Pickups: Stock Fender pickups - Texas Specials (?)

Neck: 1 Piece Maple

Body: Basswood

Nut Material: Plastic

Bridge: Stock Fender

Colour: Black

Country of Origin: Japan

 

 

Fender Japan really does an excellent job producing quality guitars. Their early models are very highly collectable these days, I've even seen some old Squiers sell for over 1000 Dollars which I think is incredible/ridiculous. Still, that doesn't take away from the fact that these are generally very well made guitars that will get the job done with minimum fuss. My model came with a gloss finished neck, which I did not like at first (I ordered it off Ishibashi new without trying - big risk but it wasn't an expensive guitar) but after a while I got used to it. I think I got this when I was into Clapton at some stage, and wanted a Blackie of my own...

 

Tone of this one is okay but it can be pretty sterile. It's not really chimey like I would expect a maple neck Strat to be. I don't think the pickups do it any justice, and pickups are one of the most important tone components, at least in my opinion. 

 

Neck fits very snugly into the neck pocket, as is typical of all Fender Japan guitars I've seen. Their guitars always have a precise fit. Frets were immaculate right out of the bag, and are still pretty good to this day. No buzzing issues, no intonation issues. 

 

I will go through the areas where they have skimped to cut costs:

 

Nut - nasty plastic nut that they did not even have the decency of rounding over the edges. 

 

Bridge - I have set it up so it plays the way I like it, and I feel it actually performs better than the other Strat bridges I have which are Gotoh. However there's no getting away from the fact that it is a cheap bridge. Corners are sharp, tremolo arm has lots of play in it (yes there are remedies), springs are noisy. 

 

Electronics - Cap is the cheap polypropylene type, doesn't matter on the bridge pickup because that's not connected to any tone pots. 

 

This one is on my list to overhaul - upgrade all the electronics, including a tone control for the bridge. Upgrade to a bone or Tusq nut, see if that makes any difference at all. And maybe change the bridge or at least file down the sharp edge and put more plumbers tape over the trem arm thread. And finally put a decent set of pickups in there!

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UPDATE: This guitar has been dismantled with its parts used for other projects.

 

Upgrades to be done:

Pickups

Bridge

Bone/Tusq nut

Electronics

 

Upgrades done:

Orange drop cap

Switchcraft jack

Copper Shielded electronics cavity