Originally Posted by: jedft#1 I have decided to upgrade the hardware on my strat. I got a new bridge (hard tail), new pick guard, strap locks, and all new screws for everything. I can already tell that most of the screw holes in the body are pretty worn out and I would like to fill them with something and re-drill them. Any suggestions what to use? It will have to be strong enough so the new screws don't strip it right out.

#2 Since I'm giving it a makeover I'm going to have a local artist paint it for me. I don't want to pay him to strip the old paint off though, so I'm doing that part myself. Any suggestions on products to use for this? Sanding would take forever and probably deform it more than I would like, but I don't want to ruin the wood with the wrong chemical either. I may decide not to do this if it's going to be too much work, or possibly damage it.

Thanks!

Despite what others may say about the mess and difficulty of stripping a guitar, it is a very gratifying experience and makes the project really yours and not that hard. I've recently stripped a poly finish on a Strat - started with chemical stripper, moved to a careful scrape, and then sanded and sanded through clear, black paint, primer, sunburst (???), and then the sealer, which was a urethane of some origin and the toughest to remove. I'm at the 220 sanding now and it looks like a really great piece of alder (3 pcs actually). I'm converting from a trem to a hardtail by filling the trem cavity with wood (I've worked with wood and this is the easy part), and I'll seal, prime, and paint (lighter color TBD) with a nice clear topcoat to polish to a high gloss. Changing the neck is a cinch. I'm proceeding slowly to ensure that I'll get satisfying results, but at the same time can't wait to see how it looks when finished. I get tired of reading people who say," just block it, add springs, and tighten the claw screws. The tone of a true, through-body hardtail is vastly different from that of a blocked trem simply because wood is different than metal and they carry sound waves differently. One vote for filling screw holes with sawdust and carpenter's glue (yellow not white) - it is indeed more stable than the original wood. Just make sure that the glue around the hole is sanded away or the finish will look sloppy under the paint, but sanded glue and a little sawdust will act as a wood filler and provide a solid base for primer and paint. Pride in workmanship is about 80% of why we take on these projects, isn't it?