Fender Japan with "Floyd Rose"

[AZMike]

I'm talking about Squire by Fender and regular Fender strats with those weird trems from the 80s, the ones I have seen called "Fender Floyd Rose floating tremolos." They look different than regular Floyd Roses, and I know they where conceived of as a better trem system, but they are as ugly as regular Floyd Roses and I can live with the quirks of the vintage trem.

I mean strats like this:

http://cgi.ebay.com/RARE-Squier-Stra...QQcmdZViewItem

Anyway, they are all over eBay, and they generally go for far less money than the ones with the normal trems. Since you are still getting the same quality MIJ body and neck, are they worth converting to a vintage system? Is the body routing the same? I don't mind plugging a few holes in the headstock from that locking nut thing, and I don't mind drilling a few holes in the body to attach a regular trem. I'm just not into major chiseling and woodworking.

Mike

[Stratosaurus]

AFAIK the routing is very similar. However, there is a risk of truly messing it up if you convert it. And you might kick yourself later if they actually become rare enough to be collector items. Correct me if I'm wrong but Fender doesn't make those trems anymore.

If it were me, I'd either buy it and leave it the way it is or purchase something else more like I'm looking for. Don't hack into a perfectly good guitar, especially if it is rare like that.

[AZMike]

Stratosaurus,

Thank you for your thoughts, and I generally agree with your comment and sentiment not to hack up a perfectly good guitar, but IMHO, these are good guitars waiting to happen. The prices for 80s MIJ strats are becoming very inflated, while the ones equipped with this trem system either don't sell or go for low bucks. What I was thinking of doing is plugging up the headstock holes (which a lot of people seem to do even if they keep the bridge mechanism) and putting on a different trem, maybe adding some mounting holes for a vintage bridge, or, come to think of it, maybe seeing if an American Standard or Wilkinson or something bridge would drop in there. As I said, I didn't want to do any woodwork.

Anyway, what got me started on this was reading an eBay description where the guy said he did the conversion, and it got my curiosity going. It looked good in the pics, but it had been refinished and who knows what else (this was eBay, after all), so I was hoping to hear from someone who had tried this. It seems, at least to me, that these are kind of unwanted strats, but the basic guitars are very solid and could be a platform for some mods that could, ideally, be reversed if anyone ever wanted to go back to the sort-of Floyd thing, which seems unlikely.

Mike