Meet Delilah.

Quel received this Squire Stratocaster that has a tragic history. She was given as a gift to a young kid somewhere on the east coast, whoever he was he left the guitar with his high school band class. Some other kid stole it from band class, sanded of the front of it and spray painted it gold. Then he put a coat of deck lacquer on it. When the original owner (Quel's friend) hunted the thief down and got it back he tried to get most of the gold paint off but pretty much gave on it. After years he finally gave the strat to Quel. It was so ugly I couldn't deal with it for the first month I had it. It took me three weeks to get the paint and deck lacquer off of it. I didn't get any pictures of until the paint was off, nobody wants to see that.

I used many methods to try removing the paint and lacquer. I tried lacquer thinner and a then heat gun but I had to just sand it. I left some specks of red and white here and there. Now they make her look kind sexy instead of like a total freak, poor girl.

I hammered a bent piece of guitar string underneath where the bridge lays, the other end of the guitar string will be soldered to the tremolo harness (this is how it was when I took it apart so I'm not sure why). 

I had never installed on of these before. It was easy and fun. I'm all about the buckles and straps. 

 

You can the burn marks on her from a fire that came about accidently while using lacquer thinner and not paying attention. It looks good so I'll just say I did it on purpose.

I spent a good six hours trying to learn how to solder and wire this thing properly but I had to give up and take her to Gary Brawer Stringed Instrument Repair where Gary, Tim and Trevor helped me out the rest of the way. Those guys are are so good it freaks me out at times.

We took the scenic route to Gary's.

They got her all figured out and now she's quite the looker. Delilah and her second chance, ugliness to total beauty, good luck there in the world of rocking Delilah, The Quel will take good care of you.

Delilah and I talked all night about what she should expect out there and what her new job will be. She's well equipped and has all the know how. Good luck to you Delilah.