A Gothic Tribute to a Reclaimed Guitar

A Guitar with a Story

It was no common instrument that lay before me, but a thing wrought with history, steeped in shadows of forgotten rooms and the silent witness of passing years. The Mahogany Stratocaster, born of Rat Bait Guitars in the misted lands of England, stood not merely as a tool for music, but as a testament to reclamation—an artefact carved from the remnants of another age.

Its body, fashioned from salvaged mahogany, bore scars of time, yet was healed with pine reclaimed from a humble kitchen cupboard of the 1970s. Thus, the guitar carried within its frame the whispers of domestic life, now transfigured into an object of rebellion and song. No factory-born instrument could hope to rival the individuality etched into its very fibres.

This guitar is no mere possession. It is a companion for those who seek authenticity, who crave soul and rebellion. On stage it gleams like a weapon of defiance; upon the wall it hangs like a relic of some forgotten rite.

Construction & Materials

• Body: Stratocaster in form, its finish reliced with subtle hand, sealed beneath tinted nitrocellulose that lent it the aura of antiquity.

• Weight: At 1.85 kilograms, it rested with a balance both substantial and comfortable, neither burden nor trifle.

• Neck: Maple, crowned with a rosewood-like fretboard, twenty-one frets stretched across a scale of 25.5 inches, the nut a precise 42 mm.

• Hardware: New machine heads gleamed like watchful eyes, a tremolo bridge complete with arm, and strap buttons affixed as though awaiting the embrace of a wandering minstrel.

• Electronics: Three single-coil pickups—descendants of early 2000s Squier lineage—were set beneath a selector of five ways, guarded by a reclaimed triple-ply scratchplate, itself a relic reborn.

This strange marriage of the new and the reclaimed lent the guitar both reliability and character, while its reliced visage gave it the appearance of something unearthed from a crypt of sound.

Sustainability Meets Style

Rat Bait Guitars, with their creed of reclamation and rebellion, stand as defiant voices against the hollow march of disposable culture. Each instrument is a resurrection, a defiance, a cry against the silence of conformity. The mahogany and pine, bound with aged components, form not merely a guitar but a talisman—an object conscious of its own rawness, its own truth.

Playability & Appeal

• Right-handed in design, yet compatible with the familiar Stratocaster form.

• Its routing, adaptable to HSH, presently fitted with SSS pickups, grants a voice versatile and untamed.

• The relic finish renders it as much a work of art as an instrument of sound.

• A gig bag accompanies it, as though preparing the traveller for journeys yet unknown.

Final Thoughts

The Rat Bait Stratocaster is not perfection—it is something far greater. It is history reclaimed, rebellion carved into wood, and soul strung upon wire. To hold it is to hold a manifesto, a declaration against the hollow and the mass-produced. It is an instrument of memory, of defiance, of music that lingers long after the last note fades into silence.