What to do with 20 year old Fender Strat?

[Old Tooth Hopkins]

Hi All,

Seeking General Advice here.

Short question

should I MOD it now, would that limit my options in the future?


Long question:

I have a 2003 MIM Fender Strat that I had since School - it's my first proper guitar. It's got wear and tear through it.

1. pickups (2 stock, 1 hot rail type on bridge) may have aged - they sound slightly less crisp?

2. Pots need replacing (scratchy) - so I will open it up at some point.

There is sentimental value to it, but I want to live life minimally, and you can only play 1 guitar at any given time.

So, what should I do now?

1. Keep it as is, just replacing scratchy bits.

2. Mod it for funzies - the mods will be in the wiring - maybe new pickups (worth it?), maybe new wiring configurations

3. Sell it - it costed me $1099 back then, wonder if it's worth more than $500 now.

If I do keep it, I hope one day one of my sons pick it up. But would it be better to just buy them one then if they're serious about it? Would they resent me for an undesirable mod i do to it?

[Simon Barden]

You can always mod it, as long as the mods aren't reversible and keep the parts you've removed to offer with the guitar if you do sell it in future. However as they are relatively common guitars and lots were made, I doubt that it will command too high a price or people will be too interested in it being 100% original.

Looking around, in the UK they seem to go for between £250-£400, depending on condition or whether there's a gig bag or case to go with it. So AUD$500-$800, though used prices in Aus may be higher than over here as new guitars are more expensive.

Sometime in 2003 they changed from poplar to alder bodies for the MIM Strats, though it's probably hard to tell easily what the body wood is. The later it is, the more likely it is to have an alder body and so be much closer to a USA Strat.

I had a MIM Strat from around that general period. Looking back at some pictures I took (not of the whole guitar unfortunately) it had ceramic bar pickups, and I replaced those with a set of Kinmans. I got the guitar in 2008 and it was a few years old at that time so probably 2002-2005. It played really well and was easy to set up (though I'm sure I'd do an even better job these days). It was never quite as impressive to play as my '95 MIJ Strat though which also had Kinmans fitted.

Some dullness in the sound may be due to a bad solder joint, old strings, loose neck screws, loose tuner nuts. I doubt the pickups have aged enough for them to have lost brightness, it's generally the attack that sounds a bit more compressed on vintage pickups than getting a loss of treble. Less magnetism reduces the pickup's inductance a bit, which generally brightens up the sound but gives less output.

It may well be that the body and wood has dried out more and I'm sure some other chemical changes will have been going on in it over time. So it may be that the body itself is affecting the tone.

Or it could be your hearing isn't quite as good or your memory is playing tricks on you. Too many things to say!

Do you like the powerful bridge pickup or could you live with maybe a hotter standard style pickup?

It's a good basic guitar, and it does say Fender on the headstock, so I'd be tempted to fit a set of Toneriders, a Wilkinson trem with a steel block (the alloy thing on the standard trem is rubbish) and replace the wiring harness with CTS pots, a CRL switch, a capacitor of your choice and a PureTone jack.

Check the tuner operation. If they are all still working smoothly, then I'd leave them alone. It may be worth checking the gear ratios by measuring how many turns of the tuning key it takes to rotate the post once. 14:1 is pretty much the current standard, which you'll get with PBG tuners, but if its 12:1, you may want to consider upgrading those as well to maybe a 16:1 or even an 18:1 set. or if you use the trem, then locking tuners!

The higher the gear ratio, the easier it is to get the strings in tune without over or undershooting the note. The low E, A and B strings are particularly hard to tune due to the relative string tensions and the effect one turn of the post has on the frequency compared to the D, G and high E strings, so the higher the ratio, the better for this.

[McCreed]

3. Sell it - it costed me $1099 back then, wonder if it's worth more than $500 now.


Looking around, in the UK they seem to go for between £250-£400, depending on condition or whether there's a gig bag or case to go with it. So AUD$500-$800, though used prices in Aus may be higher than over here as new guitars are more expensive.

In AUS there is an absurd glut of used gear and guitars on fb Market Place, Gumtree etc right now and has been for quite some time.
I reckon you'd be hard-pressed to even get 500 for it, and don't expect it to sell overnight.


