Got the case from musician's friend for $50 and it arrived earlier this week. Then last month while browsing GC's used gear, found a particular Strat in the $499 range. Jumped all over that and slapped it in lay-away through my nearest GC. Finally paid it off last week and had it shipped from Winter Park, Florida to the local GC. It showed up Thursday and picked it up yesterday. Holy Grail 1 of 2 achieved! The Fender HM Strat!
Cream, Kahler Spyder, Single Super 3, and original F knobs! Haven't plugged it in yet, ut the neck feels great! Got a set of Elixir Nanoweb 11-49s to put on. I'll get post clean up pics a.s.a.p.
Thanks! Finally in the club now! Went and grabbed my cleaning stuff from storage and its getting cleaned tonight! For being 20+ years old, its only got a few dents, no chipping.
I use to play my HM with 11-52´s standard tuning for around 10 years with no problems. I recently dropped the tension to get some Floyd manoeuvring.
This beast is a keeper. Greg Howe rock your socks off
I've been backing off on the heavy gauges for my Floyds lately. I used to go 11-52s, 11-54s, 10-52s, and 12-56s(replacing the 56 with a 64). I've been preferring 10s-upper 40s on my floaters now a days, but still use a heavy gauge for my T-O-Ms.
Big thanks again! I got the balance set, just in the process of setting the intonation. Number 2 is an 82 Gibson, but I'm probably going to shoot for a h,s,s HM first.
In case you didn't know already, compared to the usual suspects, the HM's scale length is half an inch shorter and the fretboard radius is 17". The pull-up route under the tremolo is pretty shallow so with 11s you could set it up for stupidly low action.
