Damn...I'm starting to love the strat....

[ohm-men]

I never really liked strats, to common, bland, etc...
But last year I picked up a Squier Affinity strat at a yard sale for € 10,- nothing special, run of the mill guitar.
Then I traded some stuff (to get some JM parts and part of the deal included a loaded VM Squier strat body with a MIM Fender trem, so I took)
Swapped the bodies with the € 10,- yard sale strat and ended up liking it more (flipped the yard sale strat body for € 50). The neck of the Squier strat was too thin for my taste, so it sat arround another few months. Then I saw a local add for a 2013 MIM big headstock brand new strat neck. I got it for € 200,- (including tuners, neck plate & screws) Man, was I gonna shell out this money for a guitar I didn't even like... I was thinking, if it does not work out, I have a Big headstock Fender neck that I can use for an JM. So I picked it up, mounted it on the Squier strat and...OMG...The thing came alive.
Turned out the MIM neck came from a Roadhouse strat. 60's neck profile with some modern features like larger frets (22 of them) and a really dark rosewood fretboard with clay dot inlays. Feels really close to the JM neck profile I prefer.
Flipped the squier neck for a good price and ended up with a Squier/Fender frankenstrat...

Then I got me thinking...Would a nice thicker strat body be the next step, would the 4mm extra thicknes make a difference?
I looked on the used marked but could not find anything that I liked.
And then a 3TSB MIM strat body popped up locally, 2 piece alder for € 75,- (believe me, this is rare for this price here....)
The seller mentioned a crack in the neck pocket, hence the cheap price. I thought, what the heck and bought it. (seller insisted on paying for the shipping as well I offered to buy it for his asking price, really a nice guy)
When I got the body, the neck crack turned out to be a superficial paint crack, nothing serious or to worry about. The thing looked brand new. Weight was perfect and as a coincidence it turned out to be from 2013 as well.
Paired it with the MIM neck and strung it up... Man....I fell in love with the thing on an instant.... Such resonance...The neck and body match so perfectly and even the cheap Squier ceramic Pu's never sounded better... Since I flipped all the parts I didn't need for this strat, I ended up with a very nice MIM strat under € 225,- Next I bought a set of Alnico V Fender MIM 50's/60's pu's...Not bad, but too trebly. (€ 40 used for the set, so not a bad deal)
Then I found out that Tone Rider have a Alnico 3 strat set called "Surfaris".... Some googling found me a new set of these from a Polish webshop that really undercut the price of these (even with shipping) ordered these, 250 K pots and some other goodies and put those in this strat...
The MIM 50's strat pups went into my DIY Bass VI (and made this beast sound a lot better then cheapo pu's I put in it years ago)

I'm a very happy camper now... The Tone Rider Alnico 3 pu's really, really suit my taste. There is quiet some raving about these in the strat comminity, but it's genuine.
I'm a Surf/reverb/Echo junky with a taste for BF Fender alike amps. Really, If you like strats but find them too trebly/thin sounding, the Surfari set might suit you if you don't wanna spend the big bucks on boutique pups...
I also like the fact they compensated the raised pole pieces for the unwound G string, making them sound much more balanced then any Fender strat pu I tried...

Now have a huge love for the strat...(well, for this one at least...) I also like the fact that this guitar is improving my playing a lot, as I aproach it differently, as if this instrument makes you play stuff you normally would not (Hendrix, Frusciante, etc...) A good quality neck and body make a huge difference imho for this type of guitar (well for most guitars...)

I know... I know... no prove without pics... I will post these soon (when I have my camara running again)

[UlricvonCatalyst]

Hi Jerry, I can see a Strat in my future too at some point. Like you I always disdained them for being too common, thus unexciting, but when I had a wee guitar shop for a while we had two strats which I always took off the wall to play - a nice Grant-branded ash-bodied Fuji-Gen, and a Peavey Predator, of all things, which happened to play like a dream and turned me onto the in-between positions.

Looking forward to seeing your pics and hope you're staying safe and well in these extraordinary times.

[jvin248]

.

You are like the famous player who auctioned their 'original 60s Strat' that had seen three neck swaps and two body swaps over the years....

The Strat auto-mod I do these days is the Armstrong Blender, wiring only change where the second tone pot becomes a blender between SSS, through PAF, and up to hot HSH. It's a stealth Les Paul but I keep all the classic stock Strat tones. The blender is better than push/pull because of all the in between options available.

