[Congratulations on the occasion. What comes next?Good to hear from you. Hope all is well out there

_________________
"Another day in paradise!"

If we could keep the electricity on around here it would be a bit better.
Super strong winds and storms blowing through here every couple of days.

My son graduated from High School.

I'm officially an old fart now.

_________________
Keepn' the Blues Alive

2004 50th Ann. Limited edition AMSE Stratocaster
2017 50's Baja Telecaster BSB

1968 Bandmaster with 2X12 cab C-rex speakers
VHT Special 6 Ultra combo

Visual Sound Route 66
Cmatmods Signa Drive

Not yet, young man. Five grandchild under your belt MIGHT give you the perogative. The crutch this 68 year old uses is a Fender Stratocaster and it ain't ready to be hung up. Look at Grandpa Lite'nin Hopkins...a '57 Twin and a Gilmour Strat...still going strong.

_________________
"Another day in paradise!"

What does this do!

Thanks Doc.
Sure do wish i had taken care of myself a bit more.
I feel the years !!!

Still keep'n the Blues Alive as long as I'm breathing.

_________________
Keepn' the Blues Alive

2004 50th Ann. Limited edition AMSE Stratocaster
2017 50's Baja Telecaster BSB

1968 Bandmaster with 2X12 cab C-rex speakers
VHT Special 6 Ultra combo

Visual Sound Route 66
Cmatmods Signa Drive

I have a MIM Standard that I upgraded with custom shop '54 pups. I love it! It has a great neck on it and I play it as often as my American Strat. I have no regrets and I only have about $550 into it!

The way I see it, if one has plans on modding a brand new Strat even before it is in their possession, there's really no point in buying an expensive one as theoretically, the expensive ones should deliver 100% satisfaction where no modification should be required.

As always, this is merely IMO where YMMV.

_________________
You dig?

I know your issues. There are resources available to you to get you back on track. Motivation and perserverance are the key. I've been back and forth on that path often. Right now, in a slump and have just recoverd 10 pounds gained. Twenty more to go to get back to where I was 3.5 years ago. Once I get into the groove I can keep the music playing.
Just have to find the time frames again.

_________________
"Another day in paradise!"

I have 2 MIM Strats and have no need to upgrade either one as I'm quite pleased with both of them.One is an '00 lefty and the other is a recent Jimmie Vaughn and with the Tex Mex pups it has an outstanding tone and feel with a real 60s L-series Strat vibe.Just because it's MIM don't necessarily believe that an upgrade is compulsory give it a good tryout first.I tried several Strats the day I decided on the Jimmie Vaughn, some costing more than twice as much but everything on the J.V. struck the right chord with me.

_________________
'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 agree whole heartedly with everyone who talks about the amazing quality of the newest MIM Strats. I have a 2008 and a 2010 and the quality is a HUGE jump up from a 2000 that I owned.

The newest MIM pickups in both guitars that I have are as good as any pickups that I have heard from an American Standard Strat. That's just my opinion.

My most recent guitar is a NEW 2010 MIM Sunburst that I bought at guitar center for $399. I had never bought one new and liked the look and feel of one that I found.

I paid $20 for American Style (but mexican sized) bridge saddles to increase sustain and help with string breakage. I paid $150 for a set of Seymour Duncan Everything Axe Pickups. (these include a jeff beck jr humbucker style pickup, a lil '59 pickup for the neck and a duckbucker for the middle.) I learned how to install them myself by watching youtube videos.

I paid $20 for a shielded black pickguard to install the pickups to.

I relic'd the entire guitar myself so now the neck has a satin feel and the poly is off of the whole body. total cost of about $20 in sandpaper and steel wool.

So for about $610ish, I have a guitar that I think looks, feels, sounds and plays as good as any guitar I have ever touched.

Through the process I learned how to solder, how to install pickups. I even watched a ton of videos on how to "set up" a guitar.

