strat body finish

[tt0511]

Ok, I previously bought a nice 70's reissue strat. I had a guy convert it from the factory blonde color scheme to two-tone burst, and tint and relic it and think he totally ruined it. So I bought a Warmoth neck and put on there recently and WoW! It rocks! The tone is phenomenal, ...10 times better than the original! I have come to the conclusion that this must be because the neck is unfinished. I applied Tung Oil since that's also what I had on another custom guitar.

...soooo, now I'm thinking of stripping the body down and just oiling it as well. But, I've never done that and don't know if this is a bad idea. I'm wondering if that would make a tonal difference too, but mostly I just want it to look decent again and match the new neck which is a lighter color, ...birdseye maple not vintage tinted. The guitar just doesn't look right (as I expected) with the aged body and the new neck. The current finish on the body is nitro and it's pretty thin. I was considering getting the body painted and cleared, but now I'm curious about oiling it.

Opinions? Experience?

[ibanezcollector]

How bad is the relic? any pics it may be fixable.. I do relic work. And might be able to help you out.

Oiling a body isnt a bad thing, UNLESS its a 3 to 4 piece body, then its going to look funky.. Very funky

Again pics needed and maybe I can help more.

[ryanb]

What wood and how many pieces is the body? Most Fender bodies aren't going to look very good stripped and oiled.

If this were a heavy poly finish, you MIGHT be able to tell a difference in tone switching to an oil finish. But with a THIN nitro finish on there now, I seriously doubt you will really be able to hear the difference switching to an oil finish. I wouldn't refinish it for that reason alone. But if you want to do it for the cosmetic reasons, then by all means go ahead.

[tt0511]

Cool. Thanks for the input. The body is a 3 piece I think, and it is Ash. It was originally like this except with a maple fingerboard:


So I'm not sure it would look "real bad" by being 3 pieces but it certainly wouldn't look like a one or two piece. The relic work isn't good, isn't to my liking, ...but what's worse is the two tone burst. The colors of it are right on, but the black band where it fades in is not a fade but a bunch of sprinkles. It has to be stripped or painted.

I'm not willing to post pics just because I don't want to start anything with the guy who did it if he visits here or has friends who do who would recognize it. He has the axe on his website and it looks decent to the untrained eye from the distance he took the photos. I went through quite an ordeal with the guy and I don't want to get anything started again. I just want my strat to be nice. A friend of mine had RS Guitarworks do his telecaster in Road Dawg Relic and it kills! It really shows just how shady/shoddy the work I got was. Anyway,...

It sounds like I will be better off painting it then. I like the Fender Special Light Ash strat shown below. I got the birdseye maple neck with abalone dots based on this guitar. I think it's a fine looking strat. Maybe I should just go ahead and reproduce the color scheme all the way. Was hoping to save some money and not pay someone to paint and clear the body though.