Fender Stratocaster Mystic Blue w/ Moses Graphite Neck

This build is finally coming to an end with the last post being the Moses Graphite Neck preparations.
If you want to read the other posts here they are in order:

Project "Mystic Blue Strat": Step 1 - The Body
Project "Mystic Blue Strat": Step 2 - The Pickups
Project "Mystic Blue Strat": Step 3 - The Neck - T...
Project "Mystic Blue Strat": Step 4 - The Pickups ...
Project "Mystic Blue Strat": Step 5 - Moses Graphi...

I left off in my last post with putting the brass inserts into the neck. That went 'decently' well actually. (just a few tool marks on the back end of the neck, but that would be inside the neckpocket).
Next I had to get the neck on the body. As I started to put the bolts on they all lined up perfectly.. except for 1! "Oh No!" I thought to myself - I just ruined my awesome neck! :(

After taking it apart again and peering through the body screw hole I noticed it was off by just a hair though (must've had the screw to mark the hole at an angle ever so slightly). I also noticed that the hole through the body was extremely tight for these bolts. So I came up with a simple solution: I ran a screwdriver through the hole which cleaned it up just enough so it would line up. I then made sure that bolt went it first and grabbed, after which the rest went in nice and tight.

I tried to capture how the guitar looks, but it's really hard to get a proper picture of the Mystic Blue. It is VERY striking in person.

And all done!

I haven't yet plugged it in, but even acoustically the guitar plays wonderfully and feels great. The neck almost feels more like a 'super flat D-shape' to me, which I think feels amazing. I definitely recommend these Moses Graphite necks!

Project "Mystic Blue Strat": Step 5 - Moses Graphite Neck has arrived!

So finally, after about 4 months, and a few emails - which i'm hoping didn't start to annoy the wonderful folks at Moses Graphite - asking about status updates, I received my new Moses Graphite Neck. The Details are basically:

• Moses Graphite SK-27 'thinline' strat neck,
• Ibanez Headstock profile, 
• Floyd Rose Nut, 
• 'Ibanez' Vine of Life inlay in Paua Abalone. 

Now, as a point of reference, I basically was on a quest to replicate something like my JEM 10th Anniversary Neck which had a very nice 'Vine of Life' inlay into ebony.

Ibanez JEM 10th Neck Inlay Detail

When I first opened the package I was shocked how amazing this neck turned out. The headstock is spot on, and the Graphite has a very 'cool' feel to it, very smooth - almost like you get with a 'bare' neck (which I love). The inlay in my mind is actually even NICER than the one on the Jem. The vine seems a little more 'detailed' and 'thicker' so it's more visible. Also the colors are very rich and 'blueish' which will go great with the Mystic Blue Stratocaster body this is going on.

AMAZING Moses Graphite Neck

Beautiful Vine of Life Inlay

Look at that color!

Since to me part of a nice Ibanez headstock is the headstock logo I had purchased one from Best-Decals.com. As I had discussed in a previous post, I always liked how the Joe Satriani series had their headstock logo starting between the 1st and 2nd tuning peg, so what I did was order a 'Universe' / 7-String headstock logo in Chrome ('regular' one would have probably been too short) and lined it up like that, and cut off a little bit of the end. It came out very nice:

Chrome Headstock logo Applied

Very nice and reflective

Next up was the installation of the Tuning Pegs. The standard option was 10mm (13/32") pegholes, so I had several options. I decided to go with some locking Sperzels in Black from Stew-Mac. The cool thing is that they were not only Locking, But also Staggered or 'Graduated Height' which helps eliminate string trees etc (which may or may not totally work for this application because of the FR Nut). Lastly the other cool thing was that the inner part of the tuning peg was actually Nickel/Chrome, adding a nice splash of 'Color' to the headstock to match the logo.

I decided to simply install these with my small dremel. While I could not find the 'exact' drill size (2.7mm or #36) I found a 7/64" one which was 'close enough' at  2.77mm (so 'off' by 0.07 mm which is like a hair..). The box of tuners actually came with a drilling template. Simply push the bushing through, insert into the headstock, line up and drill. I actually marked each hole first and then drilled all 6 free-hand by marking the depth on the drill-bit with a piece of a tape.

Template to mark holes for tuners

Holes drilled

Tuners Installed!

I really like the splash of Nickel/Chrome

Here you can see the staggered layout

Next up was the more 'troublesome' step. The neck does bolt on with regular wood-screws, but with stainless bolts. To accommodate this the end user needs to drill whole and install self-tapping brass threaded inserts. It was easy enough to find the 15/64" drill-bit required to drill the holes, but I did NOT feel comfortable simply 'eyeballing' this with a hand-drill.

Step one was basically putting the High- and Low E strings on, lining the neck up with the body and marking the back of the neck through the body holes so I'd know where to drill. Easy enough. Next I took the drill-bit and by hand spun it around on the marks a few times just get a good permanent impression until I would know how to actually drill this thing.

After some asking around I found someone with a drill-press and they were happy to let me use is for 5 minutes. I measured the depth, drilled out the holes and went on to install the inserts.. Less of a headache than I thought it was going to be!

