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Post subject: Re: Fender USA Strat - Is this Sloppy Quality?
Posted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 6:55 pm
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The body on my "project Strat" has a lot of the streaking in the body that the OP had in his first guitar. Personally, I think it is a nice feature in the wood. Also on mine, one of the seams is not color matched very well, making the seam very prominent. For me, I was okay with that, too. It looked alder to me, but I am not a wood expert.

My "project Strat" started entirely because a friend had a sunburst HH Strat body that I bought very cheap. It is an "age unknown" body that had been stored for a long time. It has a three-piece body with a pretty three-color sunburst. The person I bought it from "thought" it was a true Fender, but was not sure of anything about it. For me, I did not care if it was a true Fender (I never researched it, and still don't know). My main only concerns for the body were: (1) it needed to be alder, (2) it had to be a 3-color burst, (3) it needed to look good, (4) an HH configuration, and (5) it needed to be well made.

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Last edited by 01GT eibach on Tue Jan 28, 2014 7:14 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Post subject: Re: Fender USA Strat - Is this Sloppy Quality?
Posted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 6:57 pm
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Ooops, looks like I'm still in 1979 when I bought my old LP Standard .. I remember back then every Gibson I played was very good, whilst Starts .. that was a different story, maybe one in 10 would be fine, not more than that.

Apologies to the OP :oops: , maybe we should open another tread and discuss this. :mrgreen:


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Post subject: Re: Fender USA Strat - Is this Sloppy Quality?
Posted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 8:33 pm
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Nikola Tesla wrote:
Ooops, looks like I'm still in 1979 when I bought my old LP Standard .. I remember back then every Gibson I played was very good, whilst Starts .. that was a different story, maybe one in 10 would be fine, not more than that.

Apologies to the OP :oops: , maybe we should open another tread and discuss this. :mrgreen:


Well Nikola, what I CAN say aside from "Hey, nothing wrong with stating your opinion" , is that I can testify about the difference in quality from when I arrived at Fender in 1980, the vast improvements and concentration on quality beginning around late 81 and the continuation of that concern since then...and even more so after CBS sold it in 1985 considering the reputation still lingering from the 70's.
I've said in other places and will repeat here, that our return rates, defect rates, etc. are ridiculously low percentages. As I've also said....that percentage is meaningless if you're someone who's received one that "got away"....so we keep our eyes peeled and try and keep a sharp eye out.....we actively don't take that very low percentage lightly.

Back to the beginning......Forums are great not only to see what people like.....but what people don't like as well. Sometimes we're able to get to folks here and help where the phones, email, fax, snail mail somehow don't. So all good to me.
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Post subject: Re: Fender USA Strat - Is this Sloppy Quality?
Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2014 11:07 am
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Perfection... :shock: :roll: :lol: ....

That shouldn't be too much to ask for... Now should it :?:

I have been following this thread and consequently other's along the same lines on this Forum..
There is a general misconception and omittence of certain factors concerning instruments made of Wood / Metal / Plastics...

Having been a woodworker since my teens, residential remodeling renovations in new and very old homes.... I will say that the expectation of perfection is a whole different spectrum when a customer is spending a Million Plus for a house and just the kitchen cabinetry is around $60,000.

Having owned Fender Stratocasters ranging from a 2012 Squier Bullet, 2001 MIM Deluxe, 2005 MIA Standard, 1998 MIM standard ( sort of ) to a 2001 Custom Shop 56 NOS.....

The quality varied according to the price range, however none of my guitars have ever needed to be sent back or returned due to a severe quality issue.....
Were / Are there flaws ?? Of course, since wood contracts and expands over time and temperature changes, it is to be expected that movement will happen and can be seen....

Rob may correct me on this, but I would assume that most of ( not including Custom Shop ) the guitars that Fender builds do not stay in one place. they travel to a storage / distribution center awaiting ordering requests, or / and many of the bodies are built in anticipation of orders..

Now the other aspect is if the OP's guitar was ordered thru a big box... ( Guitar Center's are Big Boxes ) which have a large inventory in storage.... Then from what I have seen in GC's in Ct RI and Mass... cold storage in back of the retail area... definitely not constant monitoring of humidity factors.. Plus generally a sales force interested in moving product out the door, more often than not, not particularly knowledgeable to couldn't care less.... to everyone and anyone being able to handle instruments ...... I'm not surprised that some guitars will fare for the worse..

