Great to hear from you two, thanks for the welcome. And that second photo was cheese curds, string cheese, and flavored milk. I couldn’t figure out how to deletenit once I accidentally attached it. And I might as well explain my Stratocaster build now, as it’s not like there’s a thread or section dedicated to strats.
So Tuesday before work I went to Guitar Center, and met a girl that was trying to sell her friend’s dad’s old guitars. He had passed away, and apparently left them no life insurance, and they needed to pay for his cremation and funeral, not to mention any debts he had. The staff members were actively going through the dozen guitars she brought in, rejecting at least half of them because a bunch of them were partscasters or had their serial numbers scratched off. The staff piled guitars onto the floor in front of the Gibson/Epiphone wall after their individual inspection. The woman allowed me to go through the pile, where I viewed about 2 Stratocasters before stumbling upon a gloss black one, with some of the original stickers still on the pickguard, halfway peeled. Guitar Center offered her $500 for this American strat; it had a loose, taped-over paint chip in the upper heel by the neck joint, but otherwise I felt a lot of potential in it. I’ve wanted a MIA strat for a long time, and after researching the serial number, I offered her $540 for it. I ran to my bank across the parking lot, pulled out the money, and took it home, all while GC staff pretended not to see; they frankly didn’t care.
As I drove to work with my new strat in the car, I decided I could try my hand at refinishing it; I didn’t like the chipped paint, so while in the parking lot, I looked up videos on how to strip the paint. I stripped the paint that night at work (as we had no orders/jobs to complete that day, and toward the end of the day I took a torch to it. I made a striped/sunburst effect. The next day, I brought a satin lacquer spray paint bottle, and painted it after all of our jobs were done. It looks great, and I’ve been itching to show people. Let me know what you think!