2. Mod it for funzies - the mods will be in the wiring - maybe new pickups (worth it?), maybe new wiring configurations.

As for mods, Simons offered some good suggestions with pickups, bridge and tuners, to which I would just add a couple of points:

I don't recall what the pickups were in 2003 MIM's but if they were the ceramic bar ones like used in later models, an upgrade could be a big improvement IMO. Including an upgrade to the electronics (as you mentioned) if you do the pickups, it just makes sense.

Regarding the stock vibrato bridge, whether it's "rubbish" or not is up to you. If you are a big vibrato player, you could probably benefit from an upgrade. If you don't use it at all, you could "deck" it and block it. And if it has bent metal saddles, changing them to solid steel block saddles is an good improvement and economical as well (again IMO).

[Simon Barden]

Yes, maybe ‘rubbish’ is too strong a word and I’m lumping all alloy blocks together. There will be different quality alloy blocks and they will have varied in quality over time. I’m probably swayed by coming across a few Squier blocks that have simply split due to thecallow being so weak. And the alloy block on my MIJ Strat had also cracked, which is why I fitted a Wilkinson bridge on it. The more you use the trem arm, the more any weakness in an ally block will show up.

There is mo reason the right alloy mix shouldn’t last a lifetime, but I do prefer steel.

[McCreed]

There is mo reason the right alloy mix shouldn’t last a lifetime, but I do prefer steel.

I get that, and I guess because I'm not a big vibrato user and block most of mine, I haven't had an issue with durability or sustain for that matter.

Interesting side note though: I had a early 70's one-piece MAZAK vibrato bridge that lot's of people considered real rubbish, and I sold it for pretty good price to a collector that wanted period-correct hardware for a restoration.

[Simon Barden]

Interesting. Hadn't realised until looking up ‘Mazak’ just how many bridge types the Strat has has. Just been reading this which captures just about all of them (I expect). https://www.fuzzfaced.net/stratocaster-bridge.html

Mazak alloys are now apparently calked Zamac (probably making some advertising company rich in the name-changing process), some info on them here but basically mainly magnesium, zinc and copper: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zamak

[McCreed]

That was a good read on the vibratos Simon. I don't think I've ever encountered the "Freeflyte" style before.

I found it interesting when talking about the string spacing that the 2-7/16" (56mm) and the 2-1/16" (52.5mm) were mentioned but not the 2-1/8" (54mm). Maybe none of the Fender vibratos were 54mm, but I know some of the MIM hardtails (teles at least) are indeed 54. Now my curiosity is peaked, and I'll have to investigate!

Apologies to Old Tooth Hopkins for hijacking your thread!

[Simon Barden]

Hijacking is what threads are made for.

Maybe the 54mm spacing derived from the original Japanese copies of Strats and Teles, where they possibly got around copy infringements by using a slightly different string spacing (or maybe even to suit the generally smaller hands of the local population at that time). So when Fender started making instruments outside of the USA it probably made sense to source locally-made hardware where they could. I know the very first JV Squiers with the big Fender and small Squier logo (plus the early JV Fenders), used all USA hardware and pickups, but that changed quite quickly once they'd sourced more local alternatives. During the fairly short period after the CBS sell-off and management buy-out, Fender made no guitars in the USA between Feb and Oct 1985 whilst they moved their manufacturing from Fullerton (factory not included in the sale) to Corona.

So they initially used up old stock, but would have had to source other components when they ran out.

[Old Tooth Hopkins]

Wow, thank you Simon and McCreed.

Now to bring the thread back...haha, I am actually intrigued by the level of details and expertise you guys brought!

Re: Simon, I think my memory is playing tricks on me. As a teenager, I used that strat to play hard rock/Metal and Blues. It was always played through a DS-1 from the Bridge Pickup. I then played in a funk band mostly out of position 4. I hardly used position 3 and 5 on clean tone until my older, mellower, and more tasteful days, so maybe they sound how they should be. I may still consider a tonerider upgrades though.

I was never much of a trem guy, just occasional whammy here and there - so the block didn't bother me. In my hard rock days I briefly flirtted with the idea of floyd rose upgrade, but that would have costed way too much.

Re: Simon, The body I am quite certain is Alder. This mob of MIM are all parts found on American Strats but assembled in Mexico (as the fender luthier told a friend of mine on a plane).

Re: McCreed, I've been happy with the tuners. I got that guitar when I was 16, and not many of my peers had "their own" fenders then, mostly squiers, ibanez and Epiphones. One of the key thing everyone said was how well the MIM Strat stays in tune over a long period of time.