Inserts Installed! Don't mind the slight tool marks I left

Next the moment of truth: Installing it on the actual body!


(Looks like Moses Graphite put up a picture on their facebook too:
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=759059364137864&id=158845657492574 )

MIM Plus Top w/ KWS Neck & Fat 50's Pickups

So I had finally gotten all my parts I needed to put this build together. It's nothing over the top, but should be a nice combination:

• Body: MIM Standard Stratocaster Plus Top - Flame Maple in Tobacco Sunburst
• Neck: MIM Kenny Wayne Shepherd Model
• Pickups: US Fat 50's that come out of my Mystic Blue US Body.

What I would end up with, visually at least, is basically what is depicted on the fender site:

Plus Top Standard Stratocaster

With the difference naturally being the pickups (+ they're 'parchment' or whatever this 'off-white' color is called nowadays), and the neck. So let's get building:

All the parts ready to go

I had to order the bridge, jackplate etc separate so the first step was to install the bridge.
For a couple of days I toyed with the idea of going with KWS bridge, but I settled on a standard MIM for now. 

Bridge Installed

Test fit of the springs

After the bridge I figured it was a good time to put some new leads on to the pickguard electronics, since I had cut them out of the USA Body (which received a Dimarzio Pickguard) . Now my first mistake was using the wrong soldering iron. I was using a tiny 15 watt , and that barely got anything moving. I switched to my 30 watt and that worked SO much better!

 I noticed that the screw in the middle of the cavity that nowadays holds an extra ground wire was missing too, so I put a new one in and tied a ground wire to it . Also fed a ground wire to the back Tremolo cavity and of course the signal + ground wire to the Jack Plate hole.
 

Just using some paper towels to protect the body before soldering

Jack Plug attached

Ground wire attached and springs installed

 Now an issue I ran into was that I did not have any correct screws to mount the pickguard. Since I did not feel like ordering them and then waiting another week or so, I found some screws locally that would fit. They are not 'oval head' like the normal pickguard screws, but I don't mind them. I can always swap them out once I do get some 'official' screws. But for now - these guys would have to do.

Having soldered everything up and all screws put in, gave me this beautiful looking finished body.

Next was to simply bolt on the neck. I had noticed in transportation the neck tuning pegs had gotten a little loose, but simply tightening the screws a bit solved that. So 4 neck screws later I had a beautiful guitar, ready to be played (well.. once i put some strings on it..)

Mexican Stratocaster Build

So while I was waiting for my Moses Graphite neck for the Mystic Blue build (Still at least another 2 weeks or so I'm told), I started to 'itch' for something else. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to build another Stratocaster using the Fat 50's pickguard that I pulled from the Mystic Blue Body. It being white, I figured it probably would be a nice color contrast to actually go and try a rosewood neck for a change.

Deciding what kind of neck to go with is obviously problematic enough (Radius, Back Contour, Tuners etc) - on top of that I knew I couldn't splurge like I had on my previous items. This would have to be a bit more of a budget build. I DID know I wanted a 'thick' neck e.g. a 'FatBack' or 'Thick C' or whatever they're called.  I started looking at an All-Parts SRO-FAT. Reason I was interested in this one was because I had gotten the V-Shaped Telecaster neck before and love the oil finish on it. However, I don't think Brian from Mason Guitars, who did my neck, does any more guitar work lately, so I would have to learn to do it.. Doesn't sound hard, but it was more than I was willing to take on at this time.

American Fender necks were out because of the cost, so that basically left  basic 3rd Party Necks like Warmoth, MIM (Made in Mexico) Fender Necks, or other 'finished' Japanese etc clones.Also for a body I REALLY wanted a hardtail if I could help it.

Looking on the Warmoth site I quickly found a decent neck that I really liked with a Pau Ferro Fretboard. They also had some decent bodies in stock. They did however not accept paypal which unfortunately meant I had to look elsewhere. So off to the old standby: Ebay.

After doing some digging around I figured that both the Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Robert Cray Signature Models (MIM) had 'thicker' necks. After a lot of reading I decided on a KWS neck. I missed the tail end of 1 auction, but luckily a second posting was listed a few days later which IMHO looked even better so I was able to pick that one up.

For the body I looked for a decent hard-tail that didn't cost a lot, and could simply NOT find one. Since I wanted to get going on this project I finally gave in and started to look at standard Stratocaster bodies. I always liked the Ocean Blue, but for some reason it didn't click with me with the white pickguard/rosewood neck. It IS VERY striking though and I would love to someday do a build with it with maybe some black DiMarzio Injectors and a nice maple neck.

Ocean Blue Body

After a couple of days of digging around on EBay I came across a fairly 'fresh' listing for a MIM 'plus' top which means it has a Maple Flame Top. I went onto the Fender site to see a bit more and there they actually had a nice image of the stock guitar which is basically what mine would look like all put together.

 I thought that it looked really sharp, so I didn't hesitate any longer and ordered the body

For the misc. parts and bridge etc, I toyed with the idea of getting the KWS GraphTech Bridge, but looking at my budget I realized that wasn't in the cards and went with the Stock Mexican Bridge. Maybe on the next build I'll get fancier.

Now it's just a matter of it all getting here and putting it together - I Can't wait!