Well, this one has a long story. A couple of weeks ago I walked into work (I work at a guitar store) and spotted a white/maple Strat sitting on the bench. I assumed it was one which was brought in for repair since the bridge was completely disassembled. The tuners were so rusty and loose I thought they were broken. But it looked nice in a vintage sort of way, and my boss must have noticed me staring at it since he offered to let me reassemble it and give it a set up. I'm still relatively new to repair work, but I like it a lot. Especially when it involves Strats.

When I asked who it was for my boss told me it was a 1992 MIM Standard that someone had just sold to the store for $60. He wanted me to get it cleaned up and playable so that we could sell it. I gave it a good set up and it ended up playing really well. The neck is a little wider than my Squier's, but about the same thickness which I like. After spending a couple of hours with it, it ended up following me home.

I came back to work a couple of days later and I brought it with me to show my guitar tech, since I wanted him to see the set up I had done. When I took it out of the bag his eyes got really big and asked me if I had paid for it yet, and I said no but that I was going to that day. Unfortunately it turns out that he had already given another guy first dibs on it when it first came in. And the guy who was interested in it is a fellow Fender fanatic and has a history of buying used Fenders from us, including an Eric Clapton signature Strat we had in several months ago. I was really disappointed, because now the chances of me being able to keep the guitar were looking really slim.

Fast forward a week and finally the guy came in to see the guitar. I took it out to the front for him and let him play it. He said he liked it better than his Eric Clapton Strat and I figured that that was it. We were talking a little bit about how nice it looked, and I made a comment about how it caught my eye because it reminded me of one of Jimmie Vaughan's guitars. He looked kind of surprised that I knew who Jimmie Vaughan was (most people are) and it turns out that he's also a huge blues fan. He also knew that I had been drooling over it this whole time, so he asked me to play something on it. I picked it up and played what I normally like to play anyway, blues. Some finger style Jimmie Vaughan stuff, jazzy blues, shuffles, things of that nature. We got to talking and apparently this guy had seen the Fabulous Thunderbirds in Austin in the early 80's, so we ended up getting into a conversation about that and blues in general.

Now here's how cool this all worked out. He decided to pass on the guitar, which opened the door for me to buy it. And on top of that, my boss actually beat me down on the price for it! I ended up getting it for $120 plus half of a bass I'm selling on consignment. It's an entry level Peavey. I originally offered my entire cut of the bass plus the $120. I had to dip into my college savings for it, but I'm selling that bass and some pickups and pedals which should cover the cost of the guitar and allow me to pay myself back for it. I probably wouldn't have gotten it if it hadn't been for the fact that I have gear to sell. Right now spending $200 cash wouldn't be a good idea for me with college starting next semester.

Right now my Squier is still baring the brunt of my practice/gigging duties with the Highway One picking up some of the slack. This guitar doesn't really help me as far as frets go. Even though it's a '92, it's hardly ever been played. Unfortunately, it still comes with vintage frets which are even lower than my others. I can still play it all right with .10s (I really like 10-52s or 11s better). Neither is it a pro-quality instrument, which isn't what I expected for $120 anyway. But here's what I'm going to use this guitar for which is actually something really exciting for me. I'm going to use it as my repair guinea pig! That way I can practice doing things like refretting and pickup replacement without worrying about hurting my main guitars or having them out of commission when I need them for gigs (which is often). If I can learn some of those skills on this guitar it's something that can carry over into work too and maybe I can get into doing some fret levels and things like that in addition to restrings and set ups.

Here are some pictures of it. I shot this one when I first saw it, that's a 1970's Strat on the bench next to it.


After the set up.


And finally, at home.

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Website: http://www.rebeccalaird.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rebeccalairdmusic
Twitter: https://twitter.com/beckslaird
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Man that color just kills. Congrats TGS...........

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The blues ain't nothin but a good man feelin bad.

Great score Texas!

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you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.

Wow....nice guitar TGS. Now time to smoke that fretboard!

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I Can't Explain

Congrats TGS you have a good eye for guitars and that one has a real Jimi Woodstock Strat vibe to it.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

Well, both actually. It has some discoloration in splotches, especially around the edges. And the pickguard looks aged, but maybe it was like that to begin with. The real color is somewhere between the two pictures, creamier than the first ones and lighter than the last one.

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Website: http://www.rebeccalaird.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rebeccalairdmusic
Twitter: https://twitter.com/beckslaird
Instagram: http://instagram.com/beckslaird

Looks like a great Axe, Texas! Congrats!

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Hey, Boy Blue is back!

That looks very nice! and in the first pic it looks like it could be an srv sitting next to it but more than likely not, you should be proud of yourself for the work you get to do with these fenders, your the only lady I have ever heard of that does this kind of work, and you will some day have people from far and wide come to have you set there fenders for them.

that colour looks really awesome. hope you have fun with it

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riley