DoctorPaul's Guitar Emporium - Sold Guitars

2013 Fender Custom Shop '57 Relic Stratocaster

"Rusty"

#8938

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Now although I not a MASSIVE fan of the whole 'relic' thing, my fondness for Fender Custom Shop gear got the better of me with this one.  Thankfully, the CS's relicing process used on this allowed it to escape the indignity of being made to look like it had rotted at the bottom of a Tennessee swamp for a decade, or that it had lost a 10-round title fight against an angry belt-sander.  Those things can look TERRIBLE.  This one got away with the odd scrape and ding, along with nicely done (and subtle) crazing/cracking of the nitro finish all over the body.  The board has a small amount of wear to the finish, as you'd often find, but isn't overdone.  The rear of the neck is down to bare wood almost all over, and that's fine, because (a) it doesn't look stupid, and (b) it feels bloody glorious.
 

The advantage of these relic things of course is that they 'feel' worn-in, and that you can relax around them without fear of that next ding or scratch.  I mean ... if this gets scratched or dented, then so what?
 

This was on my want-list for quite a while, but wasn't for sale.  After a few months worth of wrangling however, I finally got the seller to the point that he agreed on a straight trade (a complicated trade, but a trade nonetheless).  Details of the trade were changed maybe a dozen times (and the deal called off altogether several times), but we finally got there.  As I've said elsewhere here, my 2016 re-hash of the collection saw me offloading dozens of guitars that were either not-so-high-end, or that I didn't quite bond with, so I shed three very nice, great quality guitars in a three-for-one trade.  As these guitars typically change hands for quite big bucks, the deal balanced out financially, so everyone was happy.  Eventually.
 

So.  On the outside, this is a mildly hot-rodded, mildly reliced Strat, and is VERY lovely, albeit in a modestly-beaten way.  The body is two piece 'extra light ash', shot in thin metallic aquamarine nitro.  I don't know how much Fender pay their artsy guys to come up with these colour names, but ... well ... it's blue.
 

As I said, the finish is covered in lacquer cracks (very convincingly), and the ash grain is visible through the paint.  It's not that the paint is transparent, but because it's very thin it sinks into the grain.  Like they didn't use any grain filler.  Whatever, it looks great.  Under the guard, it carries the requisite 'Custom Shop Relic' stamp into the timber, along with the correct assortment of stamps in the pickup cavities and neck pocket.  The neck (a nice chunk of AA birdsey maple with a separate maple board) fits in with the hot-rodded theme, with a modern-C profile, medium-jumbo frets and a 9.5" to 12" compound radius.  The combination of the worn finish to the back of the neck, the big frets and the compound radius makes this feel VERY Charvel-esque.  Oh, and there's a nicely-cut, bone nut.
 

The tuners are (artificially) rusty and cruddy, and are the split-shaft things where you push the string down into the shaft before winding.  I like those. The trem is a vintage 6-screw with bent-steel saddles, and is equally rusty and cruddy.  It all holds tune well and works faultlessly.
 

The pickups (HSS) are two Custom Shop Fat 50's singles, with an Oil City Masterwound Eruption in the bridge.  The Oil City Masterwound pups are each would by hand in Leyton, East London by Ash Scott-Lockyer, the company founder.  This one is outstanding ... raspy, clear and articulate, with loads of harmonics.  As an aside, the names that Ash gives his pickups are amusing ... the Scrapyard Dog and the Honky Tonk Angel?  Awesome.  Anyway, it's a fantastic pickup.  The original was an EVH Frankenstein, but the Oil City is staying where it is, thank you.  My initial thought was to pull out the Oil City and replace it with the original-spec Frankenstein, but I'm wary of doing that as it sounds SO good as it is.  Maybe I'll put it back to stock specs if it ever gets put up for sale, but I can't see that happening.
 

Other than that, there's not much to tell.  Oh ... it has the same contoured neck-heel as my other CS Fenders, which is nice.  The case was (and is) stuffed full of all the usual Fender CS case-candy, so we're good to go.
 

A great guitar, and one that sits perfectly in my recent 'fewer but better' plan for the collection.