ok, so i've seen several comments on here about strat bodies and whether they are made from one piece of wood or multiple pieces of wood. I have two strats, a black mia and a 3-color sunburst mim. Now obviously I cant tell how many pieces of wood were used to make the body on the mia but the mim is definitely one piece of wood. I've been looking at it for the last two days from every angle in every kind of light and there are no seams where a joint would be and the grain patterns are uninterrupted and continuous. So my question is this, does Fender keep a record of the materials used to build a guitar by serial number, like auto manufacturers by vin, and how do we access that information?

many MIM's have a laminate top, so they can seem to have a one piece body, but actually be several.

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

I have looked at the back also and there are no discernable seams or interruptions there either so I'm pretty sure it's one piece unless they laminate the back also.

Who knows jay, they may exist. 1 piece, and even 2 piece bodies are a rarity from fender outside the custom shop builds nowadays, but its likely some exist. that said sometimes it is very very hard to see some seams.

Please don't think we are trying to rain on your parade joe, but if you have a 1 piece MIM you have a true gem!

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

I figured the mia would be multiple pieces because it is painted but the mim has me wondering. I'll have to lift the pickguard when I get home and take a look under there.

Hi YZFJOE: of course, I don't have your guitars in front of me to say for sure, but it is likely that your MIM looks like a one-piece because the front and back have a veneer over a multi-piece body.

Forum user Orvilleowner often posts this picture. I hope he'll forgive my impudence in using it here:


That's a stack of MIM body blanks waiting to be cut out at the factory.

You will notice that the veneer follows the angle of the forearm contour. However, it's not possible to get the veneer to do that on the other side for the belly cut, so a sunburst is painted with the black covering the entire contour on the back so that the veneer edge is hidden. MIA sunbursts aren't painted that way: you can see the wood grain into the belly cut on an American Strat.

Look at the way the sunburst is sprayed on your MIM. That'll tell you for sure whether it's a veneer or not.

I wouldn't worry about it either way. We've spilt a lot of ink on this subject before, but most respectable opinion holds that there is no tonal or quality difference between one, two, three or multi-piece bodies. Plywood is a different issue - but then Fender don't use that.

Multi-piece bodies are simply a way of using the smaller cuts that timber milling inevitably produces. And in these eco-conscious times we should all welcome that!

Cheers - C

Stripping the finish off guitars can lead you to some real surprises. A friend stripped a guitar from another company , it had a really really dark and thick finish, so we assumed the body would be either ugly and/or a bunch of pieces. what he found was a beautifully book matched 2 piece ash body. No idea why they used that particular body for that finish, as we had seen several of the same model as his, with transparent finishes with way less attractive wood.

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

No worries, I was just curious and not at all concerned about tone or anything else. It now seems obvious that it is laminated front and rear after seeing the picture of all the wood waiting to be cut.

If we were in Vegas i would have no problem betting 500.00 your MIM guitar body is more then one piece.

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

1 piece is a rarity. It hard to find a piece of wood that allows you to use it by itself. My MIM reissue is a two piece, I can tell from the grain. But if its a laminate on the top, so it looks 1, but I can see the seam in the back. I was daydreaming the other day, and thought, I wonder if it would help the tone at all if they connected the two pieces of wood by putting wooded dowels to marry the two (or 3) pieces together as opposed to just glue. I dont think it would make it any stronger, but you'd think it would allow resonance to travel between them better. Kind of like the way they put the necks on Les Paul Standards with the long joint.

I have an American 2005 Strat with a sunburst finish and it is a two piece, joined right down the middle - though the halves match very nicely (a big part of choosing it).

I also have a recent Korean Lite Ash Tele with a natural finish. It is very hard (not impossible) to tell from front or back that it's not a one piece. But the ends give it away where the end-grains join at different angles. Definitely a three piece:



Cheers - C

I didn't even pay that for the guitar.