Here at Fish Musical Instruments we’re suckers for a Stratocaster in distress, so when this one appeared on our doorstep we pulled together our resources, time, some luck and resurrected it into a monster vintage player with enough vibe and mojo to power the city of Cleveland.

So for starters there’s a 1962 2-piece alder body with correct old screw pattern (where one screw is in-between the middle and neck pickup on the top or bass side -about 1963 that screw was moved down closer to the middle pickup). Exploring deep down in the factory routing trenches you can see faint traces of what once used to be -Candy Apple Red and Gold base paint in the neck pocket, the output jack route, tremolo cavity, worm route in the bridge pickup cavity and the side walls of the controls route and C.A. RED burned by soldering iron tip. There is also the numbers 2712 tattoo’d in the same manner in the neck pocket. There was a previous genius route for some-kinda extra switch up by the lower horn which which was cleaned up by Eric and then repaired using some alder from a 1965 Fender Jaguar donor body (OK if you have to know -somebody named Eugene, wielding a rusty hacksaw and dinged up screwdriver had whittled that unwitting Jag down to the size of a Harmony Stratotone and he was so proud of this accomplishment that he carved his name and social security # in the back of the body. (That information came in very handy for subsequent Stewart MacDonald orders -Thanks man!) The Jaguar story has a happy ending as we sourced an orphan body from the same litter, transferred the parts and made a wonderful guitar out of it. Meanwhile the runt lives on -so far in two restorations. So remember to sign that organ donor card -just think of the good you can do after you’re gone -you know, to make up for all those years of being a LEAD GUITAR PLAYER in one of the hundreds of thousands of Rock & Roll bands plying their decibels in and around the Fabulous Sunset Strip Back in the Night and all the shenanigans that went along with that moniker. Of course down around here at UCLA when they’re not selling people parts on the underground every Thursday at the Farmer’s Market they’re holding American Idol type competitions for the privilege of formaldehyding your privates but if you’re, say, beyond the age of reason, it’s eeeww! no thanks grandpa.You do get a personalized heavy duty zippered large trash bag as a Thank-You for your participation however.

A Pre L series neck plate stamped 86038, puts it in the 1962 ballpark.

And we’re back -to the wonderful maple ‘C’ shaped neck with some nice bird’s-eye and that gold with black outline transition logo, Brazilian Rosewood curved fingerboard inlayed with pearloid dots. Original single line Kluson Deluxe tuners and single string tree. Fender black stamped neck end 3MAR65B. This neck is just about as good as it gets -just the right balance of comfort and feel.

The pickguard electronic equation as received was a loaded with a trio of Texas Specials which was OK but we wanted to do better so Rick donated a special pair of ‘Magic Beans’ to the equation in the guise of two late 1964 ½ grey bottom pickups with their original covers. These ohm out at 6.6 for the neck and 6.4 for the middle.

That early black bottom bridge pickup you see came in the old shop one day rolling around inside a flight case that a lucky dumpster diving drummer found out by the curb in the foothills of the Tujunga area awaiting the trash truck. Inside a sticky, gooey mess of deteriorating foam and the scent rising out that tomb-like case was akin to a yet another remake of the Mummy (which I guess like all mind numbing Hollywood Franchises is probably up to it’s 15th or so sequel, the pre-pre-pre-quel entitled The Mummy’s Great Great Great Grandma and Her Saber-Toothed Tiger Tale), which is to say aromatic -ah, but there was a clue Indy, stenciled on the outside was ‘Davey Johnstone -Elton John Band.’ Pickup excised, case sent on it’s way. And wouldn’t you know it? Months later at a high end antique boutique emporium on Melrose Avenue, that avenue for the despondently affect-tatted rising and fading hip-ists, the same case was spotted on a shelf up above the cash register affixed with a $450.00 price tag.

Anyway we sent that deadbeat old son-of-a-gun, (the pickup -not the drummer), to Messier Lindy Fralin for a rewind (now clocking in at 6.7 ohms)

And -just like everyone’s favorite tipsy uncle at another forced family holiday gathering -there’s more to this story, whether you want to hear it or not. Now it’s years later and I’ve journeyed over to the Rock ’n Roll Doctor in Burbank where I was killing some time shooting the breeze, ostensibly to collect my sad-sack Super Reverb, with Steve D. when I notice a rather slight gentleman wrangling two of Steve’s custom made amps toward the entrance -so the sport I am I help him in with them. Well yeah he turned out to be the Rocket Man’s right hand guitar man in the flesh. After a bit a of howdy-do I regaled them both with the pickup in the case story. Which they really seemed to enjoy. Especially the gentleman from Edinburgh. Of course as a result of this little bit of cleverness I ended up having to contritely fork over $250.00 to square things up. Love Lies Bleeding in My Hand indeed.