NOT a Fender, an SX Stratocaster in Sonic Blue

This guitar started its life as a 3 tone sunburst. I am not sure where it was made. i purchased it second hand in June 2024. I needed it to learn how to paint guitars.

It is a heavy, very resonant instrument. Everything is stock except for an output jack and pickuard and backplate. They are from a squier classic vibe.

This guitar was painted twice. Both times sonic blue was a colour of choice. I messed up the first time. The job was very acceptable the second time. The reason why headstock is painted it had this blemish on the wood which didnt look very appealing. On top of that i think that matching headstock looks rather rad.

The neck: fretboard is rosewood. Headstock is the older version, the better one, looking more like a fender than like a fishook. The neck was very orangy m, lacquered and not appealing to me neither visually nor was nice to play. I sanded it down, both back of it and headstock. It was then oiled with linseed, didnt smell good for a very long time i must admit. It is now smooth, not sticky, and has no smell, thank god.

Body: it was very easy to sand down. Afterwards it sealed, primed and painted with Dartfords Nitrocellulose Sonic Blue Spray paint. Then i decided to put clear nitro lacquer over it. Big mistake. Lacquer was applied with brush. It was messy. Dripped everywhere and caused discolouration. The whole paint job was a disaster as a result. So I did it again. Sand down, nitro primer, nitro paint (2 cans this time), no lacquer. Buffing by hand. After that i was confident to paint another guitar and the result was phenomenal.

The body is hand routed for a humbucker at bridge.

The headstock has a clear coat on it to 'melt in' the decal. The decal is kind of visible but not palpable. Lots of coats of cheap woodies clear lacquer over it.

This guitar is very playable. It is resonant and loud acoustically. I find pickups its weakes point. Im not a fan of tuners neither.

SInce I learned what I wanted to learn and I have better guitars to play, the time has come to let an sx go.

UPDATE i realized volume pot was damaged so i now replaced it with a full size one. I also made a tone pot work on bridge pickup. I cant find volume and tone knobs :/

Strings are 2 weeks old. Daddario 10-46

UPDATE/UPGRADE just installed a graph tech tusq nut which i had lying around. This immediately improved tuning stability.

Collection only please