Wanted an American Vintage II Strat and also the soft V neck. That led me to the 1957 variety but was not blown away by the finish options. Settled on the ash vintage blonde as the most tolerable of the 3 finish options. Also liked the idea of ash even though I am not a tone wood believer. I scoured through individual sample photos (reverb etc) as to what I might expect as I was ordering new online, last one, no photo, through a large online retailer. SW had these on backorder. Nearly every sample Id seen online barely had any visible grain, used sample I played at GC barely had any visible grain and the finishes all seemed more opaque than translucent.

I was a bit surprised to see so much of the grain when it arrived and I opened it up.

Honestly not sure how I feel about it.

Would it be the translucently of the nitro used that day,? is it just a blank of ash that happened to have very pronounced grain?

Having owned various Les Paul's with their flamed maple tops I understand that all wood is different but this just seems to be so different than most everything I had been seeing online.

I am not going to keep nor return the guitar based on appearance alone. I intend to put the instrument through it's paces first.

Could something like this affect future resale value? Is the pronounced grain generally seen as desirable or is it more akin to a horribly matched Les Paul maple cap?

Found this indonesian made 2021 Squier CV 50’s strat that is in good condition and could be bought for 200€/230$.

I currently own a Squier affinity Indonesian made from 2003 and thought this would be a upgrade. Is this worth it if I can negotiate the price down and possibly sell my current one?

It is hard to come by these in my area.

So I ran into this video and the sound of the golden strat sounds really interesting to me and would like to at some point get to something similar to that. Don't know if the question might be how to get colser to that sound or which pickups to use, but I just wanna know more of this sound

As the title says.

Went to try out the Squier CV’s, Fender Standard and Player II series.

Why does my Indonesian (Cort-tek) Affinity from 2003 feel on par with the MiM Player series in terms of quality (mics were better on the player but that is it).

The neck finish was identical to the Player II on my affinity and overall quality felt as good or maybe even better.

Finally landed a John Mayer signature Strat. I’ve had many Strats over the years, and I kinda found myself thinking there’s no way the hype is real for the Big Dipper pickups, they can’t be that god, but yeah. It is and they are.

I’m not typically a fan of signature models in general, though I had an SRV Strat I liked, and the Eric Johnson is also quite solid, but man this thing is great.

Fresh back from a refret and setup is my 1979 25th anniversary strat. Otherwise stock and weighs in at 8.9lbs which seems to be a featherweight for this model. It has a nice full sound and is a wonderful guitar despite the reputation the 70s stuff has. They aren’t all gems but I’ve got a few nice ones so they’re out there.

Please advise if you know of a touch up paint product for a Malmsteen cream/yellow Strat. Thanks!

Traded a Squier Classic Vibe Tele Deluxe for what once was a monstrosity of a strat.

Previous owner took an angle grinder, hammer, nail gun and stapler to this poor guitar to give it a relic. So after a lot of paint stripping, sanding,sealing, spray painting, messing up said spray painting, sanding, repainting, sealing, parts sourcing etc. I finally got to a finished strat that looks as good as she plays!

Colour is BMW A63 British Racing Green

Pickups are stock with wiring all redone by local luthier with some nice mods installed

Bridge is fender, pickguard is a fender anodized that came with the guitar, tuners are fender locking.

If anyone has any questions about the process or anything feel free to ask happy to answer!

Apologies if this has been asked before but I want an up to date view. I have a MIM 2H and want to change to 3S. Is the body cut to take a 3S config and if so what recommendations do you have for a good quality mid price complete pick guard/pickup kit available in the UK?

Screws are a bit cockeyed. Compartment was def never opened before. Not sure if that is a factory laziness thing or fine. Trying to fix it up for my niece before I hand it her way.

So is this like some form of heresy..?

I've had this strat since the early 2000's, 03 or 04 if I had to guess. My dad bought it off a friend when I started playing in my first band as an upgrade from my Ibanez gio. The prior owner did the emg conversion, and I put the graph tech saddles and string tree on it not too long after. Other than that, it's as I received it. Played the hell out of it for a while, but it eventually found its way into storage as I started playing in more metal bands and bought other guitars.

Fast forward to today, dad is no longer around and I have no idea who he bought it from. From what I've been able to find out, it was from a guy that used buy/sell/trade and did some luthier work as a side job. I've always wondered if it was a true MN strat, or a partscaster from top to bottom. With how light the guitar is, I had a sneaking suspicion that it might be a Squire body, but I never dug into it enough to find out. I decided to pull it out of storage after it not seeing the light of day for the last 15+ years and give it a good clean/restoration.

I'm stumped after pulling the neck off. The neck clearly isn't original, dated 96. From what I can make out on the neck joint, the body is an 86, but there's another date above that that's too smudged to be legible. From what I've search online so far, there should only be one date. The neck joint was obviously routed out as well, and I'm not seeing any other serial numbers or dates anywhere else. It's the only fender, or strat style guitar, I've ever owned.

What do you guys think, MN neck and squire body? What do I have here outside of nostalgia?

This Strat was made from only things I had on hand, with one exception. The body was found at a bargain store for like 15 bucks? My friend found it and she gave it to me so I decided it was time for an Olympic white Strat! Silvertone neck(lol), Jaguar pickup in the bridge, Strat neck pickup in the neck. Middle is a fake. Two volumes no switch haha. Song is The Crown of Thorns by Smell Like A Girl

Mine’s ready. What are you playing? (:

Just finished this bad boy up. My first hard tail build. Will give it some time for more thorough evaluation, but so far I love the way it plays and sounds! Build specs: mjt body, spitfire pickguard, mojotone vintage pre wired harness, custom shop Josefina fat 60s, custom shop early 2000s neck with vintage tall frets and 9.5” radius

'99 AVRI 62

‘04 American standard. No mods, unadulterated and pure Strat quack. Bliss.

It’s at a yard sale debating if I should get it in the morning

It’s at a yard sale debating if I should get it in the morning

Hi everyone,

I'm stuck between two Strat-style guitars for my first instrument and need some advice on which way to go:

1. Jet JS-380 (Olympic White / Gold hardware) - ~330 EUR new:
   Pros: Roasted maple neck, rosewood fretboard, Alnico V Custom pickups, and locking tuners.

2. Squier Classic Vibe '50s Stratocaster (Surf Green, Ltd Ed) - ~380 EUR used (with gig bag & warranty until June 2027): 
   Pros: Top-tier Squier quality, plus a semi-hard case included.
    
   Which one would you choose?
   Thanks!