Finding a 8-hole 3-ply mint/black/mint pickguard which isn’t garishly green turned out to be harder than I thought. Although the Fender OEM ones have a nice colour, their ‘59 reissue pickguard uses the rather uncommon 10-hole pattern and would not work with an 8-hole body. GFS mint green is also reasonably subtle but they only have an 11-hole version.

With a suitable neck and body acquired, it’s time to start adding some hardware to them. The most important parts of course are the tuning machines and the bridge as together they hold both ends of each of the six strings. Poorly fitting parts or loose tolerances can drive a player mad if the guitar constantly wanders out of tune or doesn’t intonate properly.

1959 was a strange year for Stratocasters as Fender gradually transitioned the fretboards from maple to rosewood, pickguards from 1-ply to 3-ply and the drilling pattern from 8-hole to 11-hole. According to various sources, pretty much any combination of those three could’ve happened during the summer as Fender was putting guitars together from whatever parts they had in stock at the time.