70's Strat Copy (again)

[spacewhale]

About 3 years ago I bought an unidentified Strat copy from the 'Bay for about £60. It was a bit of a leap of faith as, while I could tell it was genuinely old, it could have been completely rubbish and a waste of money. Given the low value I thought it was worth a go. It was a heavy, natural finish Strat copy with a maple capped neck and big loose grain headstock. It was complete, which was the best part, but the worst part was the fact that the whole thing had been assembled so badly that it was completely crooked. The neck met the pocket at an angle and, rather than correcting this, the hardtail bridge was aligned with the neck centreline and therefore the pickguard was completely off as well.

...But I plugged it in anyway...and it sounded absolutely brilliant. I think the sheer mass of the body, coupled with the hardtail bridge was the main reason for the tonal goodness.

I spent a week or so over the holidays rebuilding it. I reset the neck and repositioned the bridge accordingly, which also meant the wonky pickguard could be fixed. Then, I sold it because I just didn't feel the need to keep it at the time.

Now I've found another of these curiosities and placed a pretty pathetic bid on it just for fun. Turns out that was enough and now I once again have the same model of early 70's Strat copy.

My research has identified this as a Kay K-32:

[MattK]

Looks like fun! That's a truly horrid body finish but a nice coat of black would take you into maple/black-on-black territory, the best 70s look in my humble.

[Keegan]

Hardtail strat

[username]

I'm not a big fan of Starts, but that's very very very cool!!!

[newdawnfades]

yeah finishes are better

[Con-Tiki!]

if you ever see an Aspen strat, grab it. the necks are narrow, but the bodies are really nice. I had a fantastic ash-bodied one with a perfect cbs headstock.
sold it in a moment of weakness...

[spacewhale]

yeh? The neck on this thing is really narrow too. Like, 52mm or something. I have a nice rosewood pre-CBS headstock strat neck I'm thinking of putting on it- and I have a new hardtail bridge. Onlly prob is that the new neck is 57mm at the heel and the bridge is wider too. Working out the best way to rout the pocket to fit the neck.

I opened it up the other day - don't think it had been opened since it was made. It's clean inside, but the input jack has corroded a bit so there's no output. Pickups and pots seem to work ok according to the meter.

Am debating what to do as I'm ot the world's greatest woodworker - but this could be a good learning project that is not too big a deal if I screw it up.

The body is heavy!
P

[b bender]

hi Guys
just signed up to add a bit to this thread, dont know whats gone on since but just purchased one of these for the princely sum of £20...looked in good nick but only 1 string..

got it home and plugged it in all the electrics are great but here is the story.

tried to restring it but could not get the last 3 (unwound) strings in thru the body so i took the tailpiece off and it had been put on in the wrong place i think the scratchplate is a bit askew as well, like i said the only hole for the tailpiece are the original ones ...
so this had never had a another set of strings on from when the first set broke well the unwound ones anyway..now strange is that..just ordered a new Fender hardtail i will see how it goes,i will put some pics up when i have 5 mins

[Johno99]

Recently bought a K32 off the Bay, identical to the one in the photo. Paid £80 for it and am well pleased.
It was dirty, a bit rusty and needed some TLC. The frets were dirty and poorly finished, the tone pots
were dead as the Dodo and the strings were knackered.
So I have polished and dressed the frets, replaced the pots with CTSs and rewired using a standard strat wiring
with no tone to the bridge pickup, cleaned the pole pieces and replaced the 5 way switch, reset the neck relief
and the intonation.
The result is a very playable guitar for £100 all in.
It's not a genuine strat and never will be, but it ain't bad for 45 years old. I believe it dates from around 1970,
but the serial number sticker is long gone. Do they have a serial number anywhere else?
By the by I saw exactly the same guitar on a US "museum" website for sale for $1950!!!...hummm!!

Cheers

Johno, Haslemere, England

[b bender]

I assume that your K32 google search brought you to here.......so did mine...stick around its a good place with nice helpful people.
only serial on mine is a sticker ..still nave it BTW

[aonghus]

Bought one of these recently. Great sounding guitar but needs a refinish. The previous owner had painted some black patterns on it that weren't to my taste. I stripped them off but there are still tiny bits of black paint stuck deep in the wood grain.

I wonder how much of a problem it would be to leave these tiny black fragments in? Would these bits get covered up, or would they show in the final finish? The neck is like this as well. Would have to sand quite deep to get all these little bits out, don't really want to change the whole feel of the guitar. First refinish project so not sure.

[MattK]

Great revive! Re the black spots, you should probably say what colour refinish you are thinking of.

[aonghus]

I had a couple of options in mind. Possibly some sort of amber natural finish or Olympic White. I don't really want to do the body in black as I have a couple of black guitars already.

This shows an area where I scraped off the black paint, with black spots still stuck in the grain:



The neck is like this as well. I took the black paint off the headstock but haven't taken it off the back of the neck yet.