Why I hate my American Performer Strat

WRONG..the 2018 Fender American Performer has an ALDER BODY. I have a 2018 one in Lake Placid Blue w/maple neck & fretboard.(see my avatar). CALL FENDER if you do not believe me..I bought it Brand New and have all the paperwork from GC

 

If your strat has a basswood body...It is NOT an American Performer..it is mexican. Check your serial #. My Performer serial # starts with US18...made in Corona California in 2018...Lake Placid Blue...Alder body...that is the wood the 2018 bodies are made of

 

Yeah...I think he bought a fake as well...especially if the body is basswood...Here is my 2018 Performer with Alder body..I did put a small ding in the back by my own stupidity...and I LOVE the sound of the pups, especially with the greasebucket tone circuit and the pot that pulls up energizing the neck pup no matter what other pups are also in play

 

Wow, I never knew that Mexican Fenders came with basswood. Which models would those be. I’ve had a Player, Classic 70’s, Vintera 70’s, and a Mexican 70’s Tele deluxe. None of those were basswood. They were alder and ash. @John C Can you confirm?
Plenty of MIJ and Squier Basswood though. I guess I just don’t know what I thought I knew

 

I only read until page 5 before I decided to just post my thoughts.

1. To me, and others I'm sure, the pics you posted look like that is indeed a legit usa performer strat.

2. Those tuners are sealed but with the small hole for lubrication. What type of lubricant did you try? You said oil and a hairdryer, but what kind of oil I wonder?

3. Others have posted about proper stringing with those tuners, humbucker plastic not replaceable, 6-inline tuners, etc.

4. Personally, I am a big fan of parchment 3-ply pickguard (parchment, black, parchment) with cream or aged pickup covers on a strat; I have at least two with that config, will share pics at bottom of this post.

5. As others have said, if you email fender with your s/n, they should send you all the production details about the guitar as it was from the factory, which should include the body wood species and finish, and everything else.

6. On more than one occasion, I have looked at the label that GC or another music store has put on a guitar, and they sometimes get details wrong. But, I think you said it was an issue on the seller (or Fender) site? That too could have been a typo. See #5 above, lol.

7. As for the body, it is possible that Mr. Iron Maiden swapped the body with another? You can remove the neck or pickguard and confirm by looking at stamps in the pocket and s/n in the body routes. He prob didn't, but may be worth checking out? Just a thought.

8. The easy way to do this without having to remove the strings is to put a capo on the 5th fret, loosen the strings a few turns, remove the neck screws while holding the neck, then carefully remove the neck. Then you can inspect the neck pocket, and if you like, remove the pickguard and inspect the pickup routes. I use a towel to place below the pickguard, and after removing the screws, I flip over the loaded p/g onto the towel in order to protect the bottom part of the body. I've done this a hundred times, you just gotta go slow. But don't flame me if you try it and scratch something, lol.

9. I have built a few franken strats with decent full thickness (usually older) Squier bodies, MIM or USA necks, great pickups and my custom rewire, and setup to be great players. You couldn't tell that the bodies are not original MIM or USA without checking out the neck pocket and / or route details. And, no, I haven't tried duping ppl saying they are orig MIM or USA guitars. But it does happen.

All the best! If you've just had enuf of it, let's talk trade?

Here are a couple pics of the parchment p/g's I mentioned.

This first strat is a Squier body that I accidentally "reliced" when trying to remove the black spray paint that someone put on top of the already black finish, long story. I put a USA highway one neck on it and outfitted it with Fender hot noiseless pickups. Dialed it in to be a super player, my friends love playing it.



This is a MIM plus top strat that I put in Fender Select pickups (pricey), and I swapped the neck for a nice MIM 22 fret neck from another guitar.



SunDogAZ

 

OP acknowledged the body is alder 5-6 pages ago.

 

I think waffles... yeah, definitely. Waffles!

 

OP... stick a couple of your favorite buckers in there, replace the wonky tuner, and you've got an instrument that should please you greatly. You'll get used to the closely-spaced tuners... they may be a bit tightly spaced, but obviously QUITE workable and you get used to it. Fender six-in-line tuners have been found workable by a few noteworthy guitarists over the half century.

Here are some of my Strats, which may inspire you?

Fender Player Plus Top, with HS Filter'trons


Two Fender American Standards, one with Gibson Classic '57s (uncovered Classic '57s in the Tele)


Whisky cheers! Fender Sienna American Standard with DiMarzio PAF Masters!


Indeed... I modify my Fenders wildly and freely! They're made for that.

The options ARE inspiring and almost endless.

Feel free to just go ahead and make that instrument your own! You love the neck, so... go for it! I think a pair of your favorite buckers in there will put a big smile on your face. (Go with at least a 500k volume pot, and No-Load tone pots, too.)

