Nice.

Love the Powerhouse, thought they came with pearly guards?

Black on black with white details and maple neck is lush. I never quite got to the full DG replica but this was my shot at it...



(Still has my first Strat in it, so not cheating with the thread! )

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'01 American Deluxe HSS Strat.
'87 Japan HSS Strat.
'11 Custom Shop FMT HSS Strat.

"Without music, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines and dates by which bills must be paid."

I have "real" Fenders, and I wouldn't say they're better guitars than my Squier. It is one of the highly regarded '80s Japanese models, and it is just as good as many more expensive guitars.

Mine was a black 1993 MIM 'Squire Series' Standard Floyd Rose Strat- one tone and volume. I got it for my birthday in 1996 and in '97 I had the neck tinted a nice caramel tone that had a satin finish to it.

I wish I still had that guitar, apparently it is in the USA now. But my 08 MIM Floyd is the identical cousin to my old strat, which I love..

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VladSoilerOfCarpets,

They do come with pearl pickguards. I had a mint guard that I thought would look good. So thats what is in the pic. The pearl guard has since made its way back on the Powerhouse. Also, I clipped the resistor to make the boost eqaul to the Clapton boost instead of the factory 12db. It sounds great.

Had a couple of no name strat copies when I first was learning to play back in the mid eighties. Sold them to buy a Kramer Beretta (Had to be like Eddie!), sold it to buy an Ibanez RG 550 (Had to be like Vai and Satriani!). Sold all my guitars and amps and gave it up for about fifteen years.
There is a pawn shop next to the station I buy gas at and I stop in periodically just to see what they have. Well, last year I went in and they had a 2004 50th aniv. american standard in 3 color sunburst with a rosewood fretboard. They wanted $700 for it, I told them I'd give them $500 cash, they said no. I walked out and came back every day for three days, finally fanning out five crisp $100 dollar bills in front of them and they took it. I took it in and had it set up, it plays beautifully, I love it and will not modify it in any way.
I stopped into the same pawn shop today and they had two 60th aniv. mim strats, one midnight blue, the other midnight wine in perfect condition. they wanted $350 apiece for them, I offered $400 for both and they went for it! I plan on adding texas specials to one of them and maybe EMG's to the other. I guess I can officially say I'm a Stratocaster collector!

That's quite a good deal. I paid quite a bit more for my '06 Strat than that, and I don't feel like I got ripped off. Do your guitars have the little Fender 60 diamond on the back of the headstock? Are they SSS or HSS?

Yes they have the little metal emblem on the back of the headstock. I didn't even see them until I got them home! They both are in the SSS configuration.

They're nice guitars. You'll enjoy them.

My first Strat was made the 2nd week of Feb. '65 and I bought it in Feb. '74.It was sunburst with a rosewood board and I made the mistake of letting a guy refinish it in 1975.I was that upset with the refinishing that I bought a '65 spec walnut body and neck for it and put all the hardware in and on that.
I kept the original body and neck and hope to refinish it in Sonic Blue one of these days so that it will at least look like an original Fender again.

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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.

[quote=What kind of pickups did you get? I'm pretty happy with the pickups in my HSS. The single coils are clear as a bell, and the humbucker can get nasty. [/quote]

I hated the original humbucker on mine, and have replaced it with a Seymour Duncan SH-11 (think JB Junior) and it sounds awesome.

The other pickups were okay, and working well enough, but had zero charcter to them. My other Mex Strat sounds great by comparison - the neck has the real strat sound which this one lacked.

I've put a Fender Noiseless in the neck (aparantly the same as on the Jeff Beck Signiture Strats, and if it's good enough for Jeff...) and a Seymour Duncan Hot Rails in the Middle. I've grown to use the middle as my rythym sound more and more and having that extra push has really been a big leap forward for my rythym tone, especially with the style of rock I'm playing at the moment.

They also blend really well together - position 4 (middle and bridge combined) sounds like a really dirty Robert Cray so very happy with that and position 2 (neck and middle) sounds far more open (due to the middle now being a stacked humucker) and is great for clean rythym playing if you need to fill the sound out a little in your live mix...

My first Strat. was a '76 Black w/maple bought new in 76.....I wish I still had it (just to say I had it) but after I stopped playing (did the marriage and raise family thing) I came back to playing again in 2004.....I must say I like the 9.5 rad. better then the 7.25 and the mod. C neck feels much better to me (and it could be that im just used to it now)

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2008 Am. Std. Strat
2008 Am. Deluxe Strat
2010 Am. Deluxe Strat
2011 Am. Std. Strat
2011 Am. Std. Strat
Hot Rod Deluxe
Hot Rod Deville 410

I have a MIM 60th anniversary that I bought about 2 years ago. I have a love/hate relationship with it. The tremolo can be a b*tch sometimes.

Mine was in late 1987 when I got a second hand Japanese Strat with a Kahler locking trem. It was in a deep metallic red and on reflection a damn good guitar, they fetch decent money nowadays.

I traded the Japanese Strat in Jan 1989 for a new Torino Red USA Standard Strat. At that time the music shops didn't have rows of Strats on the walls as they do now and I was lucky to get it. I still have it, the pickguard and control knobs are ageing nicely and I will never, ever sell it.

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'88 USA Standard Strat
'85 Squier MIJ Tele
'10 Schecter Omen Extreme 6

I got my first Strat sometime around 1978/1979. I don't think I atually owned it but I did keep it at my house and I did use it for about five years (I can't remember what happened to it)! It was a 1976 black Strat with a black pickguard and a rosewood fingerboard. I remember it being a little on the heavy side and the tone was kind of generic but it played fine. At that time in the late '70s my only other guitar was a '74 Les Paul Custom and I thought it was so great to be able to switch between the Gibson and the Fender.

Here is my 93 American Standard. Jst put a black guard on it last night! Very good David Gilmour vibe!

http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/307458_10150324351831485_503481484_8544339_1406143418_n.jpg