[Simon Barden]

The tuners on electric guitars are rarely the problem with tuning issues these days, haven’t been for a long time, and even the cheapest of kit tuners are very good now.

A lot of the cheap copy guitars of the 60s and 70s could come with pretty terrible tuners with loads of backlash and pretty low gear ratios e.g 10:1. The more slop, the quicker they wore out and they certainly could slip. So it became easy to blame the tuners and often upgrading to a set of Schaller or Grovers would solve most of the perceived tuning issues (often even if that wasn’t the main cause of the problem).

You do get the occasional modern tuner that will not keep tune, but they are very rare. Tuning issues are almost always down to a badly cut nut with excessive friction that doesn’t let the string pass through freely. Sometimes it’s the bridge, but the nut is always the prime suspect.

These days tuner issues are more to do with uneven feel during a tuner’s rotation, going from stiff to light to stiff again. Something that could often be mainly cured with a bit of grease, if only it were easy to get to the gears! Something to be said for open-geared tuners, even if closed gear tuners do keep dust and grit out.

[Old Tooth Hopkins]

Since I've got two gurus on this thread, I might as well fire away my questions...

I found out more about this Strat (which I did ages ago, before my guitar building days, so now with more understanding).

The pickups look like Alnico type but internet says it's ceramic. I think I am now more keen to swap them out for Tonerider ones.

What is preferred, pure vintage or blue set? The RWRF in pure vintage sounds promising.

Do the Benson Pickups and Entwhistle (can't look at that without thinking about John Entwhistle...) worth looking at?

[Simon Barden]

You need to look at the back of the pickup.

Here was my MIM Strat pickup:

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/800x600q90/922/ftBbxx.jpg (https://imageshack.com/i/pmftBbxxj)

You can see the two ceramic magnets stuck to the rear.

With proper Strat pickups, the Alnico magnets are the pole pieces, so there won't be anything stuck to the rear of the pickups.

So you'll need to remove the pickguard to check. It's very hard to tell just from the top unless you have examples of both types of pickup that could have been fitted to hand.

[McCreed]

D'oh!!! Simon beat me to it! But anyway...


The pickups look like Alnico type but internet says it's ceramic. I think I am now more keen to swap them out for Tonerider ones.

You may need to take the pickups out (or at least lift the pickguard enough to see) to identify what type of pickups they are.
With ceramic bar pickups the pole pieces are just steel rods with ceramic magnets attached to the bottom of the poles, as opposed to each polepiece being an individual magnetic rod such as with Alnico single coil pickups.

If you lift the pickguard and can see a long rectangular block (the ceramic magnet) you'll know. Also, sometimes you tell just by looking at the tops of the pole pieces. If there is a concentric circular pattern (like from a machine/lathe) they are likely steel poles. If they are plated with chrome or something similar they are also likely to be steel. Steel poles = ceramic bar underneath.

As far as the Toneriders go, it hard to go wrong IMO. It just depends on what sound suits you. Vintage, modern, hotter over-wound etc.
I have owned and played the Pure Vintage in the strat sets, I have an unused set of Classic Blues waiting for a guitar, have had two sets of Hot Classic Tele pickups and currently my single pickup strat has an Alnico 4 humbucker in it. They all deliver!

I can't comment on the Bensons or the Entwistles as I've never played them (or heard them TTBOMK). I have tried some Entwistle noiseless (ASN-57) they sound pretty good but not as good as the Fender noiseless models I have, and they're really tall so don't fit average cavity depths. NOTE: I don't know that to be true of his regular alnico single coils. You'd have to investigate.

[Simon Barden]

I've never fitted Toneriders in a Strat so can't comment on any specifics.

It all comes down to your own preference in guitar sound. The more vintage the set, the cleaner and crisper the sound will be. the hotter the pickups are wound, the more inductance the pickup has and (for a given magnet choice) the lower down the frequency range it's resonant peak will be and the more the high frequencies are reduced.

This can be combatted to some extent by switching to a more powerful magnet (as a rule of thumb, the more powerful the magnet fitted to a given pickup, the brighter the sound of the pickup). You can also offset some of the treble loss by switching to a 300k volume pot or even a 500k pot.

But in general, the hotter the pickup, the more mids and the less treble you get. I also feel that you tend to get less dynamics from a hotter pickup.