 

Wow some guitars there Zeekrider!!! You hit my soft spot: have been thinking of putting Filtertrons in a Telecaster or even Strat.

I think Zeekrider summed it up perfectly: the main pro of any Strat (or Tele) is the relative easy way to adapt the guitar to your taste and needs by replacing neck, body, pickguard or pickups (and tuners ofcourse).
I have faithfully read all ten pages of this thread and found them pretty entertaining! It has been said earlier in this thread, Proliferant: respect for your humour, positive replies and patience towards some of the more unfriendly and disdainful comments among the replies here and there.

I am curious about the future of you and your Strat! I have been playing humbucker guitars for about thirty years and built (assembled) my first Strat partscaster two years ago. In the beginning I thought something was wrong with the pickups (Texas Specials mind you); I thought they sounded like s#!t. The typical versatility of the Statocaster made me pick up the guitar more often though, and I slowly learned to appreciate the extra pickup selections and that archetypical Strat quack. Now, when I play my humbucker equiped faithful old Ibanez I notice that I find its humbucker sound a bit muddy, and get bored more easily with just the three pickup selections.

I would say: keep the guitar and let it grow on you. You might be in for a surprise!

 

That's a beautiful Strat you have, sir.

 

Question, how can a person tell that a body is alder or basswood if it has a solid finish and you can't see the wood grain? I don't think that judging by a dent is proof enuf one way or another?

I've read that basswood is generally lighter in weight, softer in density, and warmer sounding, and alder is heavier, denser, and snappier sounding. But, this is assuming that all basswood used in guitars are identical in molecular structure. Same assumption about alder.

I would think there are variations in all wood species used in guitar production. But, I honestly don't know enuf about that particular topic.

 

+1 and the op has been a good sport throughout

 

GeejeeZ... I too have been a bit disenchanted with the somewhat muffled/duller tones from humbuckers, as compared to single coils. But FRET NOT!

Humbuckers can be detailed, and sparkly/open sounding.

I get there by using Dimarzio PAF Masters combined with volume pots above 500k, up closer to the 1M range, and No-Load tone pots. You will find that "nominal-rated" 1M pots often measure out to be around 850k, 875k, 900k. The No-Load tone pots are fantastic, as they really open up the tonal pipeline... and you can always dial back the tone pot, to whatever degree desired.

That really lets the clarity and high-end sparkle of the PAF Masters come through. So, you get the tone quality of humbuckers, with clarity and brightness. And, of course, you can always roll the tone pot back a little for a more "characteristic" humbucker frequency response.

Humbuckers will never sound quite like single coil pickups, but they don't have to sound dull, muffled, nor muddy.

One other trick, that I like (along with the upgrade in pot values), is to replace the A2 magnet in the Gibson Classic '57 neck pickup with a rough cast A5 magnet.... that gives the Classic '57 neck pickup a nice perk-up in sparkly tone!

The A2 magnet in the bridge pickup is fine, as that position (near the bridge) is inherently quite bright to begin with. It's the neck position humbucker that can really benefit from the extra sparkle coming from the A5 magnet and pot changes.

 

I've never seen a MIM basswood guitar. If they made them at all, it'd be a special model.

MIM bodies, especially the way they glued multiple pieces together, and veneered the top on the MIM Standards, were really well-documented. Basswood wasn't part of that, in any large number, if at all. I do have Squier Bullets in Basswood though.

 

I didn’t think I was wrong. Now you’ve confirmed it. Thanks for that. There is nothing wrong with basswood though. I had a Squier Tele that was basswood and it weighed almost 10 lbs. it’s not always light weight. My MIJ HM Strat is bass wood and it is light weight. One of my favorite guitars.

 

This thing is still alive, is it? All it takes is one person every page to not read past the first page and blast out an opinion!

Regarding basswood, remember that Ernie Ball uses basswood on lots of guitars that are 2-4 time more expensive (on average) than Fender Strats. It is a fine body wood to the non-purist.

http://blog.music-man.com/instruments/why-we-use-basswood-for-our-instruments/

 

A neck that feels right, to me, is where everything starts. I didn’t realize that until, after 50 some odd years of guitar playing (if what I do with a guitar can be called that) I played a Tele Elite with a compound radius neck and jumbo frets using .09s. I’m told that that neck is worlds away from the classic Tele neck (whatever that is) but I bonded immediately and dropped the bucks (or pounds, in your case). It’s what I play 90% of the time.
My point is, if you bought it for the neck, you can build around it. Or give it just a little more time and your love might surely grow.
Cheers!

 

What did Brussel ever do to you to earn such animosity?

 

They don’t come in basswood.

 

Sorry, but the first thing that came to mind when I read your response was this: