Just picked up this 1979 ash body Strat. A Carvin humbucker was installed in the bridge postion. Can I assume the body was routed to fit this pickup, or did Fender make an HSS configured body in the 70s? Guy I bought it from said it wasn't routed, I haven't taken it apart yet to check myself yet, though. It's a heavy sucker, I know that much![img][IMG]http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee503/Jay_McIlwaine/IMG_2719.jpg[/img]

Routed, no ´79 left Fender having a humbucker or humbucker cavity.
Maybe you can get a better price because of that.
If it sounds great and the routing wasn´t done too shabby...

Cheers,
Robin

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http://www.youtube.com/robinstrower
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+1

Absolutely!

Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

Well, that's good to know...just curious as to why everyone keeps dissing these late 70s Strats? I think it is made pretty good myself, a little heavy, but so what? It looks and sounds good. I could never in a million years afford a 50s or 60s Strat so, to me this fits the bill and it is an affordable vintage guitar.

I think people cut down on the 70's Fenders only because way back in the 70's and 80's, these guitars were a little different than the 50's and 60's models, and the stigma just stuck around throughout the decades. I am sure that there were a few really bad mishaps that left the factory in the CBS era....but all of my CBS guitars are great. I own 4 CBS era fenders. My Stratocaster has an ash body and could be used as a boat anchor! But it plays well, is built well, and sounds killer! Yeah, the thick skin poly finish may put some off....but these guitars will last forever LOL just find one in good shape that sounds good and buy it!

I think you're right on that, I like guitars that have some "mojo" to them, and this one has that for sure.

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Still looking for that One Guitar To Rule Them All since 1964...
FSR Fender 60 Anniversary Strat HSS MIM, Gibson ES 335, Taylor 555, Ovation Custom Balladeer-12, Baby Taylor, Fender Princeton Chorus (stereo), Fender Champ 600

I am certainly not one of those who would badmouth 70s Strats-not all of them anyway. I had a '78 Strat with an ash body that weighed in at about 11 lbs.,in fact it was so heavy it was near impossible to gig with and if I took it to a gig I would have to pick up a lighter guitar sometimes partway through a set.I finallt traded it for a Marshall JCM 800 half stack.

I was sorry to get rid of that guitar because it sounded astounding,it had a really pronounced quack in the 2 and 4 positions and the sustain was better than that of any guitar I've ever played but it was either the guitar or my back had to go.

If I may offer a bit of advice....Take out the humbucker and put in a stock Fender single coil pup,she'll sing like the sweetest bird.The HSS setup doesn't do a guitar of that era any justice at all.

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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.

Yep, that about sums it up.
The 3 screw neck plate didn't help matters either. I don't think I ever heard of anyone actually complaining that their 3 screw neck had problems or anything but I think most folks saw it as a purely cost cutting measure and a sign that the company was starting to cheap out on the guitars. This is a lesson that a great many North American businesses never seem to learn or if they do learn they forget easily. You can't cheap out on your once highly regarded products and expect the public not to notice and you can't expect the public to do an about face and love you again just because you made some small act of contrition. Earning trust takes time. Losing trust can happen in an instant.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

As far as the 3 bolt neck goes, I thought G&L was making the 3 bolt neck well into the 90s, and G&Ls are thought of as well-made guitars, so I don't know if it was done as a cost-cutting measure, but maybe.....

I hope you take some pictures when you look under that pickguard.

How are the frets? The body sure looks nice: good grain patten.

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My other guitar is a Strat.

Frets are still good with some minor wear, I haven't dismantled the guitar yet, humucker sounds good but is much louder that the other stock pickups. The stock middle and neck pickups don't seem to have alot of output, supposed to be original though.

Of course you realize that Leo Fender and George Fullerton did invent the 3-bolt neck attachment with the micro tilt feature - it was part of Leo's consulting deal with CBS/Fender (Leo owned a small company called CLF Research; at that time George Fullerton had left CBS/Fender and was once again working for Leo at that time). What you may no know is that the original implementation was supposed to be for Fender's acoustic guitar line. When it was added to the Strat and the "new for 1972" Tele models (Custom, Deluxe and revised 2-humbucker Thinline) CBS/Fender didn't really mod the design for an electric. As CBS pushed the factory harder for output, they let the tooling templates get worn and the actual work to get sloppy, leading to a larger tolerance range on the guitars.

CLF Research eventually grew into a manufacturing company that Leo retained sole ownership of while he was also a partner (along with Tom Walker and Forrest White) in the Music Man company. CLF Research actually build the Music Man basses and guitars in the 1970s for Music Man (essentially they acted as the OEM supplier). Of course all of the Leo-era Music Mans also used the 3-bolt neck, but they maintained tighter tolerances so you don't hear a lot of issues with Music Mans from that era.

When Leo fell out with Walker and White he "transitioned" CLF Research into G&L Guitars; the Leo-era and BBE-era 3-bolt G&Ls were also made to tighter tolerances than the 70s CBS-era Fenders, plus by the time they designed the G&Ls 22-fret necks had become a requested change to the original designs. If you look at a G&L neck, you will see that the entire neck is designed to have 22 frets and has a deeper heel/neck pocket than a Fender; a modern Fender with 22 frets has the 22nd fret on an "overhang" and the heel/neck pocket has the same lenght as a vintage 21-fret Fender neck. That extra neck length and deeper pocket gives the 3-bolt G&Ls a bit more stability (more wood around the neck) than the 70s Fender had.

Thanks for the info, I have owned some G&Ls in the past, and just bought another today, in fact. They are very nice guitars, extremely well-built.