AxeWarrior.com is a US based charity offering support to veterans and personnel who serve our country.
We create and customize guitars into "one of a kind", fully functional works of art with designs related to military, police, EMS and other "Warriors" who help, support and keep American citizens safe.
We purchase carefully used electric, bass and acoustic guitars and skin them with beautiful, artistic designed, premium vinyl and offer them for sale to the public. We fix and/or upgrade the hardware and offer these instruments for sale and/or auction.
All profits from these sales are donated to a military charity or other supporting group to help them continue and expand their efforts in providing comfort and help to the many men and woman who do, and have previously served our country.
Welcome to our first charity guitar from AxeWarrior.com. Allow me to briefly explain the process. Each blog post will include one of the following titles related to the step detailed in that particular blog post. In this case…that step for our 2016 FDNY Guitar is PREPARATION.
PREPARATION
We select a guitar for the specific project and upgrade the instrument to our quality specifications.
SKINNING
We create a graphic design and skin the guitar.
AUCTION
We place the guitar up for auction on Ebay.com
CONTRIBUTION
We donate all profits/proceeds to a related “Warrior” charity.
Randy G., our luthier chose a Starcaster guitar by Fender as our first project instrument. It was in great condition and the factory specifications are extremely close to an American Fender Stratocaster.
Randy purchased the guitar, took it home and made it…well…AWESOME. One critical upgrade was painting the edges flat black and lacquer to match the upcoming guitar skin application.
Randy’s Complete Overview
Started as a 2002 HIGH quality, Chinese Fender Stratocaster copy. (Indonesia, China, and S. Korea, made some very good quality, licensed reproduction, guitars...steer clear of any Japanese, and most Mexican copies....but to be fair, Mexico is producing better quality reproduction guitars as of late).
This guitar was completely disassembled and thoroughly cleaned (down to and including each screw head)!
I checked the neck for straightness and adjusted the Truss Rod as needed for proper neck relief. The scale length of the guitar is 25 1/2". The neck is Solid maple with a Rosewood finger board, and contains a 2 way Truss Rod. I checked each of the 21 jumbo frets for proper fit and crowned each fret (for proper intonation up and down the fret board). I dressed the ends of each fret (using the same secret angle as Paul Reed Smith, for comfort), and then micro leveled all the frets. I then removed all file marks with 1000 grit sandpaper, and buffed the frets with rubbing compound and silver polish. I cleaned and conditioned the Rosewood finger board and finally rechecked the neck for straightness. The Original tuners were changed to ??????? , due to the O.E.M tuners being slightly loose and, in my opinion, not providing a suitable and stable, tuning platform. The neck is a 4 screw bolt on neck, with a brand new Fender backing plate and new screws. The nut width is 42mm, and the neck is a thin "C" shape which is very comfortable (unlike the '63 reissue, which had a fat "D" shaped neck). The neck attaching screws slide through the body as you would expect in a 'US made" Stratocaster (hint: this is one way to spot a CHEAP imitation; if you have to twist the screws through the body, then into the neck...RUN!! Because it is a CHEAPLY made fake). The neck is non-lacquered and provides a smooth fast playing surface.
The dimensions of the body are almost exactly the same as a "Fender Custom Shop" US made guitar (from the Corona, California shop). The body is constructed from 3 pieces of maple wood, and was originally Gloss Red. I taped off the front and back of the body, hand sanded the lacquered edge and repainted (and lacquered) the edge Satin Black to better match our vinyl’s theme. I applied 3 coats of Satin black and 4 coats of Satin Lacquer (which added approximately 4 mils of thickness). I lined all the pickup, electronics, and back tremolo spring cavities with copper tape, then checked for continuity between all cavities (this shielding will greatly reduce the hum from the single coil pickups, as all the cavities are now grounded together, to the spring claw, and to the electronics ground). The volume and tone potentiometers are original and do not have any exterior markings; but they are all "Audio-Taper" and 500k ohms, they have a smooth feel when turning, they produce no noise when turning, and are perfectly soldiered (I suspect them to be "Alpha" brand potentiometers, as they were commonly used). The 5-way blade switch (for pickup selection) is also original to the guitar. It also has no branding; but the switch has nice positive engagement into each position, and produces no static or signal loss when moved into any of the 5 different positions. The potentiometers and the 5-way blade switch are the only electrical items that differ from a US made Fender Stratocaster. The original pickups were replaced with 3 NEW "Hot Gold" brand pickups. The neck pickup is rated at 6.0k. The middle pickup is also rated at 6.0k. The bridge is hotter (more powerful) and rated at 13.2k (for harder rock and searing solos). These pickups use upgraded Barium Ferrite magnets. The bridge is a new standard Stratocaster type tremolo bridge with 3 tension springs. I have replaced the strings with "DR" brand, High Definition White coated .009-.042 gauge strings. These strings last much longer then standard strings, and have the added appeal of glowing under black light.
Finally the front, back, and front of the headstock, were wrapped with a new revolutionary vinyl material. The front vinyl has the image of a New York Fire Engine, taken at ground zero after the 9/11 Terrorist Attack on the World Trade Center Towers. The back vinyl has the graphic image of the New York skyline (at night) with the 2 Memorial Lights, and the names of the fallen Firemen (WARRIORS), who fought to rescue people from the devastation. We will never forget you and the sacrifice you made for your fellow Americans!
We are still awaiting the new tuners for installation and will update this post when received and installed.
Summary
AxeWarrior.com is a US based charity offering support to veterans and personnel who serve our country.
Please visit us at AxeWarrior.com for more information and look forward to our SKINNING post coming very soon!
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