I switched to a finer foam and turned it back again and got a mirror finish with that, very happy with the result so now we have most of the uh , the tape that's removed, the neck is polished and I'm going to apply a little bit of linseed oil to the rosewood fret bars here because I think that's going to make it more polished and it's going to wear better and look better.

Also now I've had this quart of Lind seed oil forever and uh, I just have it ready. It's very useful now, the fun begins. You've gone through all this work to make everything look great, so now you can assemble. so I'm going to use the pick guard with the pickup to help align the bridge. Mount now, again, there were no screws drilled into this, there are no mounting holes, so I'll have to improvise this as I go so the pickguard helped me line up the six screws that will hold the bridge in place. With the bridge in place, you're going to turn the body over and prepare to mount the cleat that holds the springs.

Here is the cleat that will hold the springs. It also comes with two wood screws that will mount at a downward angle through the body. Don't try to drill them in a straight line. You will drill them at an angle. I pre-drilled them and then screwed in the wood screws. secure this, but once you have them in place, you can back out those two screws about a half inch to 3/4 inch and that will give you a little bit of room to put the springs in. place about the Springs now I've been looking around and it seems like the Springs are a personal preference if some people only want one spring to have a very soft response to the slam bar some want two others want three I'm going to go ahead and assemble the three springs and even the locations where there are multiple locations you can mount them as well, but I'll start with full tension and I can always come back later and readjust that once I've mounted all three springs.

Go back to the drill and tighten those two wood screws ensuring tension at the front. Okay, now let's go ahead and mount the neck to the guitar. Fortunately, the neck for this guitar was very tight and I'm going to prepare it. - drill my holes before screwing them in now. I have marked the bit to make sure I don't drill the holes too deep. The last thing you want is for a screw to come out of the fingerboard, so once they are pre-drilled go back with the screws provided and secure that neck firmly now it's time to put the pick guard in place.

Fortunately, this already comes with the pickups and volume knobs all pre-installed, so I'm going to run the cables through the cavity that comes out. in the connector to plug in the power cable and secure the pick guard so I put the basic pickups in the guitar and everything pushed the wires and suddenly I'm looking at this and here's a ground wire so I realized So this ground wire is going to have to go back through the body of the guitar and be connected and grounded here at the back of the guitar, so I'm going to have to drill that through first, so now I take the 50 million screws from the protector. spike.

Now I'm going to have to remove the pick guard and take the green wire and run it through the body of the guitar between the springs on the back once I've drilled that hole and run it through there and then I'll solder the green wire to the heel that I had, or to the cove I had talked about before, so now here we go again. This time I'm going to run the black and white wire through the hole provided that will go into the guitar jack and then make sure the green wire goes all the way through the body of the guitar, then I'll have to go back and salvage the pick guard again Now I'm going to prepare to do the welding.

I've been heating up the soldering iron and I'm going to use a wipe or rag to help protect the body and now you're going to solder the black and white wires or wires to the guitar. Jack, take your time and I'm not a great welder, but the simplest of you know, even if you have no experience, this is a great way to learn, it's very, very simple, simple welding that has to be done. , you solder the white wire and the black wire to the guitar chord connector and then you are going to solder the green wire to the heel plate that you have on the backFor the guitar, now it's time to install all the pegs so you have a washer and then a nut to push each one down, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to go ahead and screw each one on by hand afterwards.

I lock them up, I'll screw the back on and then I'll come back with a wrench and tighten the front, so take your time with these, um, you've got a little bit of play with these, but you want, you want to be able to do it. make sure you can line them all up exactly where you want the holes to be pre-drilled, they fit well, there is a small hole you will have to pre-drill on the back and that is where you want to make I'm sure you have a little room to play and that everything fits perfectly, so I'm going down.

I'm going to pre-drill all of these holes with a small drill bit and these are very, very small screws. You fit these and align and screw in each of the tuning pegs. Once you've done that, you can go back with a wrench and simply tighten each of the tuning pegs firmly, now into the nut at the end of this guitar kit. it didn't come with the nut pre-installed now I'm going to go ahead and use Gorilla Glue uh crazy glue or and to help ensure that I hope I'm going in the right direction that I'm using That with but it seems to secure it very well so now I'm going to start going through the guitar strings now instead of using the guitar strings that come with the kit.

I went ahead and bought a set of premium strings, uh, if you can. Do anything for your kit, even if it's a cheap $65 kit. Put some effort into purchasing a decent set of strings. Once you have them installed they push in from the back, you can squeeze them all together and this shouldn't. It will take you a long time to finish some things, there are the guitar strap holders for the back or the end of the guitar and also up towards the neck, that's okay, the only thing left for you to do is make sure that your Remove the ground wires out of the way and secure the cover.

The spring cover on the back of the guitar. This is mostly the end of your entire basic assembly. Now you want to spend some time on this and fine-tune it. good setup, take your time, have fun with the guitar, but I'm very happy with how everything turned out. You have a sweet and elegant little guitar. You know, I had a lot of fun building this guitar. It was great. little project, I'm very happy with the result, I like the color, I worked on that body a bit, I spent some time on the neck leveling the frets, the water slides up the headstock, this is a great little project.

For $65, this thing would be a killer hike hanging, so you know how you can go wrong with that, so I give it a thumbs up. Listen if you enjoyed this video, consider subscribing. Give me a comment below. Let me know your ideas. Your suggestions, if you have ideas for future DIY projects that you would like to see me build, let me know it's been a lot of fun and I'll see you soon. Well, I have a lot to learn about playing the guitar.