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The Project Page |
| MJT Relic Strat I am not a great fan of relics butr this one turned in a box from a guy in sydney. It turned out to be such a great player I thought worthwhile to post in my projects area |
 As you can see the neck has been wildly overdone and this was the main critiscism I had for this one. I've never seen a neck worn naturally like that |
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| The headstock, bridge, screws etc looked pretty good |
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| A closer look at the body shows some pretty realistic looking dings, scratches and general wear |
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| The finish closeup was real chalky and brittle. A lot of crazing was evident and i reckon a couple years hard playing woul;d see most of it gone. The grain ripples under the finish could felt and even seen in certain lighting so there was no grain fill and minimal finish. Just enough to get the guitar covered |
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| Another peek at how the hardware looed out of the box |
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| The front of the stock looked really good but that pristine indian rosewood board, 12" radius and jumbo frets really gave the game away |
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| As you can see the overall effect looks pretty cool but most would pick up pretty quickly that this was no genuine vintage strat. The hardware was non branded but of a reasonable standard. eg: steel saddles but an alloy trem block. The tuners were probably Wilkinsons and it's likely that the whole package was ex Allparts USA - The neck and body definitely were. The pickups on this one were genuine Fender Custom Shop, The body and neck are licensed Fender spares |
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There's the whole effect. A pretty nice looking strat
that looks like it has been round the block a few times. Apart from
the aesthetic considerations, this guitar turned out to be a real crackerjack.
The body light and resonant, the neck stiff and pretty decent pickups
added up to a great sounding guitar with a nice friendly feel. G'day Ray, Got the guitar back today - you did an AMAZING job of assembling it and setting it up ! Man, I can't put it down, it just plays so nicely and sounds great. What a great touch you have. Neck plays like butter. Nicely finished frets.... Trem feels really responsive. Nut is nicely cut...No fret buzz... I'm digging those Fender Fat 50 pickups too, very well balanced. The neck and middle pickups sound wonderful. Nice and chimey with just enough quack. I'm gonna sell my Stevie Ray Vaughan strat and Line 6 variax and buy another of these Mark Jenny relics and get you to assmble it. Thanks again and I will be in touch soon when I am ready to place another order with Mark Jenny |
Ripping Squier this one came in for a bit of a makeover and i didn't really think it would amount to much to start with. A chinese squire with nothing out of the ordinary. The owner wanted the cheesey hardware stripped out.He supplied some of the relacement bits and pieces and I filled in the gaps from one of my hardware sets. |
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| Here she almost buck nekked |
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| Once I got the hardware strpped out and the neck off I started the ball rolling by enlarging the lead pickup rout to take one of the Brierley Buckers supplied. Got the template laid out and clamped on nice and tight so it don't wander. |
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| Heres the Triton 1400 having its wicked way with that lead cavity |
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| As you can see it didn,t take the whole cavity out and I could already see the potential for a big problem with that roundish bit at the back of the cavity |
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| You can see what I mean here. For some reason the the cavity had a bit of a hook back in its shape which hangs out behind the bucker surround. |
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| The idea was to use a Wilki 3 saddle bridge and slice just big enough
to cover up the ratty hole at the back of the cavity. It took a bit of tight measuring to get it cut right to meet up good with the string through and bridge mount holes and be tight up to the pickup surround. Last thing i wanted was to have a hole between the pickup surround and the bridge. |
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| Well there she is and and a real cracker of a player too with the tone
of doom coming form Mickb's fab pickups. I was really surprised at how well this quite cheap guitar came up. To start with, everything was stripped off and most of it was thrown straight in the bin. The replacements were top quality parts out of a tele set I had sitting around waiting for one of my builds. They tell me there is a great Brittish guitarist who used to use a tele in the 60's that looked similar to this one. Who was it?? |