Scott’s Coronacaster (?) build

GoldenEraGuitars

I bought a Strat body a few years back and I think it’s been finished twice already... and stripped of course. As you can see by the first pictures it was meant to be a 3 tone burst but this particular one didn’t work out. It pretty much ended up being my slave body for trial and error work.

Well, who’d have thought that it would become my new project guitar during these troublesome times? 

https://i.imgur.com/y3uIb0B.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/2XTXL5r.jpg

I set about stripping the body down to the wood and sanding it nice and smooth. On this one, I’ve gone the extra mile for my own satisfaction. Thanks to @skippy76 sending me his early 60s Strat body to refinish I was able to take a few measurements and get a general feel of the contours. Although I’ve had other early 60s stuff in before this was the first time I actually documented the details. All in all, I’ve just tried to have some fun here. Hopefully it’ll show in the end results.

I took my time and rounded over every single harsh edge and I also took a fair bit of wood out of the contours to give it that proper blended look. Some (non period correct sized) dowels were added for novelty purposes.

https://i.imgur.com/bOQuIbF.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/ek3tQDF.jpg

skippy76

Contours look great mate

GoldenEraGuitars

skippy76 said:

Contours look great mate

Ta muchly  

GoldenEraGuitars

I’ll fast forward a bit... I was still toying with the colour options at this point but I decided that a desert sand base coat would be better than white. Soooo...

https://i.imgur.com/Wuwbfll.jpg

Roland

That top edge contour looks really comfortable

normula1

Desert sand looks a fantastic colour by itself

GoldenEraGuitars

@roland there isn’t a harsh edge on this body anywhere. It’s an absolute joy to hold 

Teyeplayer

That desert sand would look awesome with an anodised guard.

GoldenEraGuitars

Desert sand is an awesome colour, I’ll be using it a lot in the coming months as a base coat. 

GoldenEraGuitars

After some deliberation (and messing around while mixing colours) I came up with a colour that I decided I liked. Well, it wasn’t a deliberate call as such but when I saw the colour and sprayed a test patch I was pretty happy.

https://i.imgur.com/JCdUQtJ.jpg

GoldenEraGuitars

I’ll skip ahead here because the next stage involved the usual clear coating and ageing hardware. So, now we have a kit guitar...

https://i.imgur.com/O448AJc.jpg

The neck has been given the usual treatment. It now sports a nice dark rosewood board (not a ml of dye in sight) and some nicely aged tinting. Of course, it’s sporting my own headstock appointments too. 

GoldenEraGuitars

For anyone who is still reading this I might have sucked the fun out of the build by already having the pickups and electronics sorted already. When I dismantled my old strat I kept the loaded scratchplate which included..

Radioshop 63 single coils 
CRL 5 way switch 
CTS 250K TVT pots
Switchcraft jack 
PIO tone cap
Treble bleed

The new scratchplate, knobs and pickup covers are ready to go now so apart from needing to purchase a bridge and tuners we’re pretty much ready for assembly.

MattNovak

Gorgeous color, was there a custom shade called Tahitian something or other?  

GoldenEraGuitars

MattNovak said:

Gorgeous color, was there a custom shade called Tahitian something or other?  

Thank you! Yes, there was a very rare colour called Tahitian Coral which was a, I believe, an aged fiesta shade with a touch more pink. I’ve tried to avoid saying I was aiming for TC as it appears to have dried out more along the lines of aged fiesta red. But hey, either way I’m delighted

MattNovak

You should be delighted! I hope you wrote the 'recipe'' down for that shade, I imagine it'd be popular   

GoldenEraGuitars

MattNovak said:

You should be delighted! I hope you wrote the 'recipe'' down for that shade, I imagine it'd be popular   

I have enough mixed for another body  

Not point in messing around here... how about a few mock ups?

https://i.imgur.com/Q3D9f7X.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/4nSLZvA.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/krCagax.jpg

paulnb57

Very nice indeed! There is someone very sensuous about Strat curves....

GoldenEraGuitars

paulnb57 said:

Very nice indeed! There is someone very sensuous about Strat curves....

Thank you, yes I agree. And it’s taken a while to sand this sucker down. I’m glad the paint work is showing the new curves off nicely too. Very much looking forward to getting it put together.