I could have paid $1800 on a signature guitar and missed out on the whole experience and still not have a guitar that I love as much as the one I just put together.

Not only did $610 get me the guitar of my dreams, but I had a blast in the process. I had a good friend of mine helping me (neither of us had a clue on how to do it when we started, but we watched youtube videos and figured it out together.) My buddy who had already saved a bunch of money to buy a guitar himself has decided to get a MIM himself and go through the same process.

I would do it again in a heartbeat.

*I should also add about $50 to the cost for beer. I don't know if we could have had the courage to tear apart a perfectly good MIM without some liquid courage.

Well this tremolo has more contact area and transfers more string vibration to the body.

So they claim at least.

The reason I want one is that is in made like a swiss watch and you can palm mute without the cheese grader effect, it's smooth. The string saddle is a far better design and won't cut a string on a hard bend.

Link....

http://www.fullcontacthardware.com/fch-products.htm

Honestly, if I'd been a smart shopper, I'd looked for a decent used MIA standard. They can be found for the price of a new Deluxe series MIM strat! Trust me, the local Guitar Center in Detroit has a used MIA in a metallic light green, pearloid pickguard, rosewood neck for less than $700!!!

_________________
"Epitaph on a blues musician’s tombstone: “I didn’t wake up this morning”" Davy Knowles


facebook.com/313DBC

WOW - I was actually referring to the oil and paper cap and you blew my mind with the Babicz tremolo. - Very interesting... brilliant! I've added them to my favs.

I wish they had as offset saddle version for Fender Strats.

Mailer
greetings...I see this "buy an MIM and upgrade to what I want" post all the time, and it always baffles me. If you enjoy the project kinda thing, tinkering around, changing stuff, and buying parts, then by all means have fun doing this...but there is no value in doing this, and you end up with a "Story Guitar" when your done.

The MIM and the Am Strats are not the same guitars in any way. They may look the same from a distance, but they are way different. Fender...like Toyota...makes lots of models. It is not a value to buy a Camry and load it up with Lexus upgrades.

IMO you should buy what you like and what you can afford but no matter how much stuff you change you can't turn an MIM into an Am Strat. Just my 2 cents...I do have a bunch of Strats...mostly Am Std & Am Deluxe. (These are the players) I have a very beautiful MIM but it's really just a looker.

I just disagree. Sound is subjective. I've played horrible sounding and feeling new and used American Strats. I've played terrible Mexican Strats and great Mexican Strats. (I've even tried out some new American Strats with some pretty poor quality control issues.)

There is nothing magical about an American Strat. It is an Alder body unless they specify anything else. Is is three pieces of Alder glued together, just like the Mexican Strats. On an American Strat, the hardware is different and better and pickups are different and better. And it is built at the american factory which has a much higher quality standard than the Ensenada factory.

The new mexican pickups are a much higher quality than they used to be. I personally like the sound of some of the Mexican Standard Strat pickups more than some American Strats that I have played. Liking a tone is not mathematical it is totally up to you.

There are upgrades to hardware and pickups that can certainly make a MIM guitar better than MANY off-the-rack American Strats.

To those of us who tinker with guitars and have a tone in our head that we want to get a guitar to make... many of us would say that we have NEVER picked up a guitar and had it make the tone that is in our head with no upgrades.

I will say however, without a doubt. I can get a MIM Strat closer to the sounds that I want for FAR less money than an American Strat.

There is an $1100 Am Strat at Guitar Center that I think feels and sounds amazing. I would still add a trem block, locking tuners, and at least an upgraded bridge pickup to make it do what I want it to do. In fact, I'd probably add a neck pickup too. The total cost would be $1400ish, and I guarantee it would not be closer to the sound that I want than the MIM that I just put together for barely over $600.

A Lexus is higher quality than a Toyota because of a thousand little and big different parts. An American Strat is better than a MIM because of a handful of parts. It just depends on what value you put on your resale value and those different little parts.