Help i'm having Fender feelings!!

I just picked up a very cheap Strat copy, plays ok sounds like garbage, I'm thinking of using it as a foundation for a project, ya know the score...replace the tuners, nut, bridge, pups etc or should I - A - nip it in the bud now and smash the piece of junk against the wall - B - sell my 5 Westones and use the cash to buy a genuine Fender Strat or - C- actually start playing guitar more than just drooling over them????????????????? I can't seem to fight the "gas" HELP!!

-D- Buy a Concord and get the best of both worlds!

Or a Vantage Avenger for that Matt meets Leo thing!! My Electra X195 has the s/c bridge, and Electra actually did a Phoenix in s/s/s....

It is a serious problem though; I have suffered from the malady and assuaged the feelings by building a strat which plays beautifully, looks different and gives me that 'Fender" feeling should I need to feel it!!



What I wouldn't do is sell my Westones/Vantage/APII/Electra to fund a Genuine strat. Do you really want to sound like everyone else out there?? I, and I suspect a lot of the guys in here, value quite highly the slightly different sound that Matsumoku lets us elicit from our chosen instrument, and the fact that onstage, no-one is going to look the same as you do!!

corsair wrote:...What I wouldn't do is sell my Westones/Vantage/APII/Electra to fund a Genuine strat....

Exactly. Fender Strats are plentiful, Westies are not!
My problem with Fenders, Gibsons, et al, is that there are so many variations (and deviations) from the original specs it's hard to know even where to begin if you do want one. The "real" vintage instruments are hellishly expensive and the newer ones are "iffy" as to quality and tend to be very "gimmicky" from what I see. Reissues are an option, but again, pricey, and often not quite as good as the original. So what to do?

John's approach is a good one, build yer own, learn a few things in the process, and save some money. Another option is to buy a good quality clone. In my case I satisfied a mild Fender lust by grabbing a Vintage TC200 (now called V2) Telecaster clone from John Hornsby Skewes Reissue Series. The specs are direct from Uncle Leo himself, and the guitars are well made and authentic sounding, and you don't have to break the bank to get one!

Barry wrote:-D- Buy a Concord and get the best of both worlds!

Sweet!!!

I did build a strat last year, well i say built it started of it's life as an affinity squire and I slowly upgraded the parts, gave it a total rewire the lot..the only thing that was left from the squire was the trem cover.. I did get a bit carried away with the Fender thing though everything had to be genuine Fender even down to the screws.. spent a bloody fortune. although I did get a Wilkinson trem bridge which made me realise you don't have to spend a fortune for quality

It was great fun and I did learn a hell of a lot though I made a few mistakes along the way but learnt from them.........I ended up breaking it down and selling the lot to fund my Westone bug! kinda miss it now.......

The guitar I have now is made by a company called "Shine" it does have quite a nice neck no razor blade fret edges like on some crappy copies. A slow upgrade process is proberbly the way this is gonna go, this time I'm gonna keep it cheap but quality I'm already searching ebay for used parts. hopefully I will have a nice Strat in the end with a bit of a personal touch, it's great fun too and keeps me busy and if I get bored with it I could sell the parts again and just buy a Concord!!

The problem with making "Strats" up, is the copy strats that most people use as the doner guitar, usually are made of soft wood or sub-grade wood (hence why they are cheap). It is of utmost importance that you start with a top quality body and neck if you want a proper Strat. Best advice is to buy a Mexican Strat and upgrade the pickups. This will give you an authentic sounding Strat as the body and necks of the Mexican made Fenders are good stuff. There are other odd brands that are top grade stuff but you would have to know how to recognise them.

These are not bad, have tried them and at the price you can't complain. Also cheaper copies have the same string spacing, Squier ect. Nice clean sound.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Alnico-V-Single-Coil-Pickups-Strat-Squier-White-Gold-/180527766461?cmd=ViewItem&pt=UK_Guitar_Accessories&hash=item2a084b1bbd

umpdv5000 wrote:The problem with making "Strats" up, is the copy strats that most people use as the doner guitar, usually are made of soft wood or sub-grade wood (hence why they are cheap). It is of utmost importance that you start with a top quality body and neck if you want a proper Strat. Best advice is to buy a Mexican Strat and upgrade the pickups. This will give you an authentic sounding Strat as the body and necks of the Mexican made Fenders are good stuff. There are other odd brands that are top grade stuff but you would have to know how to recognise them.

Yep; dead right!! And you have to take the neck off, or peer inside the cavitys to be able to make that kind of judgment - mine was a hardwood, no idea which one - and it was about 30 years old when I got it. It was a signature guitar for a NZ player called Gray Bartlett and was a dead on strat copy - Gray himself never used one, he was a semi solid man!! - but I felt the need to make it my own...

So the wood, and the neck - I prefer a rosewood fretboard; just can't make maple 'talk' - - are the important things; the electronics available now are mind blowing for the money , eh!!

Yeah i've read all the "you can't polish a turd" stuff before but it's just a bit of fun building yer own and making a clunker sound ok.....and it's a great learning experience. I'd never gig with it, I'm a bass player turned guitarist and it's nice to have a strat in the collection just to plug in turn the reverb up and pretend to be Hank Marvin or Buddy Holly once in a while :-)

You can so polish a turd; you get a coprolite - fossilised dino poo - and polish it like any other rock!