S/N 22.004

Written By Lucas Childers

Mark Knopfler Tribute Stratocaster

For those with a keen eye, this guitar was an attempt to vaguely recreate Mark Knopfler’s famous 1961 Fender Stratocaster. More recently in this millennium, Fender released a limited run of Knopfler Signature Stratocasters under their Artist series. These still pop up on the used market from time to time, but carry a hefty price tag. I figured this would be a good opportunity to take a shot at recreating it myself. I feel it’s worth noting that this guitar is for me and will not be sold, this is not an attempt to create a knock-off Fender guitar.

This guitar ended up far better than I could have hoped for. The end result is something that looks pretty great and plays pretty well too! Checkout the full build process below.

Specifications

The Build Process

The following was written over the course of the entire build process. I tried to group the process into logical sections, some steps may appear out of order. Nothing in this post should be taking as instruction, I barely know what I’m doing. Take everything here with a grain of salt.

The Fretboard

For the most part, I’ve moved on from using pre-cut and pre-slotted fretboards. This build is no different.

I started with a rough cut piece of Bolivian Rosewood, also known as Pau Ferro.

Unfortunately, this board was significantly oversized for a fretboard but not quite wide enough for two fretboards. I’ll find a use for the offcuts in the future.

The board was surfaced on the face in the jointer then a side was made perpendicular to the face. This gave me a good reference side to send it through the bandsaw. This board was then cut directly down the middle, giving me roughly two 3/8” boards. From here, I planed the new rough face in the thickness planer.

Slotting the Fretboard

Slotting the fretboard has always been a daunting task to me. The spacing between frets is calculated with a fairly complicated formula where values are rounded to the third decimal place. I can’t be the only one who doesn’t trust their skill with a pencil, ruler and a saw.

I came across this fret slotting miter box on StewMac. It makes the fret slotting process nearly worry free. You take one of their scale length templates (this build uses the 25.5” scale length), stick your fretboard blank to it and use the indexing pin to align the board in the miter box. It almost feels like cheating, but because this is such an integral part to how the guitar will play it seems like fair game.

I cut this fretboard before it was radiused. This means the depth sawn in now will not be the final depth. Too much radius work and I’ll lose the fret slots (about 2mm is required). Looking back, I’m not really sure why I did it in this order. It may be steps I flip in the future. That being said, the end result is pretty satisfying.

The Neck

The neck for this guitar started from a random slab of what looks like plain sawn maple. From what I know, quarter sawn lumber is the correct cut of wood to use for necks under high tension, but I’ve yet to find any locally.

Similar to the fretboard, I jointed one face and side, and created a parallel face on the other side in the thickness planer. These steps are very important for how I create the truss rod channel. I route the truss rod channel by drawing a straight line (parallel to the flat side) all the way across the board. Then, I align an acrylic neck template over this line to make sure the full headstock fits when the line is followed. You can see this board was just barely big enough for this.

I use a router bit from StewMac that precisely fits their brand of truss rods. Using the edge guide for my router, I take very small passes until the depth of the truss rod is reached. Because I don’t want the truss rod sticking out past the end of neck, I start the router at an angle and slowly dip it down into the board. This eventually develops a small blemish in the area, but it will be covered by the fretboard soon. Once this channel is done, I use a cove router bit where the hex head of the truss rod will sit. This will act as the player access to the truss rod, you’ll see later what the result of this is once the fretboard is on and the headstock is flattened.

From here, I stick the neck template to the board, careful to align the truss rod channel with the center of the neck. I use the bandsaw to cut off most of the waste material, then use a flush trim bit and the router for the rest. Now’s a good point to punch the tuner locations through the template as well.

It’s already time to glue the fretboard and neck together. I create two locating pins on opposite corners of the fretboard and use side dot material as the pin. Truth be told, this method barely worked. The material is very pliable and too wide to use when drilling through the fret slots. In the future I plan on drilling through the 1st and 21st frets and using a smaller pin. I put a strip of masking tape over the truss rod (don’t forget the truss rod), apply glue to the neck, remove the tape and align the fretboard. I used almost every clamp I owned to apply pressure everywhere possible.