This is probably the best walk through on how to do it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWF1L7GBYfU



I found the Hendrix angled pickguard for $10 amazon/ebay when searching for pickguard blanks.
The Tele has a 4-way switch controlling both bobbins singly, in parallel, and series humbucker.

.

[Embenny]

I started on a strat, and 3-4 years ago got the idea in my head that I should give them a shot again. Got myself a birth-year MIJ strat as a birthday present. Good guitar. Sold it back because, among other things, I still cannot fathom why they put the volume knob there. Super uncomfortable for palm mutes.

I like plenty of guitars, but strats still just don't do it for me.

[sookwinder]

When do we change the name of the forum to OSG+Strats ?

Or maybe OSG+Guitars We Used To Hate ?

[fuzzjunkie]

When do we change the name of the forum to OSG+Strats ?

Or maybe OSG+Guitars We Used To Hate ?

It’s a Boomer thing. You wouldn’t understand.

[Scout]

This is , without a doubt, the nicest forum due to the inclusive worldwide membership. From a newbie perspective, I had no desire to post on any US centric guitar forum due to the snarkiness factor but happily found this place to discuss all things musical.
You mods are the moms that make it too nice to leave the nest! PS, strats are pretty sweet once you put your fingerprints on them. Chris

[CorporateDisguise]

I think it's time you joined The Gear Page. You can be with a million other boomers who love strats just like you. You can all sit arond and agree with each other, and everything will be just swell.Next thing you know, you'll work in a dentist office, own ten PRS's and feel a very strong urge to wank it to tube screamer clones.








On a serious note, the neck position on a strat is pretty magical. The only real issue I have with them is how close the strings are to the body. My ham fisted picking hand gets all bruised and bloody from smashing into the pickups. I guess I'm just a caveman...

[BoringPostcards]

I've always loved playing them, but I've never bothered buying anything better than a Mexican standard, and I only keep them for a few months.

I enjoy playing any Fender. I just happen to prefer the body of a JM or Jag.

[timtam]

Part of me wants to like the strat ... but I just can't. Once you've got a few guitars it just seems like one of them should be a strat. I've seen a few black ones with tort guards and LPB with mint guard that looked nice. But I didn't buy them - it seems I just can't bring myself to like the strat enough to acquire one. I know why. When punk/post punk arrived I just hated mainstream rock and everything associated with it so much - and the strat was close to the top of the guitar hate list (esp sunburst), only exceeded by pointy guitars used in metal and hideous flamed PRS's with the friggin fretboard birds ffs (a later object of contempt). Even if a few good players used strats (Andy Gill, Richard Lloyd). I just figured they hadn't got the memo.

[OffYourFace]

congrats on getting old like the rest of us JM/Jag users who like Strats now

[bdf83]

The Strat auto-mod I do these days is the Armstrong Blender, wiring only change where the second tone pot becomes a blender between SSS, through PAF, and up to hot HSH. It's a stealth Les Paul but I keep all the classic stock Strat tones. The blender is better than push/pull because of all the in between options available.

This is probably the best walk through on how to do it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWF1L7GBYfU

Rewired my first ever guitar this weekend to put in a blender mod, have already done the same with the strat that Im making but a little way away from getting that playable to test it all. Really liking the sound of all on at once.

(Im also a fan of strats)

[marqueemoon]

I've always loved playing them, but I've never bothered buying anything better than a Mexican standard, and I only keep them for a few months.

I enjoy playing any Fender. I just happen to prefer the body of a JM or Jag.

I keep a Strat around primarily to keep myself out of this cycle.

I almost always enjoy it when I play it. Then it gets put away for months while I play a Tele or JM.

[BoringPostcards]

I've always loved playing them, but I've never bothered buying anything better than a Mexican standard, and I only keep them for a few months.

I enjoy playing any Fender. I just happen to prefer the body of a JM or Jag.

I keep a Strat around primarily to keep myself out of this cycle.

I almost always enjoy it when I play it. Then it gets put away for months while I play a Tele or JM.

Yea, I might grab another one with a humbucker in the bridge and keep it.
I play mostly Jazzmaster, SG and Mustang these days.

[SignoftheDragon]

Strat = Jimmy

Played a couple in the GC over the years, but they never inspired me.

I guess I did end up buying 2 strat XIIs from a local dood who was thinning the herd out of his basement dad-cave, flipped them for decent money about 10 years back. I played 'em first, but yeah they were easy to let go. Cool colors- LPB and BMM with matching headstocks, but they were just so.... stratty.