This question is for the owners or people that have played around with Vintage RI (or Vintage HR) Strats. Overall, what are your feelings about them? How is the fit and finish? Does the nitro finish add anything? In your opinion are they worth the money?

Do they come with the '57/'62 pickups? How do these sound? Are you happy with them or will you, or have you swtiched them out.

I'm a traditionalist when it comes to Strats so I think I would enjoy the guitar, but I just wanted to check out how my very respected forumites felt about them.

Thanks,
Russ

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'08 Amer. Dlx. Strat, '98 Amer. Std. Strat, '10 Squire CV Tele Custom, '96 Seagull S+6 Cedar
Deluxe Reverb RI, Tweed Blues Jr., Champion 110, Champion 600, Mustang I, Line 6 Vetta

The Hot Rod 62 is great. But then so is the regular 62. The Hot Rod comes with a thick C neck which feels like a 50's Les Paul neck. Very solid and chunky. Resonates well. The 57 Hot Rod sucks though. Frets are short and the neck is too slim. You're better off sticking with just the normal version of that one.

These guitars can be had on Ebay for $1200 to $1400 on average. New their closer to $2000 and more than that if you buy a new Hot Rod.

utter nonsense here.what if someone likes those features? a lot of people have these guitars and love them.

but i guess your individual opinion is the universal measuring stick, by which all others should devise their preferences.

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

The frets are short eh? That sounds bad, whatever it means . Glad mine has no issues. The fret work on that guitar is easily comparable to my customshop. Perfect halfcircle frettops, still very highly polished from new. And yes I do play the thing a lot these days. All them days of not touching it are long gone, my drummer insists on it.

Russ I found no issues at all on the hotrod. The neck is slim but deep. The apex of the V seems to protrude further than any of my C necked guitars, but appears skinnier because of the taper of the V. The finish on that guitar is the real weakpoint/strength, as anyone who really owns one of the series would agree. The cellulose isnt the same as the highway1 or vintage reissue. It looks to me like its straight onto bare wood. After 16months of being utterly babied the guitars finish is sinking into the wood. It really is very very thin. Justin Novak stated its to help the guitar age naturaly, quicker. Not quite what I wanted but extreme care is a small price to pay for such a guitar.
SCN's, not for everyone and being as though your a deluxe owner you may want to look elsewhere to get some variation. I reckon I'm gonna bung some tex spesh's in mine and shove the tonezone into the customclassic as that has s1 too.
Not a regular strat by any means, some nice tones in there though. Mid and bridge is a absolute country players delight. The mid peak seems bang on the money in that possition. Very 70's rock (think ramjam) in the bridge alone.

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No no and no

He is asking for opinions on these guitars. I gave him mine. I gave him exactly what he asked for. I think it's important for him to know that the neck on the 57 Hot Rod is way different than on the 62 Hot Rod. One extreme to another really. At least now he knows about the differences.

I chose a 62 vintage reissue over the others mainly because of feel and sound preferences. I think the 57/62 pups sound great and the vintage frets and radius perfect for me. The only thing I changed was the 3 way selector to the five way, and I had my Fender authorized techy do that.

Only broken guitars suck.

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http://www.reverbnation.com/dirtbeggers