Thinning the Headstock

On Fender style guitars, there’s no break angle incorporated into the headstock. I spent quite a considerable amount of time thinking about how to do this. On the first guitar, I used a handheld Dremel to create the radius slope up to the fretboard. That didn’t work.

In the end, the answer was so obvious, the spindle sander! Using it more as a drum sander, I setup a parallel fence with the gap that was the desired thickness of the headstock (in this case, about 1/2”). Very slowly I sent the neck headfirst into the sander until I neared the radius point. Here I needed to use a smaller spindle to achieve the desired radius.

I think the end result looks great. You can see how the truss rod access channel opens up here. Besides my strange clamp setup on the spindle sander, this process works pretty well and will be something I likely continue to do in the future for this style of headstock.

Fretboard Radius, Dots and Side Markers

I opted for some sort of compound 10” - 14” radius for this neck. This means that the radius between the nut and 9th fret (roughly) is sanded to 10”, while everything beyond is 14”. I started by doing the entire fretboard to 14”, then moving on to the 10” where required.

As you can see, my 21st fret suffered almost immediately from the radius sanding. In retrospect, this was a result of gluing the fretboard about 1/8” too low (from the headstock perspective). The material supporting this fret slot was paper thin. I managed to cleanup the remaining material with a chisel, I think I can live with the result.

Once the radius work is done, this is great opportunity to see the grain. I use a paper towel dampened with mineral spirits (don’t do this without ventilation and/or a respirator) to clean of the wood.

I went with traditional 1/4” pearl dots for the fret markers. I use a ruler with a center-zero point to align the drill points all the way down the neck. I use this to make 5 or 6 markings down the neck, then use a straight ruler to draw a line. From here, I use the same center-zero ruler to make sure the dots are in the middle between each fret. Once I’ve got a pencil marking I use a punch to use as a drill guide.

Because the fretboard is already radiused, these holes do not need to be very deep. I leave about half of the inlay material proud of the slot. I use a thin CA glue for each dot and wait for the glue to dry. I’ll get accelerator spray at some point.

I used the same radius block with the 10” - 14” compound radius to bring the markers down flush to the fret board.

The process for creating the side dots is very similar to the fretboard dots. This is done with white 1/16” diameter ABS plastic.

Using the same center-zero ruler, I figure out the center between each fret slot and punch the pencil marking. Using a 1/16” bit, I drill a hole that is probably 1/8” deep (I’m not too careful to measure this, it would be difficult to go too far). I put a drop of CA glue in the hole, put in the dot and trim to rough length. Once dry I use a chisel and carefully remove the excess before cleaning up with sandpaper.

At this point the fret board has mostly come together!

Carving the Neck

This part of the neck construction is by far the most nerve wracking part. The neck at this stage has a significant amount of time and materials invested into it, blowing the whole thing here is not something I look forward to doing. I can happily say that the carving process has gone better than expected every time.

I start by sketching out the headstock transition around the nut / 1st fret area and the heel. Then, (and this is the important part) find the center line and establish it with a thick pencil line. From here, I measure out 5mm on either side at the 1st fret and 10mm at the 12th fret, then connect these dots with another line. This establishes the widening of the neck shape. The last line is on each side of the neck, just below the fretboard. I don’t have a common measurement I use for this because it’ll depend on fretboard thickness, etc.

It’s at this point I get out almost every abrasive tool in my shop. Throughout this process I’ll transition between a saw rasp, various files, a Ferrier’s rasp, a spoke shave, a carving knife and various grits of sandpaper.

Starting with the saw rasp, I establish the facet between the outer angled lines and the line along the side. Then with a spoke shave, I connect these two cuts until the whole neck is roughly the same shape. At this point I transition to heavy files and continue to round over the remaining straight lines.

