Guitar Dreamer: White stratocaster project!

Here is a new strat project I recently finished! I wanted to build something that was reliable, very playable, versatile in terms of tone, of good quality and most importantly, I have to know were the parts came from. The quality of some factory mass-made strat copies is awful and the "tonewood" they are using to build them is sometimes plywood, particle board (yes, I've seen that as well!) and solid-wood leftovers. I don't want to pay for any of this stuff. There are also some cases were the tremolo block is not even a block, just a bent piece of metal... Their pickups and electronics can be awful as well, Micro-phonic and tin-toned single coil pickups is a common thing with cheap strats.
Also, the fretwork of most copies I've seen is way bellow standards. Therefore, the action is set too high or there's plenty of buzzing and even dead notes. There are ghost notes/drones/sitar-tones all over the fretboard, sharp fret edges that can cut your fingers and a nut that's so badly cut, the strings get caught on its slots and the guitar is constantly out of tune... What's worst about it is that they will charge you over 200$ for such a p.o.s. and there are fakes ("Fender/Suhr/Gibson" fakes!) that cost even more. Even most originals suffer from some production/quality control mistakes but that's another story.
So, the reason I am building my instruments is that I want to pay all little as possible for a really playable guitar even if I use Asian-made parts, as MOST companies do!
There are many stores that sell quality guitar parts anyway so it's not that difficult to build your own instrument if you have the time and patience to do so. The professionals that know a lot about guitar stuff can help you out with your order and there are plenty of on-line guitar-building guides.
(Note: There's a Demo video towards the end of this article!)

Here are the specs of this strat-project:

-Fat strat thick and heavy 3-piece Paulownia body, finished in a thin layer of "Olympic" white color (not a 2-3mm thickness finish...). H-S-H rooting, not a cheap "pool" rooting!
-One-piece Canadian full-C profile maple neck with a glued-on 12-inch radius rosewood fretboard, medium-jumbo frets and a bone hand-made nut!
-Wilkinson original smooth turning 10mm tuners
-Wilkinson/Sung IL 6-point tremolo with spring dampers (to avoid those "clanck" noises)
-Hot single coils with master volume/master tone/pickup blend controls for over 7 different tones instead of the classic 5 tones available on most strats. The pickups are connected in parallel and in-series via the blend pot which provides this guitar with humbucking "in-series" fatter and powerful tones. A treble bleed circuit and a quality output jack were added as well.

Here's a photo-log of this build!

The body was bought new from Ebay US and it was pre-rooted for H-S-H pickups.

We had to drill a few holes for the pickup bolts and the 5-way selector to fit properly inside the cavities.

Then, the tremolo and pickguard bolt-holes were drilled using the tremolo base and pickguards as guides.

The neck was also bought on Ebay (UK) and it came predrilled with a really cheap nut. Having a pre-drilled neck is not always that easy to work with but we measured everything and drilled the neck pocket accordingly. The only downside is the the neck had already all the holes for a generic set of tuners. We had to cover these with tiny pieces of maple wood once the Wilkinson tuners were installed. No wood putty was used!

Working on the newly-finished body (it was painted by a professional as I don't have the means and the time to paint this body successfully...)

Fitting the tremolo unit

Unfinished neck pocket for a better wood to wood contact

Tremolo block and spring adjustment

Staining the roughly-cut headstock:

Shaping the headstock ;

Pointy shape!

Finishing the neck in satin clear: It's the easiest and "faster" (in terms of feel) finish for your neck. Please allow some time for the lacquer to cure properly before touching it. Low humidity helps a lot.

Wiring the electronics:

Wiring diagram:

http://www.guitartechcraig.com/techwire/tech12.jpg

Pickup measurements:

The neck finished:

Finishing the last details of the body (e.g. ground wire from the tremolo)

Installing the pickguard on the body:

Placing the tuners

The tuner holes were originally drilled for vintage 8mm tuners but I wanted to use 10mm modern ones. Therefore, the tuner holes were drilled to 10mm and old bolt holes were filled with tiny pieces of maple and glue.

Body-neck mating:

String tree, it's an important part if you want to avoid sitar-like tones:

The neck fitted on the body! It's a tight fit!

Backplate

Fretwork, loads of it!

Filing the bone nut:

The guitar is ready and set-up with 0.09" Elixir coated strings! Such a playable and versatile instrument! It sounds like a vintage strat but when the pickups are connected in series, it becomes a beast!