Rat Rod 2 !

 The 1st "rat rod" stratocaster project was very successful so I decided to build another one for a good friend of mine.
 http://guitar-dreamer.blogspot.gr/2013/01/the-rat-rod-caster.html

 This 2nd "rat" style project started when I bought a "Vester" used strat guitar that was in a really bad shape... The body had been badly stripped down and a few coats of wood lacquer were applied by brush... The result was awful. Moreover, the lacquer wasn't mixed right and it was still wet and sticky after a couple of months... This guitar also came with a warped neck so I could not really use any of its parts apart from the hardware and electronics. I thought I lost my time and money on that when it hit me: this guitar was a real filthy rat rod project and I could use some parts without fully restoring them.
  Therefore, I applied some nasty paint remover on the body and I got rid of the sticky lacquer finish. The body was natural with quite a few dents and marks that I wanted to keep! After all the old lacquer was removed I applied a few coats of satin clear and the body was ready to accept a new neck!

 The neck came from an RR style Jackson guitar and it had 22 frets plus a fender scale length. The shark inlays and the locking nut were cool too as I could create a "retro" hybrid kind of thing using a modern locking nut and a classic 6 point tremolo... The neck fit right it and I bought a set of quality closed type tuners via eBay for this.

 The tremolo came from the old Vester guitar and the single humbucker black pickguard came all the way from Hong Kong for 10$. The pickup I used was an ESP ceramic neck humbucker and it was really hot (I wonder what the Esp bridge 'bucker would be like, ultra hot?...)
 The guitar was finally set up with a fresh set of coated 0,009" strings and the action, intonation and playability are superb!

 Here are a few pictures of the "rat rod 2" guitar:

Cheers,
Thanos