Chapstick | soldguitars

2002 Fender American Deluxe 'Fat' Strat (HSS)

"ChapStick"

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This was a 2002 "Fender American Deluxe Stratocaster Fat Strat", which is also referred to by Fender as the "American Deluxe Stratocaster HSS". The overwhelming amount of cherry in the "Aged Cherry Sunburst" finish earned this the name "Chapstick".

So. It's a Strat. However, it was made better (in my eyes at least) by the provision of a glorious humbucker in the bridge position, hence the HSS in its title, the humbucker also being responsible for the term "Fat" in the title. Charming. This is one of my favourite pickup layouts, which gives everything from pure single coil tones, through out of phase quack (and lots of it), to the fury of the flat out bridge humbucker, at the flick of a 5-way. Beautiful. The humbucker was never coil split (which I find curious), but the combination of the bridge and middle pups was very pleasing, and really quite quacky and stratty, so I didn't modify anything. The bridge pup was a "Fender DH-1", which is claimed was designed by Fender, but appears (from the spec sheets) to be not only similar to, but ABSOLUTELY identical to the Seymour Duncan JB. Which is fine, as I run several guitars with JB's and get along with them just fine. More importantly, the presence of a double-coil pickup at the bridge position gave me something to support my #3 and #4 fingers against while picking ... I've always felt odd playing Strats, as my normal anchor point isn't there (the usual bridge single coil is too far back to work as an anchor, and my fingers foul with the volume control if I try to anchor there). So, this is automatically more of a player than a 'normal' Strat.

Some spec? Ok. The bodies on most of these were Alder, but the ones with the pretty finish (this one, and "Teal Green Transparent" ... what the hell is teal?!) got what Fender called 'Premium Ash'. Whatever, it's pretty, with lots of typical ash grain.

The necks on these were a "Modern-C", which means relatively chubby (which is good) and with a 9.5" radius. Which is also good. The result was a nice, comfy neck with a satin poly finish which didn't get NEARLY as sticky as the normal Fender gloss finish. Frets were medium jumbos, and got "Highly detailed fretwork", whatever that means. They were certainly finished very nicely, moreso than most other USA strats that I've come across.

Tuners were Schaller locking things, which did the job nicely. The nut was an LSR Roller ... and what an excellent idea THAT is. Adjustable for height, with a pair of bearings for each string to pass over, so virtually no friction at the nut. The trem (a Fender Deluxe 2-Point) had a push-fit arm and operated on the same principle a a Floyd - suspended on 2 knife edges on adjustable posts. The result (especially with the roller-nut) is that you could get very aggro with the trem, and it returns ABSOLUTELY to pitch. Which was nice.

What else. Yeah ... the position markers in the neck were abalone, which was very nice, if a little posh for a Strat (I'm not sure that such luxury accoutrements are really required). The neck heel wa also heavily sculpted, and the neck plate modified to match, so that upper fret access was a tad easier. Although I've NEVER heard a single strat owner complain about the normal strat square heel.

So, it was prettier than a regular Strat, had a more versatile and usable range of sounds, had a trem that actually worked and comfortable big frets on a nicely radiused board. So I sold it. Odd, I know, but I decided that there was no need to keep this once "Abby", my Custom Shop Stat arrived. Unfortunately, Abby (in a side to side comparison) kicked the living shite out of Chapstick in every area.

Still, this was a very nice guitar.