Pickups: Stock Sustainer, THS-1, THD-1

Fretboard: Rosewood

Neck: 2 Piece Maple (Scarf Join)

Body: Sen

Nut: Floyd Rose Locking

Bridge: Fernandes FRT-4b

Colour: See Through Black

Country of Origin: Japan

Weight: 4.45kg

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Ah the sustainer. Relic of the past, or relevant to this day? I would argue the latter - especially since a lot of us play through headphones or not loud enough to generate any real feedback. That was the main reason I wanted to try one out. 

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This FR-95 is from the Fernandes “Revolver” series. I guess it is their take on the super-strat, but this one comes with a sustainer built in. 

 

I don’t really know the date of manufacture because there are no visible serial numbers. I know that Fernandes sometimes stamp serial numbers on the necks but you actually have to remove the neck to see it. I have not had a need to do that yet, but when I do I will take note of the serial number. 

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In spite of that I am dating this one as 1992 because according to the Fernandes catalogues, there was only one year where the FR-95S was offered in this combination of colour and hardware. Incidentally, it happens to be the first year that the FR-95 was on the market so this is a very early example. 

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Quality-wise, it has its plusses and minuses. When I got it, the neck had survived all those years relatively unscathed. All it needed was a small tweak of the truss rod. The frets and tuners were also great - and most importantly the Sustainer was working 100%. 

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On the cons...everything to do with the pickups. I’ve never had so much trouble with pickups in one guitar. I couldn’t adjust the height and I soon figured out it was because the screws were seized. After some struggle, instead of working them loose, 3 of them had broken. I had to pretty much perform surgery on it to get the screws out...cursing all the way and imagining that Fernandes had not drilled pilot holes, and using weaker screws that were prone to stripping and snapping. 

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The tone of the pickups are not to my taste either. The single coil in the middle is made ceramic magnet style where the slugs are non-magnetic but there is a bar magnet on the bottom. It just didn't sound single coil-ey enough for me, and it didn't sound like a humbucker either so it was the worst of both worlds! Oh, and the wires to that pickup also broke off and had to be resoldered. 

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This is my first time owning and setting up a Floyd Rose and I actually really like the design of this particular bridge. The fine tuning is achieved by tightening or loosening the knurled rods, under the “Fernandes” plate, and the whole thing is quite elegant as far as Floyd Rose bridges go. However, I am not as jazzed about the tremolo arm though. Can’t get it to stay where I want.

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Overall I would say this is a great guitar, especially if you can pick it up for a good price. The Sustainer is really hours of fun and worth it. 

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Update

Performed some upgrades on this guitar and it has been quite a journey. It required more planning than usual because the soldering/electronics was non-standard; I wanted to keep the non-standard sized bridge but swap out the tremolo block so I had to make my own brass block...etc. I note this because it is worth thinking about if you're planning on buying this guitar.

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Jobs/Upgrades to be done:

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Upgrades done:

Brass block replacement (custom)

Pickups - SD TB-11 and SSL-7

Tremolo arm