Hello this is my first posting here although I have had many Fenders over the years.
I recently bought a Eric Johnson strat that was "modified" by the previous owner. I have no idea why he thought he could re-engineer a perfectly working strat. I have the Guitar Center receipt so I know he did in fact buy it in good condition. I paid $650 for it including the original case and papers,etc. He sanded off the white lacquer and finished it in clear. Ughh! He also completely rewired it (wrong) and replaced all the pots, cap and pickguard. Thankfully he kept the pickups and did get the correct value pots. He did keep the pickguard but it was so bad I had to get a new one from WD. It took a lot of searching and finally found a .1uF 1kV cap. The final problem I have now is there's wood compression damage under neckplate where the screws are. He must have used a high torque screwgun to attach the neck. The areas where the screwholes are are deformed and cause the plate to bend. I tried the old steam and water soak methods but the wood just won't come back. My quick fix is to use a thick aluminum plate under the neckplate to keep it straight. Anyone have an idea how to bring back the wood? Eventually I'd like to get it back to white or I have been looking on ebay for a replacement body but they are expensive.

Change that capacitor. It's far too high rated for the guitar. You need .022uf, don't worry about the voltage rating cos that makes so little difference on a passive circuit it's untrue.

Onto the body wood, your easiest option is to simply sand the area flat. Short of having at it with a chisel, the previous owner can't have inflicted that much damage. It's probably more visual than anything else.

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No no and no

Thanks for the reply.
That value cap is what's spec'd for the EJ guitar. I just wanted to bring it back to stock.
I just got done making the plate and it's working.
I really don't want to remove woodby sanding or chiseling if I don't need to.
All four corners where the plate is are compressed from about 3/32to 1/8 inches.
He really did a number on it. I know it's not sanded down because the flat part is the same way.

The neck plates on nearly all of my strats have seemed a tad "deformed" around the screw holes when everything is tight. I agree that the damage may just look bad, because the previous owner could not have tightened the screws too much without damaging the neck threads or the screw heads. I'd spray the color of my choice over the body, add several coats of clear lacquer, polish it up and play the crap out of it.

Sounds to me like the previous owner took a leaf out of nevins book.

Some people just like the el-natural nature of wood. But why you wouldn't by a stock natural american deluxe with the S1 system instead of 'having at' an EJ strat? I don't know.

I agree do your best to return it to stock. HAVING said that! my pedal board has a badger fuzz sitting in it which is turned on 80% of the time. This pedal was hand made by Nikininja. If he's telling you to try your EJ out with a different cap in it, I reckon you should try it out with a different cap, dude knows his electronics s**t.

Dan

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My Rig: Guitar into Pedals then into Amps and out into Speakers.

I happen to like that .1uf cap. So does EJ. Guess it depends on you.

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The design of each element should be thought out in order to be easy to make and easy to repair.
Leo Fender

I haven't plugged it in yet and I do have an extra .022uF in my tool box so I guess some experimentation is in order.

Always fun to experiment. The modern strats use the .022uf cap. When Leo Fender designed it, the original strat, and many years after, had a .1uf. The EJ strat is based on a 1957, I think.

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The design of each element should be thought out in order to be easy to make and easy to repair.
Leo Fender

It is based on a 57.

Yes, I was wondering if the previous owner was indeed Nevin! It certainly sounds mighty like his approach to the EJ, doesn't it?

Can't seem to find Nevin's thread on that particular "refin"...



Hi richsurf: seriously 1/8 inch? Then you don't stand a chance of restoring it by any other means than chiselling it out and filling with a new fillet of wood. Never in this life are you going to get wood to swell to fill an eighth of an inch dip by the steam method.

A different option might be to put a plastic neckplate cushion under the plate, to slightly even out dips. Obviously that takes the instrument away from stock so you may or may not care for the idea.

One more thing to consider before you go too far: if the screws have really been driven in that much then they will have gone deeper into the neck heel too. So if you restore them to their original depth by repairing the damage on the back of the body they may now not grip the neck sufficiently. This is where moisture might come to your aid: very carefully put a couple of drops of water into those holes and then gently run a screw in and out just to carry the water well in there. It will make the wood fibres swell a bit and might be all you need to remedy the situation.

Failing that you may find padding the screw holes in the neck with something such as sawdust to improve the screws' purchase helps. I'd see if loose sawdust did the job before going so far as adding glue, let alone plugging and redrilling.

It's all a bit of a headache, isn't it?

Care to show us photos, so's we have a better idea what we're dealing with?

Good luck - C

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Great advice thanks.
Maybe I was a bit off with the sizes.
I will take some pics.
I got the wiring done and put the new pickguard on.
I made the Aluminum plate too.
I was going to string it up but the set I bought is missing the B string.

Ha! Return of the prodigal...

Cheers - C

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Here's a few pics. The plate I made is under the EJ plate.
I may be buying a candy apple red EJ body so I don't have to deal with this one.

http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/5494/38140641.jpg
http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/3698/35104721.jpg
http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/4113/62838007.jpg
http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/5985/84777232.jpg
http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/1429/img0001xp.jpg
http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/883/img0004qj.jpg
http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/4886/img0002sn.jpg
http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/6625/img0003vq.jpg

This seems to be a common problem with neck plates, but I think the real culprit's are the plates themselves which under torque stress from the screws, the plate deforms.

Ceri is it possible that neck plates were thicker and/or the steel itself was of a higher quality and tensile strenght

granted the fact that the wood grain is running parallel does not help either

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"C'est parti mon Kiki "

Ooo - I don't know. But my accountant has an EJ which I'll likely find myself face to face with again in the near future so I must remember to compare its neckplate with whichever of mine I take along.

...There: I bet some of you are wishing your meetings with your accountants involved two-Strat jam sessions, huh? It's almost worth the misery of doing the business end of the meeting. Almost...

Cheers - C

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