Post Number One Hunnit (100d) - Finish Repair on a "50s" Strat

I was astounded, or maybe just a little surprised, to see that I have just reached post number one hundred on this blog.  And, as it transpires, it is one year to the day from when I started.

If you do some math, that comes out to an average of 8.3 posts per month.

I thought it might be fitting to blog a bit today about another Stratocaster project I just worked on, since my first post was also about a Strat - the infamous Surfcaster.

But enough about the past, this is the present, and soon to be the future.

Or something like that.

My main Strat is a MIM "50s Stratocaster" model.  It's a 1998 I think (I'd have to check).  I snagged it off that world-famous auction site from a bloke in Kansas.  It's the old-style 2-color sunburst, maple neck, white pickguard.   It's a little beat up - turns out it was used for a Buddy Holly tribute show.  And since it looks exactly like Buddy's, it would be perfect for that.

One thing that isn't perfect is the fact that someone put straplocks on it at some point.  These things to me are big and ugly - I've never used 'em.  I've been wanting to take them off for a while and replace them with the proper vintage-style strap buttons.

Whoever put the straplocks on did a really awful job.  They totally hacked up the finish on the top button.  I have no idea how this happened, but it probably involved a big honkin' tool and a lot of beer.

Anyhow,  I had the guitar down on the workbench to change the strings, and before I knew it, I was working on taking off the old buttons and putting new ones on.

But one thing I have to do is fill the awful looking hack job in the finish.

I took the old strap button off,  and am using the Surfcaster as a model for the positioning of the new strap button.

You can see how bad the poor geetar looks.  You can also see how wrong the angle of the straplock was.  Now, maybe there was a reason for that too - but I think it was just a bad job all around.

What can I say?  Some people don't care about quality.

I'm fortunate for two things:  one, I have another vintage-style Strat body to compare to, and second, it turns out the original screw hole is still there!

It looked like it might be there - I scraped off a bit of finish and there it is.

I just ran a screw into it so I won't cover it up with filler.

The plan is to use wood filler to patch the old hole and the gap in the finish, then color it to match the finish.  Good luck to me.

Edit 9/17/2010:  Jump forward to the conclusion of this project.