I use a carving knife at the headstock transition. This is still an area of improvement for me, the steep transition isn’t easy to achieve but I think it came out alright.

I recommend getting a set of neck shape profiles to use as a reference. Pickup the neck regularly and feel it in the hand. The end result of this process gets me somewhere around a thick C shape neck.

Fretting the Neck

After struggling with hammering in frets by hand, I’ve started using an arbor press with radius cauls that match the fretboard radius. These needed to be changed from a 10 to a 14 as I worked down the neck. I’ve been using StewMac’s Medium/High fret wire for the last several builds and have been happy with it so far.

Once the frets are nice and snug, I trim the edges with a fret end cutter and use a file to flush the frets up with the fretboard. Because my fret slots were cut a bit too deep, I filed under the frets with Pau Ferro dust I’ve kept during sanding. Mixing this with a little thin CA glue is perfect for filling the gaps.

Finishing the Frets

If there is anywhere to spend extra time, it’s on the frets. The work here will directly translate to how the guitar plays in the end.

I start by masking the entire fretboard with masking tape, I’ve also used painters tape for this. Then, I draw a thin line with a permanent marker on the top of each fret to make sure I hit them all. A 16” straightedge with a fairly smooth grit sandpaper on one side is used until all of the black sharpie is gone. Once that is done, I check every fret with a fret rocker to ensure there’s not a stray high or low fret.

Now, the flat top needs to be rounded back over. I do this with a StewMac Z-File, but can absolutely be done by hand with enough precision. This file leaves an incredibly thin line on top of each fret that I break with some sandpaper. With a well placed light, this is pretty easy to see when the line disappears.

Finally, to build up a mirror-like finish I run through grits of fret erasers and finish with a Dremel with a polishing bit. This gets fairly close to the finish I always hope for, but I feel that there’s still room to polish them further.

Finishing the Neck

I started the neck finishing work by working up to about 400 grit sandpaper.

For this build, I decided to do more with branding the headstock. I used a plotter to cut adhesive vinyl of the logo as well as the serial number. This stuck to the wood pretty well! In the future I may explore cutting templates in order to foil the headstock.

I started using Tru-Oil in the last build and was happy with the results. I did the same thing here, working up a dozen or so coats over the entire neck and headstock. There is still a lip between the neck and the vinyl, but it seems to be buried beneath the oil fairly well. I’ve found that using a high grit sandpaper to apply the oil works well.

Once cured, I use 0000 steel wool to break the finish on the neck where your fretting hand would be placed. This leaves a silky smooth finish on the back of the neck. I don’t have any plans to use anything except Tru-Oil in the future.

Routing the Body

Now that the hardest part is behind me, it’s time to move onto the body.

I started with a 8/4 piece of what I believe is basswood. This rough board was not wide enough for a two piece body, so it meant a bit of jointing and arranging was required to find a combination for a three piece body. This board had a fair amount of knots, but I wasn’t too concerned with it as I’d be painting it with an opaque color later.

Once the parts were glued and dry, I planed the boards down to remove excess glue. I also took this time to fill the knots with wood filler. I’m not sure if this is the correct approach to this or if an epoxy resin would be better. Regardless, I used what I had on me at the time, I’m doubtful it will affect the end result.

I traced out my body line and headed to the bandsaw to remove the bulk of the waste material. I used a StewMac stratocaster template for the remainder of this process. Once the body is close to the correct shape, I re-apply the template and use a flush-trim bit to get the body down to the final shape.

With the template still attached, I hollowed out most of the cavities with a few different Forstner bits. Using the router and another flush trim bit I took a few passes to reach the final depth and shape of the cavities. I followed this same process for the rear tremolo cavity.

This was my first time working with basswood. The entire routing process was so much easier than working with a harder wood like mahogany. I’ll definitely try to use this wood for future bodies that don’t depend on wood grain patterns.

Body Shaping

The last step established the general body shape, but to make a true stratocaster you need the body contours.

