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Post subject: Knowledgable opinions about this 91 Strat please
Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 9:56 am
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Hi, this is my first post on the Fender forum and I would like to start by asking you knowledgeable people for opinions about my 91 Strat. I bought it about six months ago as a well used/gigged guitar, and when it arrived it even had the obligatory ciggie burn on the headstock. The guitar plays very well and has the SCN noiseless pickups installed which I really do like. The first question is, are these likely to be replacement pickups as I’m not sure if these pickups were available in 91 and if so I thought they only came as standard on the Deluxe model.
The second question is, the tone control nearest the output jack works as a blend control, or to be more precise, a volume control for the neck pickup. I find this function quite intriguing as I’ve never come across it before. When the pickup selector is in either the neck or neck/middle positions the tone or rather volume control has no effect, ie the neck pickup is on full volume all the time, but when the middle, middle plus bridge or bridge pickup is selected the tone control will adjust the volume of the neck pickup from zero to full. Has anyone come across this before; is it a well known function or an oddity? I have to say that I find it a very useful function which gives you the option of combining the neck pickup with bridge as well as all three pickups together.
Another oddity I found with the guitar is the fact that the control cavity routing is of the swimming pool variety. Is this normal on a 91 standard or could it have been originally fitted with a humbucker pickup and later changed to single coils, which could account for the SCN pickups being fitted.
The last query is about the body and fret board, particularly the fret board. Would you say that the dark marks that run alongside the frets are caused by normal heavy use? To me it looks more like water damage, as there isn’t much wear between the frets that would normally be associated with heavy or prolonged use. Also there is quite a bit of rust around the trem cavity screws, and the trem spring retainer is quite rusty as well. I can only assume that the bridge is a new replacement because there are no signs of rust or corrosion anywhere, including the trem springs. Any comments would be more than welcome. Cheers, Paul
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Last edited by paul10w on Thu Aug 07, 2008 6:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 11:50 am
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Seems this instrument may have been exposed to moisture.
Are u saying it has the volume & tone knobs as volume?
Seperately like a LP?


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Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 2:32 pm
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Hi bss, sort of, the main volume control works as normal on all pickup combinations, whereas the second tone pot is actually a volume control for the neck pickup only, and doesn't effect the tone at all. The control only works when the neck pickup is not selected by the selector switch. For example, if the bridge pickup is selected on it's own, the control can be used to bring in the neck pickup from zero volume through to full volume while the bridge pickup stays at full volume.
Cheers, Paul


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Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 2:40 pm
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It looks like a well worn and played guitar. The guitars that I've seen that were exposed to water (booze cruises, outdoor gigs, etc) usually have checking on the body finish, but I don't see any of that. The former owner might have had an E-Megaswitch wired into it also like this one :

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics ... tches.html

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Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 2:44 pm
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For your SCN question...they weren't being produced in 1991

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Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 6:04 pm
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Thanks for the confirmation cryingstrat, I suspected that to be the case.
Miami Mike mentioned that a mega switch might have been fitted to this guitar, but as I have no knowledge of this type of switch I have posted a couple of pics hoping that someone can identify what type is fitted. Also a couple more pics of the body cavity and fret board. Cheers, Paul
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Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 7:45 pm
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Miami Mike wrote:
It looks like a well worn and played guitar.


I agree with that. The discoloration under the pickguard and trem cover looks familiar to me .... just gunk that collects from sweat getting under it. (Yes, I tend to sweat quite a bit when I play; like Rory Gallagher did!)

It looks like the exposed parts of the body were cleaned, but the plastic wasn't removed to clean it before selling to you.

Are the frets in decent shape?

After a good amount of play, the frets start to need attention and eventually need to be replaced.

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Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 5:29 pm
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Yes the frets are in very good shape, although they could have been replaced at some time I suppose. The more I think about it, the more I believe that the whole pick guard assembly and the bridge has been renewed. Surely there would be traces of leaking corrosion on the underside of the pick guard around the screws, but there isn't, everything is clean and quite new looking. The electronics work faultlessly and quietly.
I would welcome any comments on the pickup routing, for example: does the fact that the area under the pickups which has been completely removed mean that the guitar was originally built with at least one humbucker installed, or could it be possible that some of these bodies may have left the factory with 3 single coils installed. The fact is that I don’t know anything about this guitars history and I would just like to try and fit a few pieces of the jigsaw together.