Again these are instruments... All needing personal setup once adopted, but generally I find Fender's quality quite good, so for me, all my instruments have minor dings and wear marks, the only exception was the 56 NOS which was flawless ( stupidly I sold it 2 years ago ) I posted pics of it a while back...

Play the guitar, enjoy it, it is not timeless, it will degrade over time, eventually returning to nothing more than carbon particles....... :lol:

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Post subject: Re: Fender USA Strat - Is this Sloppy Quality?
Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2014 11:19 pm
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I have 5 strats. Three are American Deluxe, one is an American VG, and the least expensive is a Japanese Pawn Shop '51.

Guess which I end up playing?

The Pawn shop.

It is the one that came right out of the box feeling like it was just back from having its fret ends dressed... I mean as if some really talented luthier did it for someone that mattered.

The American ones feel like they need to be sent to get the fret ends dressed, so they just sit in the case while I play the Pawn shop or a bound-neck Gibson SG or Gretch...


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Post subject: Re: Fender USA Strat - Is this Sloppy Quality?
Posted: Sat Feb 22, 2014 6:30 pm
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I know I'm late to the party but I found this topic after starting my own topic on the subject. My topic was titled 2 bad American deluxes in a row. No store I can find seems to stock an American deluxe in sunburst and rosewood. So ordering was my only option. I got 2 guitars in a row that had those ugly lines in them. And as someone else stated, Not a single alder guitar (or any other wood for that matter) in the store had lines like that. They were all beautiful. I am currently awaiting a 3rd. If I wasn't trying to replace an old strat I used to have for nostalgias sake I would have given up on fender completely after the second.


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Post subject: Re: Fender USA Strat - Is this Sloppy Quality?
Posted: Sat Feb 22, 2014 7:43 pm
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It sounds like the latest batch of alder has got those long grain lines.

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Post subject: Re: Fender USA Strat - Is this Sloppy Quality?
Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2014 8:11 am
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As stated earlier, Those are not grain lines. They are cracks/splits in the wood. Possibly created by the drying process? That I am not sure of. But you see stuff like that all the time with lumber. It is very common. What you do not usually see that in, is any wood that has been designated to be used cosmetically. Examples would be flooring, cabinets, furniture and transparent finish guitars to name a few. If you want an example of grain lines look at the pic I posted in my topic 2 bad American deluxes in a row. The beautiful wavy ripple pattern in that guitar is the grain. Those things under the bridge are cracks/splits.


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Post subject: Re: Fender USA Strat - Is this Sloppy Quality?
Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2014 10:07 am
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kate421 wrote:
As stated earlier, Those are not grain lines. They are cracks/splits in the wood. Possibly created by the drying process? That I am Not Sure Of . But you see stuff like that all the time with lumber. It is very common. What you do not usually see that in, is any wood that has been designated to be used cosmetically. Examples would be flooring, cabinets, furniture and transparent finish guitars to name a few. If you want an example of grain lines look at the pic I posted in my topic 2 bad American deluxes in a row. The beautiful wavy ripple pattern in that guitar is the grain. Those things under the bridge are cracks/splits.


Again.... NO...NO.... Those marks are not cracks...For one cracks in a piece of wood run parallel to the grain, since cracks are the visual indication of wood fibers separating.
Those are common anomalies in the tree's growing process.... Like us human being's, living tree's have a circulatory system, very different than ours but like us there is fluid running thru veins or in the tree's case, all it's fiber's..
Those mark's are discolorations during the growing process which is far longer than our own growth time. Tree's don't stop growing. Those marks are a sign of a difference during the process, nutrition could be a factor as it differs depending on each year's seasonal / weather pattern changes....

As far as cosmetic... in furniture or instruments, cosmetic would imply a top laminate of premium choice grade, the species is irrelevant. These guitars are 2 to 3 piece bodies glued up and there are no tops laminated to these bodies...
You see these marks in flooring and furniture depending on the grade... Poplar will often have similar streaks, Cheery wood is highly defined with lighter and darker streaks. Maple is also not always the clear beautiful wood we are used to seeing... Most of Maple we see in instruments is of a high grade.. As for Ash... It is a species that grows in a region high in moisture, wetlands are predominant... Hence the name Swamp Ash... Alder is much more of a stable region..

