Strat Jacket
Senior Stratmaster
The back story...Some of you may recall from posts in years gone by that I have a 1965 Stratocaster. Not a re-issue, a vintage '65.
I bought it disassembled circa 1978. It was a train wreck, missing the pickguard, wiring, pots, switch, trem springs and claw and having a set of horrid Kluson tuners installed, which I replaced with Schallers. It had obviously been strung with heavy gauge strings as the nut slots are way too loose for the .009s I prefer and the G string pops out of the nut every time I bend it...which is all the time. The frets are badly worn and the fretboard has divots from years of heavy playing; partly from me, and partly from the PO. The lead pup is simply a bobbin with no windings for whatever reason. I slapped a Fat Strat in the lead pup position and put a chrome pickguard on. The wiring and pots I bought way back when are junk. No shielding on the wiring, and this thing hums like a swarm of mosquitos as a result.
But that's not the worst part...
The PO, in his infinite wisdom, decided to install a Bigsby (WHY? For Pete's sake, WHY?) but thankfully never got around to it. He did, however, rout a huge fleur de lis in the top surrounding the bridge cutout, which I managed to fill using scrap wood and wood filler back in the day. It looked OK, played OK, but I never really liked it. In fact, when I bought my 2nd Strat in '02, I pretty much relegated it to the case for the most part. The '02 plays, feels, and sounds better, stays in tune far better and has pretty much been my go-to since I got it in 2004. When the neck pup crapped out a couple years ago, I decided to tear the '65 down and give it a proper rebuild. So, here's the thing;
I realize that with all the trauma induced upon this poor thing, in reality it's nothing more than a Partscaster...even though the neck and body are original. I figure redoing the neck will probably cost me in the $400.00 range (frets, nut and fretboard) and doing a proper inlay of alder on the top will likely run me a couple hundred minimum. It would be far easier to just get a Warmoth pre-finished vintage body, but now I'm looking at even more of a Partscaster. Thankfully the neck pup issue turned out to be a wiring problem. Now I know vintage Strats are fetching tons of money these days, but something tells me if I sink all the money into this thing to return it to it's former vintage glory, I'll never get back what I put into it, even if I did decide to sell it (which at this point in time I won't). In fact, I'm quite sure I could build a partscaster for less than it will cost to rebuild this one properly using a new neck and body.
Common sense tells me just put it back together correcting what I can and play it on occasion. The Village Idiot in me keeps whispering to put it back together with vintage or vintage correct parts and have a professional repair the inlay disaster with a nice piece of matching alder. As it is, I'm kind of paralyzed with indecision so it just sits in the case in pieces. Am I totally out of line thinking there might be some genuine collector value if I handle this properly, or is this just another partscaster?
Thanks in advance for any input from both players and vintage Strat experts.
I bought it disassembled circa 1978. It was a train wreck, missing the pickguard, wiring, pots, switch, trem springs and claw and having a set of horrid Kluson tuners installed, which I replaced with Schallers. It had obviously been strung with heavy gauge strings as the nut slots are way too loose for the .009s I prefer and the G string pops out of the nut every time I bend it...which is all the time. The frets are badly worn and the fretboard has divots from years of heavy playing; partly from me, and partly from the PO. The lead pup is simply a bobbin with no windings for whatever reason. I slapped a Fat Strat in the lead pup position and put a chrome pickguard on. The wiring and pots I bought way back when are junk. No shielding on the wiring, and this thing hums like a swarm of mosquitos as a result.
But that's not the worst part...
The PO, in his infinite wisdom, decided to install a Bigsby (WHY? For Pete's sake, WHY?) but thankfully never got around to it. He did, however, rout a huge fleur de lis in the top surrounding the bridge cutout, which I managed to fill using scrap wood and wood filler back in the day. It looked OK, played OK, but I never really liked it. In fact, when I bought my 2nd Strat in '02, I pretty much relegated it to the case for the most part. The '02 plays, feels, and sounds better, stays in tune far better and has pretty much been my go-to since I got it in 2004. When the neck pup crapped out a couple years ago, I decided to tear the '65 down and give it a proper rebuild. So, here's the thing;
I realize that with all the trauma induced upon this poor thing, in reality it's nothing more than a Partscaster...even though the neck and body are original. I figure redoing the neck will probably cost me in the $400.00 range (frets, nut and fretboard) and doing a proper inlay of alder on the top will likely run me a couple hundred minimum. It would be far easier to just get a Warmoth pre-finished vintage body, but now I'm looking at even more of a Partscaster. Thankfully the neck pup issue turned out to be a wiring problem. Now I know vintage Strats are fetching tons of money these days, but something tells me if I sink all the money into this thing to return it to it's former vintage glory, I'll never get back what I put into it, even if I did decide to sell it (which at this point in time I won't). In fact, I'm quite sure I could build a partscaster for less than it will cost to rebuild this one properly using a new neck and body.
Common sense tells me just put it back together correcting what I can and play it on occasion. The Village Idiot in me keeps whispering to put it back together with vintage or vintage correct parts and have a professional repair the inlay disaster with a nice piece of matching alder. As it is, I'm kind of paralyzed with indecision so it just sits in the case in pieces. Am I totally out of line thinking there might be some genuine collector value if I handle this properly, or is this just another partscaster?
Thanks in advance for any input from both players and vintage Strat experts.
