Yesterday while I was in my usual music store I saw an MIJ Strat with a bound top,it had a beautiful natural finish and flat top with no contouring for your forearm,I couldn't pick out the label very welll but it was called Herodyne or something similar I was quite tempted to buy it then and there on looks alone and forgo buying one of the Rics I'm planning on.I was going to write Dear Abby but I believe she knows diddly about guitars please advise.Signed :IN A Quandry.

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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.

I tried twice to post a poll on this topic to choose between the Strat or a Rick 360/12 please give your choice to help me make up my mind.Thanks.

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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.

Unless you have small hands and very, very thin fingers, you will surely run into problems cleanly fretting even some open voice chords on a Ric. The fingerboard is unbelievably narrow and the frets are very small. And with that ton of acrylic they slather all over the fingerboard, you feel no semblance of wood whatsoever. Frankly, I don't think those frets are even large enough for one G & P especially due to the aforementioned acrylic which means, once they wear down to the acrylic (not even the fingerboard mind you) they've had it and obviously, you have a very expensive problem to deal with. Next, if you want proper intonation for all strings, you'll have to spend close to $100 to buy a 12 string Ric bridge which does NOT come OEM on any Ric 12 string that I'm aware of, believe it or not. The OEM bridges are six saddle ones where the strings are paired, two to a saddle. And don't kind yourself, restringing and retuning with their machine head configuration is a freakin' horror as is even securing the strings into the Ric tailpiece is a science unto itself. Lastly, Ric inverts the last four string pairs contrary to 'standard' 12 string pairings so that with Rics, the 12th string is the heaviest and low E with the 11th being the E's octave and so on up through the G string pairings. Because of this too, restringing and retuning can be confusing as hell unless you are in a very calm and patient mood. Needless to say, because the the nut and bridge saddles are cut accordingly, you can't reverse the string octave orientation without a new nut and set of saddles. I know these issues from first hand experience and they are the reasons why I sold mine like two months after I bought it new. YMMV.

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You dig?

Thanks for the input Martian,as luck should have it my hands are realitively small and I have skinny fingers,I was aware of the ass-backwards string pairings but not the other issues so consequently I think I'll rely on my Vox Phantom XII for Beatles 12 string stuff and opt for the bound Strat although I'd love to know the exact model name of it,Herodyne is what the spelling looked like.I'll keep my Ric search confined to a 325 or 350V63,64 or Liverpool.

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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.

A MIJ Aerodyne!!! Very nice looking guitars!!!

Probably like this one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Fender-Aerodyne-Str ... 4a9e601461

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Chet Feathers

Authorized TonePros Dealer
Authorized WD Music Products Dealer
F/A Official Southpaw Compliance Certification Tester http://faamps.com/

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I didn't Lose my mind, I traded it for this guitar.

Thanks Chet and Nevin,the more I think about the heavier the GAS gets, I think that come Monday I may be posting guitar No. 26 and Strat No. 5. I'm like a kid waiting for Santa. ,I know the owner well enough that I'm sure that if I phoned him tomorrow he'd open the store to let me pick it up, that's a perk from buying many,many thousands of dollars worth of gear over the years not to mention the business I've sent his way.But I think I'll be able to hold off 'til Monday.

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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.

Don't forget to post pics and let us know how she plays!!!

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Chet Feathers

Authorized TonePros Dealer
Authorized WD Music Products Dealer
F/A Official Southpaw Compliance Certification Tester http://faamps.com/

http://www.facebook.com/cafeathers


I didn't Lose my mind, I traded it for this guitar.