Tree's that grow in predominantly wet regions are susceptible to the water table that runs in contact with their roots... Some years due to abundant rainfalls, there may be a higher content of minerals and vice versa.... This will affect the tree's and visually we see the result once a tree is felled and split into baulks.... It has nothing to do with the quality of the wood itself other than it looks blemished....
For our discussion these baulks > blanks are chosen for this model line because they fall within the grade tolerances of their respective model lines...
To have a perfectly ( somewhat ) clear and flawless grain pattern requires top grade, which may not be available for that price range.....

Sending guitars back because the wood grain pattern doesn't match a Custom Shop grade is ridiculous....
Kind of like the customer who orders Corian for the kitchen counter tops than turns around and sends it back because it doesn't look like any of the Italian marble they saw in Architectural Digest.... :? :roll:

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Post subject: Re: Fender USA Strat - Is this Sloppy Quality?
Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2014 10:26 am
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53magnatone wrote:
kate421 wrote:
As stated earlier, Those are not grain lines. They are cracks/splits in the wood. Possibly created by the drying process? That I am Not Sure Of . But you see stuff like that all the time with lumber. It is very common. What you do not usually see that in, is any wood that has been designated to be used cosmetically. Examples would be flooring, cabinets, furniture and transparent finish guitars to name a few. If you want an example of grain lines look at the pic I posted in my topic 2 bad American deluxes in a row. The beautiful wavy ripple pattern in that guitar is the grain. Those things under the bridge are cracks/splits.


Again.... NO...NO.... Those marks are not cracks...For one cracks in a piece of wood run parallel to the grain, since cracks are the visual indication of wood fibers separating.
Those are common anomalies in the tree's growing process.... Like us human being's, living tree's have a circulatory system, very different than ours but like us there is fluid running thru veins or in the tree's case, all it's fiber's..
Those mark's are discolorations during the growing process which is far longer than our own growth time. Tree's don't stop growing. Those marks are a sign of a difference during the process, nutrition could be a factor as it differs depending on each year's seasonal / weather pattern changes....

As far as cosmetic... in furniture or instruments, cosmetic would imply a top laminate of premium choice grade, the species is irrelevant. These guitars are 2 to 3 piece bodies glued up and there are no tops laminated to these bodies...
You see these marks in flooring and furniture depending on the grade... Poplar will often have similar streaks, Cheery wood is highly defined with lighter and darker streaks. Maple is also not always the clear beautiful wood we are used to seeing... Most of Maple we see in instruments is of a high grade.. As for Ash... It is a species that grows in a region high in moisture, wetlands are predominant... Hence the name Swamp Ash... Alder is much more of a stable region..

Tree's that grow in predominantly wet regions are susceptible to the water table that runs in contact with their roots... Some years due to abundant rainfalls, there may be a higher content of minerals and vice versa.... This will affect the tree's and visually we see the result once a tree is felled and split into baulks.... It has nothing to do with the quality of the wood itself other than it looks blemished....
For our discussion these baulks > blanks are chosen for this model line because they fall within the grade tolerances of their respective model lines...
To have a perfectly ( somewhat ) clear and flawless grain pattern requires top grade, which may not be available for that price range.....

Sending guitars back because the wood grain pattern doesn't match a Custom Shop grade is ridiculous....
Kind of like the customer who orders Corian for the kitchen counter tops than turns around and sends it back because it doesn't look like any of the Italian marble they saw in Architectural Digest.... :? :roll:


+1...And the correct answer for lines in the wood! Good explanation and analogy! My 82 Vintage Reissue has the same type of lines and they are NOT cracks I can assure you.

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Post subject: Re: Fender USA Strat - Is this Sloppy Quality?
Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2014 1:26 pm
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however they are formed, they are not "grain" nor are they attractive. And if it was so normal why doesn't a single guitar on display in the store have them? I decided if any of the guitars in the store had lines like that I would keep it. Not a singe one did. And whatever they are, when I took the pick guard off you could see they ran about 1/2 an inch deep or more (into the area routed for the pickups) But what do I know. What I do know, and most people would agree, is that a $1500 guitar shouldn't look like that. And I wouldn't accept wood flooring or cabinets that looked like that either.