I'm not a fan of pickups that are too hot, as I like versatile guitars. So almost all my guitars a have vintage to overwound vintage specs, nothing hotter (apart from on ny EX-1 kit). You can make a vintage pickup sound really distorted, but it's much harder to make a hot pickups sound good clean.

There are so many pickups out there that it's impossible to say how they all sound, especially how they compare to the ideal sound you have in your head. The Bensons will probably sound a bit different to Toneriders and will probably increase the perceived sound quality by a few %, but not by the giant leap the price difference would suggest. However the Bensons are good value for USA made hand-wound pickups. Pickups like the Toneriders have really raised the bar for low-cost quality pickups that have 90-95% of the character of expensive boutique pickups (though some models will shine a bit more than others, it's just the way it is).

[Simon Barden]

In the end it all comes down to budget and how much you are prepared to spend.

Don't forget that a set of really good pickups can always be put in another guitar.

If hum is an issue for you with single coils, then look at the current (v4) series of Fender Noiseless, or Kinmans (I like my Kinmans, probably in the same way as McCreed likes his Fender Noiseless). Both will fit without any modification to the pickup cavities.

[McCreed]

If hum is an issue for you with single coils, then look at the current (v4) series of Fender Noiseless, or Kinmans (I like my Kinmans, probably in the same way as McCreed likes his Fender Noiseless). Both will fit without any modification to the pickup cavities.

I'd love to get a set of Kinman's but they're very nearly 600AU bucks with shipping. Then there's the issue of "what if I really like them?". Then I'd have to buy another set, and another set... :o

[Simon Barden]

Available from around £200 a Strat set in the UK, so almost AUD$600 seems excessive, especially as they are supposed to be an Australian design.

[Bakersdozen]

Another suggestion @Old Tooth Hopkins , if your concerned about keeping the guitar original and most of the talk here is about pickups and electronics, why not experiment with a whole new pickguard? Take your old one out and set it aside, it can be simply dropped back in down the track if so desired. This way, you get full reign of new experimentation without feeling guilty. Do whatever wiring mods and pickup shenanigans you desire. While the guitar is apart, give it a general clean up, polish, tighten ALL the nuts, check the fretboard, check the tuners, polish the frets etc. You could also look at loaded pickguards - there are plenty around.

[McCreed]

Available from around £200 a Strat set in the UK, so almost AUD$600 seems excessive, especially as they are supposed to be an Australian design.

Yes, I agree. You'd think we'd get an Aussie discount!
AFAIK, they're now made in the Philippines, and have been for a while.

I based my prices using the Kinman website (which is just horrible IMO) which only lists in USD, and using the "SRV Set" as an example, are $375US (without shipping) that's $521AU. I have since found a couple of domestic retailers where they're $479AU, however that's plus shipping.
There are some sets as low as $389AU, and mix & match singles from $140-$185AU each! However you don't a choice of cover colour through the shops. White only.

Fender Gen 4's range between $329-$375AU, so I guess they're less expensive than I previously stated, but still pretty dear IMO.

Then there's "The Bonamassa" set at $465US... too rich for my blood!

[madmikedynamite]

In AUS there is an absurd glut of used gear and guitars on fb Market Place, Gumtree etc right now and has been for quite some time.
I reckon you'd be hard-pressed to even get 500 for it, and don't expect it to sell overnight.


Where are you seeing these? Plenty of squiers but not may Fenders here in Brisbane for that sort of money.

[McCreed]

Where are you seeing these? Plenty of squiers but not may Fenders here in Brisbane for that sort of money.

What people are listing MIM Fenders for, and what they are getting for real money are two different things.

I look at used gear a lot on FBM and Gumtree and I know I wouldn't pay $800-1000 for a used MIM Fender. Used guitars in general are taking a long time to move.
One of my regular customers that buys & sells guitars (in Brisbane) told he's hasn't been bringing me guitars because nothing's selling. I've told him he's asking too much money for his gear, but he won't listen to me.

And in the end, a 20 year old MIM Strat is not like it's a vintage instrument, it's just a 20 year old guitar.

[Simon Barden]

Five years old is classed as 'vintage' for a lot of eBay sellers!

I suppose the older you are, the term 'vintage' gets applied to older and older instruments, whilst to younger people, a 20-year old guitar may well appear vintage.

I know that a true 'vintage' guitar to me would mean something pre-mid '60s, but to many, it may be pre-'80s or even pre-90s.

In the end, they are all just used instruments of varying quality.