I started with 3/8” round-over router bit and went around both the top and bottom edges. When I got close to the neck pocket, I stepped the router bit down to a 1/4” to leave enough room for the neck plate. As you can see in the first picture, the bit went about 1/8” too deep and left a ledge all the way around the guitar. This was fairly easy to address with some filing and sanding.

Next was the signature lower body carve that stretches from the bottom left corner all the way up towards the bridge. I aimed to bring down the body to half the thickness by the time I reached the side. I decided to use a small block plane for this job and I think it worked pretty well with the basswood. This was finished up with a sanding block and 80 grit paper to get rid of the plane marks.

The back belly carve was carved in with a few different rasps and files.

Prepping for Paint

Clearly this block of basswood included a sizeable knot in the front. I’ve seen knots filled with epoxy resin, but decided to use regular wood filler for this. I assume that epoxy will give a flatter finish, but since this area would be covered by a pickguard I didn’t see it as too big of a deal. Wood filler was also all I had. Once the wood filler was dry, I worked the body through sandpaper grits up to about 320.

I then put a few coats of sanding sealer in order to try to fill some small pores in the wood. This was also knocked down with 320 grit paper once dry.

Because I was planning for an opaque finish, I felt that a few coats of white primer was necessary in order to get good color coverage on the body. I ended up working through 3 or 4 coats of primer with light sanding in between.

The Paint

This guitar is the second time I’ve tried to spray lacquer, see S/N 21.002. The end goal was a high gloss cherry red finish. To do this I used Watco glossy lacquer with a few drops of cherry red ColorTone Liquid Stain.

I filled up the HVLP spray gun and immediately ran into an issue with a clogged nozzle. Not wanting to troubleshoot a spray gun, I decided to try brushing the lacquer instead. This went from bad to worse, the lacquer immediately reacted with the primer base coat and turned the guitar into a pink smeary mess. Over the course of a few days I added more coats of this lacquer before eventually accepting the fact that brushing the lacquer wouldn’t get me the finish I wanted.

The Paint, Part 2

Accepting my loss with the lacquer, I knew I had to change plans to something far easier to apply.

I ended up with a small can of Rust-Oleum gloss apple red latex paint. I brushed this on in long, smooth strokes and made sure to not build up paint along the edges. After 3 or 4 coats of this (with about 2 hours in between) I knocked down the brush strokes with wet 1500 grit paper. The end result was fairly close to what I had hoped for and it was much easier to work with than lacquer. I think this latex paint needs a clear coat on top, it may be a future project.

Wiring

While waiting for paint to try, I started on the pickup wiring. Thankfully, most of this can be done out of the guitar due to the design of the pickup channels in the body.

This has always been quite a long process for me, most of the issues came with getting solder to stick to the back of the potentiometers. This time, I hit the back of each potentiometer with 220 grit sandpaper to break the smooth finish on them, this helped a lot with getting solder to stick.

Wrapping Up

For the first time, I finally got to see the pieces come together.

I started by putting the neck on and drilled holes for the screws. Then, moved onto the pickguard and drilled the 11 holes to keep it in place.

The last big part was the bridge, this is always a stressful bit because it’s the last chance to make sure the strings will sit straight on the neck. I positioned the bridge was close as possible, then used a long straight edge to see where the edges of the neck hit the bridge and got both sides symmetrical.

It’s finally starting to look like a guitar!

Final Setup

The last step before playing the guitar for the first time is the nut.

I start with a 1/8” bone blank, trim to size and begin removing material from the top until it’s closer to the end height. Using a string spacing ruler, I figure out where all strings will sit and then file in the slots with various thickness files. This is a slow process, over the course of a few hours I get the nut slots to their final height. I do this by bringing the strings up to tension and fretting the second fret. The distance between the string and the first fret should be as slim as possible.

The true last step: drilling and attaching the string tree for the high B and E strings.

If you’ve made it this far in the build process, thank you! If you have any questions or suggestions about the build process, please reach out!

Lucas Childers
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