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Post subject: Re: Fender USA Strat - Is this Sloppy Quality?
Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2014 4:42 pm
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kate421 wrote:
however they are formed, they are not "grain" nor are they attractive. And if it was so normal why doesn't a single guitar on display in the store have them? I decided if any of the guitars in the store had lines like that I would keep it. Not a singe one did. And whatever they are, when I took the pick guard off you could see they ran about 1/2 an inch deep or more (into the area routed for the pickups) But what do I know. What I do know, and most people would agree, is that a $1500 guitar shouldn't look like that. And I wouldn't accept wood flooring or cabinets that looked like that either.


I never said they were part of the grain, many factors affect the growth of tree's, weather patterns are cyclical, temperature also affects a tree...
There is this misconception that wood patterns should be flawless... It was once a living entity. Nothing that lives is perfect, all wood species have some deviation which gives each and every piece their unique properties.
It's the same with cabinetry, which i have custom built and installed or wood flooring, which I have also installed....
Rarely does cabinetry have flawless grain, especially today where most of the old growth has been depleted... Not to say it isn't available but for truly custom cabinets, not faced 3/4" ply modular type... It starts at around $60,000....
Same with guitars, $1,500 is actually quite inexpensive when one takes into account the work involved in a Deluxe model... It is priced according to a certain volume.... those costs of material and labor and tooling and other's are factored into the final price.... Fortunately each guitar we buy reflects only a very small percentage of te costs of operations... Like that $250,000 CAD machine which cuts up bodies perfectly each and every time....

Point is that splitting hairs on visual characteristics of a natural resource is a bit off scale... :wink:

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Post subject: Re: Fender USA Strat - Is this Sloppy Quality?
Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2014 5:17 pm
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53magnatone wrote:
I never said they were part of the grain, many factors affect the growth of tree's, weather patterns are cyclical, temperature also affects a tree...
There is this misconception that wood patterns should be flawless... It was once a living entity. Nothing that lives is perfect, all wood species have some deviation which gives each and every piece their unique properties.


Absolutely, but what wood doesn't have are straight lines that cross the grain of multiple years.
Cracks tend to be more perpendicular to the grain, so they're not that either. This looks like damage caused during planing, or by being dragged across a rough surface.
Especially so because the marks are fairly parallel, but neither with nor perpendicular to the grain.


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Post subject: Re: Fender USA Strat - Is this Sloppy Quality?
Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2014 5:48 pm
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kate421 wrote:
however they are formed, they are not "grain" nor are they attractive.


Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, what might not be attractive to you might be exactly what someone else is looking for. So it really doesn't matter how it was formed so long as it's not a defect in the wood or workmanship.

kate421 wrote:
But what do I know. What I do know, and most people would agree, is that a $1500 guitar shouldn't look like that. And I wouldn't accept wood flooring or cabinets that looked like that either.


You wouldn't and you're definately entitled to your opinion. Me personally, it wouldn't bother me and actually it adds character. These are exactly the type of "flaws", if you want to call them that, that would differentiate it from cookie cutter type grain patterns.

Just my two cents..... :wink:

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Post subject: Re: Fender USA Strat - Is this Sloppy Quality?
Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2014 6:55 pm
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arth1 wrote:
53magnatone wrote:
I never said they were part of the grain, many factors affect the growth of tree's, weather patterns are cyclical, temperature also affects a tree...
There is this misconception that wood patterns should be flawless... It was once a living entity. Nothing that lives is perfect, all wood species have some deviation which gives each and every piece their unique properties.


Absolutely, but what wood doesn't have are straight lines that cross the grain of multiple years.
Cracks tend to be more perpendicular to the grain, so they're not that either. This looks like damage caused during planing, or by being dragged across a rough surface.
Especially so because the marks are fairly parallel, but neither with nor perpendicular to the grain.
Thats what it looks like to me. I used to work in a wood shop when I was younger. Scratches , sanding , planing marks that go against the grain are really hard to see with an ufinished piece of wood, but once stain is applied it sticks out like a sore thumb.


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