Friday, March 18, 2011

Clapton "Blackie" Fender Stratocaster






























Hello! I have an interesting guitar here for sale. This is a Fender Strat that I relic'ed to look like Eric's iconic, beat up soloing machine. First things first- The body, neck, and pickups I used are from a Fender Squire. Hence the low price. That being said, I've bought different parts and made some modifications that really spice things up. Here are the specs:

* Fender Squire Strat body (the body is not plywood- it's several pieces of solid wood- even the upper tier strats are made of a few pieces)

* Fender Squire Strat neck (all Fender necks are apparently made in the same factory. This one just originally had "Squier" on the peghead, but not anymore!)

* Official Fender Stratocaster waterslide decal applied to peghead- This means that it looks legit! Nice gold lettering... pristine.

* Official Fender "Blackie" neckplate serial no.- This reaaally makes it official: the actual serial number-20036. It's those extra details that make the difference!

*Peghead cigarette burns! These were not done by a cigarette, but they are burnt in all of the right places, and at the right level! Probably not a good idea to stick a cigarette in your peghead... but apparently Eric thought it worked well enough!

*Fender Squire Strat pickups (three single coils, nothing fancy- but it has a nice spanky-Strat tone. Could you tell the difference between these and a MIM Strat? I doubt it.)

*Maple blocked tremolo- I blocked the tremolo, just like on the Fender custom version of Eric's guitar. 5 Fender springs and all. It improves sustain AND helps to avoid annoying tremolo tuning issues!

*Relic-ed body details- Specially applied body abuse to reproduce Clapton's famous guitar. Buckle rash from hell on the back, chips, dings, and wear everywhere else.

*On top of this, I scalloped all of the frets beyond the 12th fret. This was an experiment I was interested to try- you can REALLY get a hold of those strings when bending during solos... and I had heard this could cause tuning issues, but I have had absolutely NO tuning issues from the scalloped frets. It actually gives you greater control. I was so pleased I'm going to be scalloping some of my own personal guitars! I think guitar makers must not do this on a larger scale just because of the extra cost.

* MIM Fender Strat tremolo bridge- This is NOT a Squier bridge. This is from the more expensive MIM line, and has FENDER stamped into all of the saddles.

* MIM Fender Kluson tuners- Again, these were NOT from the Squier. These tuners came from a more expensive MIM Fender Strat and work perfectly.

* Shielded control pickup / control cavity- Helps avoid extra electromagnetic hum. Great sound!

1 comment:

  1. Do you have any information about where you purchased that neck plate from? I'm building something similar and having that kind of neck plate would be interesting.

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