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Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 5:11 pm
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paul10w wrote:
Yes the frets are in very good shape, although they could have been replaced at some time I suppose. The more I think about it, the more I believe that the whole pick guard assembly and the bridge has been renewed. Surely there would be traces of leaking corrosion on the underside of the pick guard around the screws, but there isn't, everything is clean and quite new looking. The electronics work faultlessly and quietly.
I would welcome any comments on the pickup routing, for example: does the fact that the area under the pickups which has been completely removed mean that the guitar was originally built with at least one humbucker installed, or could it be possible that some of these bodies may have left the factory with 3 single coils installed. The fact is that I don’t know anything about this guitars history and I would just like to try and fit a few pieces of the jigsaw together.


The Swimming pool route is original to that period of USA STD Strats (the big route was around from 1987 to 1998 or sometime around that date) - it would have come originally with 3 single coil pickups. It may or may not have a alder body or poplar body with alder veneer??? From 1990 to 1993/4 Fender had to use poplar wood on their Strat bodies because of the restiction in logging alder trees in Oregon - that restriction was eased in 1993/4. So in 1994 Fender went back to using Alder wood for Strats - this information is from Tom Wheelers book "The Stratocaster Chronicles: Celebrating 50 Years of the Fender Strat" and can be found on page 202. The information is from an interview with Dan Smith and George Blanda of FMIC.


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Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 5:19 pm
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Thankyou very much for that info Schtang, much appreciated. I'm also quite relieved to hear that the swimming pool routing was normal for that period.


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Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 6:56 pm
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paul10w wrote:
Thankyou very much for that info Schtang, much appreciated. I'm also quite relieved to hear that the swimming pool routing was normal for that period.


no worries. I have 3 USA Strats (1990, 1996 & 2006) - and I would have to say that the late 80's early 90's are my favourite USA Strats - that was a good era, poplar body (alder veneer) or not. My 1990 just sounds so ballsy compared to my other two (everything stock in the 1990). Man if that is down to the poplar (long live poplar) - as a side note poplar wood became more expensive than alder wood during 2000-2004 - that's why Fender change from poplar wood to the cheaper alder wood on the Mexican made Strats and teles . Not sure if they still do this or not.

Here are my Strats
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Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 8:42 am
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i was talking to a guy who was buying guitars from america last year, said he bought a precision bass and a strat, the strats neck was like the one damaged one in your photo and had a lot of marks on the fretboard, he bought it in new york off a guy who had a whole batch of them, damaged that is, strat had a mardi grats sticker and was well worn, yours looks like his was in his photos, down to the rust.


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Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 9:54 am
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Excellent pics Schtang, and great guitars too, I notice you seem to favour the rosewood fret-boards over the maple variety, I pressume you get a slightly warmer tone with rosewood.

Joe, as I have no idea regarding the history of this guitar, it may well have originated from the same guy you spoke to. I bought it off a guy in York a just a few months ago.


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Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 6:14 am
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On the wiring: that second tone control used to bring in a pickup when not selected is one of the well known ways of adding the extra two pup combinations to the usual five options on a Strat. Annoyingly, I can’t seem to lay my hands on a wiring diagram for you, but there’s bound to be one out there. I haven’t heard of Fender offering that setup out of the factory: maybe they did at some time, but judging by the hotch-potch of wires you have there yours is an aftermarket user mod.

The current Megaswitch looks like this:

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics ... ml#details

I don’t know if yours is an earlier incarnation of the same thing. But it appears to have a different number of tags: I have come across normal five-way Fender switches that have all the tags on the same side, like yours, so that may simply be what you have.

Regarding the neck: it seems surprising that a guitar with this much wear has frets in such good condition. Likely it has had a refret. That may explain the condition of the fingerboard: once the seal between the lacquer and the frets is broken when new frets are installed (Fender lacquer the ‘board after fitting the frets) moisture from hands can then penetrate beneath the fret and attack the wood - which relates to a discussion we were having on another thread. However, in reality I can’t remember seeing an example anything like as drastic as yours. I find your water damage theory tempting, though of course that is inconclusive.

Just a curiosity: no “Original Contour Body” on the top of the peghead.

Not withstanding - or because of - all the visible history on that guitar I somehow find it rather pretty. And I’m usually no fan of knackered guitars! Great quality pics.

Cheers - C


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Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 6:30 am
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I've seen some necks at a local guitar store that spent some time under water during Katrina that had the same water marked look to the neck on them. When the tech refinished them you could hardly tell except a little green tinge in the areas of the neck that mildewed. Once it gets down into the wood grain it is next to impossible to remove all of it. I thought that it gave the guitar character though!! 8)


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