On my bench Sunday

[Chris Pile]

1986 Fender Strat - made in Japan. This thing has been gigged to a nub, and it smells like a thousand bars. The string were black, the frets were green and there is not much left of them. The whole thing was filthy. I think the factory color was white.

Did a complete fret level, polished the whole axe, and set it up from scratch with 10's. Shimmed the blocked whammy a little tighter per clients request. Once I had the action where I liked it - with almost no rattle on the wound strings - I plugged into the Marshall. The mojo nearly knocked me down! With both single coils on the chime is bright and sparkling. The Duncan Hot Rails is 3 times as loud, and 3 times as ballsy. This beastie is incredible. You could lay down blues or rock with ease on this, it sounds and plays so good. My client will be thrilled, I'm sure. But today - it's mine.

 

[Mincer]

Holy crap...that was white?!!

 

[ErikH]

Look at all those layers of nicotine. Those 80's Japanese Strats are fantastic. They had to be.

 

[Chistopher]

Interesting how different an actually worn in guitar looks from a reliced one. I bet that's seen tons.

 

[Demanic]

Holy crap...that was white?!!

Do you see what happens?

Sent from my SM-A115A using Tapatalk

 

[beaubrummels]

Nice one. Good playing guitars are the result of good playing on the guitar. Mojo comes from playing mojo. So I guess mojo is as mojo does.

 

[nexion218]

Just curious: why not refret if there wasn't much left of the wires? Client's request?

 

[Ashurbanipal]

That's yeller!

I've seen a few old Ibz for sale in Japan that look like this, which were originally the Crystal Pearl colour from the mid-80s. Now they look like they've been doing 5 packs a day since!

 

[GuitarDoc]

Just curious: why not refret if there wasn't much left of the wires? Client's request?

Goober tends to exaggerate.

 

[Chris Pile]

Goober tends to exaggerate.

How would you know?.

Fender was shooting for vintage specs with these - the fretwire was closer to mandolin wire. Very short and narrow. They've been leveled at least once, maybe more. Wasn't much left to crown. The frets measure .032 tall now and .080 wide. And in answer to Nexion - yes, client wanted the original frets if at all possible. This belonged to a friend of his who passed recently. It will go in the studio, no more road miles for this old Strat. Delivery this afternoon.

 

[GuitarStv]

Yikes. .032 is about as low as frets can be and still be playable.

 

[Chris Pile]

Yikes. .032 is about as low as frets can be and still be playable.

I've done a couple Taylors for one very spooky client who likes them about .025 tall. As you can imagine, using masking tape (.007 thick) or a stainless fret shield (.010 thick) when crowning leaves you around .015 to put a radius on each side of the leveled fret. Takes longer to do the job, and you can't really make the top of the fret round. It's more like a school bus roof. I can bend on this, but it's not as easy as medium jumbos. The sound of this axe makes it worth it. I was floored.

 

[nexion218]

Goober tends to exaggerate.

Ain't never seen that happen.. LOL Nor have I ever seen the two of yous disagree...

 

[GuitarDoc]

Ain't never seen that happen.. LOL Nor have I ever seen the two of yous disagree...

Surprisingly, we actually have agreed a few times.

 

[GuitarDoc]

How would you know?.

Just going by what you said (and from experience from your previous posts). You said there "was not much left of them", and yet there was enough for you to do a level and crown.

 

[Chris Pile]

By todays' standards, that was true.

 

[jeremy]

I've done a couple Taylors for one very spooky client who likes them about .025 tall. As you can imagine, using masking tape (.007 thick) or a stainless fret shield (.010 thick) when crowning leaves you around .015 to put a radius on each side of the leveled fret. Takes longer to do the job, and you can't really make the top of the fret round. It's more like a school bus roof. I can bend on this, but it's not as easy as medium jumbos. The sound of this axe makes it worth it. I was floored.

i get what youre saying. what file do you use for crowning?

 

[Chris Pile]

I have 2 of the small StewMac 3 cornered files, and then sand with 3 grits of sandpaper to finish and polish. It's all a rolling wrist action with the files. Work from the bass side, then the treble, blend it all together, then do the fret ends from both sides. It's time intensive, but not hard work. Yields a beautiful fret that the client notices for 3 seconds, and only impresses other luthiers.