1979 Fender Stratocaster Restoration: From Parts Box to Player
This 1979 Fender Stratocaster restoration started with a Reverb listing for a ‘husk’ — an ash body, a neck, and a bag of parts. No guarantees, no history, no idea what I’d really be getting until the box shows up.
I bought it anyway 😂
What I Got
The body is lightweight ash (~3 lbs), which is unusually light for a 70s Strat. Someone had already started stripping the polyurethane finish, and the body had been routed out with what’s known as a “swimming pool route“, meaning the entire center cavity was cleared out rather than individual pickup cavities. That actually worked in my favor: less weight, and no routing work needed on my end.
The neck had been sanded down but still had chips around the fretboard, and the fret slots needed deepening. The Fender decal was still intact on the headstock, which was important to preserve.
The parts bag was light: six Schaller tuners marked “Made in West Germany”, a three-bolt neck plate, and a jack plate.
The Neck Pocket Problem
The neck pocket had a gap of at least 1/16th of an inch all the way around (probably closer to 1/8th!). With the three-bolt neck plate tightened down as much as it would go, I could still physically move the neck. That’s not a setup problem. That’s a manufacturing problem.
The fix: glue maple shims into the pocket walls, let them dry fully, then trim them down until the neck fit snugly. I used a makeshift sanding block with adhesive-back sandpaper to true up the faces before gluing, marking the surfaces with pencil so I could see when everything was on the same plane.
After everything dried and was trimmed, the neck fit snugly enough that I could lift the whole guitar by the body and the neck would stay in place on its own. Given that this was done in winter (when the wood is at its driest/smallest) — I deliberately left just enough room for seasonal expansion. A pocket that’s perfect in December can crack in July if you leave it too tight.
Stripping the Finish
The previous owner had made a start at stripping the poly finish, but there was a lot left. I tried a drum sander first, then a heat gun — the heat gun flaked off big chunks quickly, but the smell was awful. I ended up switching to an orbital sander with 40 grit, which turned out to be faster than the heat gun and didn’t fill the shop with chemical fumes. The whole body took about 30 minutes.
The same approach worked on the neck. At 40 grit, the poly finish almost bubbles up and looks like snow as you go over it — you can clearly see where you’ve gotten down to bare wood versus where finish remains. I sanded only the areas the player’s hand would actually touch, leaving the decal coating intact on the headstock face.
The Neck
With the finish stripped, I re-radiused the fretboard from the original 7.25 inches to 12 inches using a radius sanding block. That is more a matter of available tooling than strong preference, but I do find a flatter radius plays better for my hands. I deepened the fret slots, refretted the neck, then sprayed it with lacquer using a Preval sprayer system.
For color, I added a small amount of brown dye to the lacquer to give the raw maple a vintage-tinted hue rather than leaving it stark white. A little goes a long way — even a small amount turns the mix quite yellow when shaken, but it settles into a warm amber tone on the wood.
Finishing the Body
After sanding the body through 60, 150, 220, and 320 grit to remove all the sanding scratches, I sprayed the body with lacquer — also using the Preval system.
Here’s where I’ll be honest: the Preval system left significant orange peel on the finish. The atomization just isn’t fine enough to lay down a smooth coat. I’ve since read that this is a common complaint with propellant-based spray systems.
Show Image The lacquer sunk into the ash grain beautifully — one of the best things about finishing an ash body.
Show Image The orange peel was significant enough that it almost looked intentional — like vinyl or leather texture. Fixing it required wet sanding and buffing.
The saving grace: the lacquer sunk into the open ash grain in a way that looked genuinely great, and the buffing process — using car polishing compound — knocked down most of the orange peel. Where it remained, I wet sanded starting at 800 grit, working up through 1000 and 1200, then buffed again to blend the wet-sanded areas back to a consistent sheen. On the neck, the orange peel was bad enough that I dropped to 400 grit before working back up.
The result is a semi-gloss finish that I actually ended up liking. From a distance it looks really clean, and the ash grain showing through the lacquer is exactly what I was after.
Assembly
I found a complete, pre-loaded 1979 Stratocaster pickguard on Reverb — serial numbers only a few apart from the body, which felt like it was meant to be. Coming pre-wired saved a significant amount of time; I only needed to connect the output wires to the jack.
The pickguard did reveal one mystery: a chunk of wood missing from the body near the lower bout that the guard doesn’t quite cover. No idea if it’s a factory anomaly or something that happened over the guitar’s life. It’s part of the story now.
I made a bone nut, installed the tuners and string trees, soldered the ground wire, and plugged new strap button holes after filling the originals during the refinish.
How the Stratocaster Restoration Turned Out
For a guitar that showed up as a box of parts with a sixteenth-inch gap around the neck pocket, this turned out well. The neck joint is solid, the ash grain pops through the lacquer, and the 70s single coils sound exactly like you’d want them to.
The orange peel is still there if you look for it — close up on the back it’s visible, and depending on your taste that might bother you or it might not. I’ve come to think of it as consistent with the guitar’s era. These weren’t precision instruments from the factory. Why should the restoration be?
I ended up selling it, but not before letting it hang in the shop for a while first.
See the Full Build
The complete restoration process is documented on the Zwitch Guitars YouTube channel.
Questions about Strat restoration or vintage guitar refinishing? Leave a comment on the video or get in touch through the contact page.
