Fender Factory Tour, Corona CA.

Ddigger

I had a family holiday planned for California (Disneyland, relatives, sightseeing etc).  Anaheim (Disneyland) is only about 20-25min away from Corona, so I contacted Fender consumer relations (in Arizona) a few months ago to see if they were re-opening their factory tour.

Got a reply the same day saying that tours were on Thursdays, 10AM, closed toe shoes required, visitors have to be over 9 years old.

They don’t really take a booking and I was worried about getting there and not getting in.

Turned up early on the day at the Corona factory.  Other visitors were: 1 x Pop (blooze player, leather clad telecaster (guitar, not him) owner by the look of him), 3 x Moms, 1 teenage boy, two early twenties women (locals, who seemed to know what to expect and specifically wanted to see some custom builders ‘shed’, erm workshop).

They gave us a brand new, still in packaging, set of safety glasses (they also had fit over glasses for folks with specs).  We could take in rucksacks etc (obviously no scousers have ever visited before) and cameras.

Our guide worked with the CNC machines (not as an operator) and CAD.  There is no set tour, so depending on who takes you round and what questions you ask, you could end up with a different experience.  Tour was about an hour and a half.  We could photo anything we fancied and occasionally pick things up.

<a href="https://imgur.com/jEgGqSh"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/jEgGqSh.jpg" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>

We didn’t go into the painting area, but we did see everything else in the build process from raw wood to stringing up and tuning.  As far as body shaping goes, you could see that there is still a fair bit a variability possible (number of pieces in the body, contour variation etc).

There were a couple of body styles I didn’t recognise and they seemed to be doing a run of thin line strats (EJ model maybe).

<a href="https://imgur.com/rSlYzbi"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/rSlYzbi.jpg" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>

<a href="https://imgur.com/j8MAbIm"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/j8MAbIm.jpg" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>

<a href="https://imgur.com/CTWZd6v"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/CTWZd6v.jpg" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>

Also saw the amp building section.  The cabinets are made elsewhere, but the electrics are done there.  I think they were doing Fender deluxes that day, someone was looking over a photo diagram of the Edges model.

They do 450 guitars a week, the Charvel/Jackson corner does 20 or so and Gretsch (upstairs) does 0.7 of a guitar per day.  They stamp all their own metal but it is chromed elsewhere.  Knobs etc are made locally by other companies.

The custom shop does have it’s own wee corner for pickup winding (two stations) and they were not churning out pickups when we were there.

I thought we’d be ending the tour in a shop, but there was no sales pitch at all, it was all very informal.

Folk were very pleasant to us, I enjoyed it and was glad I took a couple of hours out the family holiday to go there.  Can’t say I would have gone all that way just for a tour.

Cheers,

Ddig

JEPBLEP

Cool write-up! Thanks for sharing your impressions, would definitely love to do that if I'm ever in that neck of the woods.

Neil

Very interesting. I'd love to have a nose around there.

Thanks for posting. 

JerkMoans

Fascinating stuff. Amazed you didn’t have to exit through the gift shop. Was there a gift shop at all?!

dindude

Thanks for the write up - what strikes me is the realistic amount of guitars they are pushing out - 450 / wk makes 23,000 per year American build (non Custom Shop) Fenders for the world market - which sounds more realistic than the 170,000 that Gibson produce. Yes I know there is Mexican fenders which will be a huge number but these are of a much lower price point.

And only 1,000 USA made Charvel's a year.

All sounds much more "right-sized" than the big G.

Alterlifeson

Looks cool, good to hear it wasn't too pushy either. Strange how they have a Mayer neck there!

Fretwired

Very cool .. thanks for sharing. I'd fancy doing that.

Vinylfan

That sounds like a great thing to do if I'm ever in the area.  Thanks for the write-up and the pics.

JerkMoans

Ddigger said:

There were a couple of body styles I didn’t recognise ...

https://imgur.com/CTWZd6v

That looks like one of the forthcoming Meteora bodies...

ronnyb

Went last year to Corona and stopped overnight on the way to San Diego. I knew that the visitors centre was closed but thought i'd give it a go on the off chance that they might let me have a little nosey round. No chance. The receptionist wasn't very friendly either. She did say though that i could take a photograph of this display thing hanging from the ceiling with guitars on it in the reception! 

sev112

Alterlifeson said:

Strange how they have a Mayer neck there!

He pretends he plays a PRS but in reality it’s a fender under the logo ....

sameas in cricket and golf etc.  - I’m sure the same it true in sig guitars

Ddigger

Meteora body - yep, that's what I thought.  Our guide said it was a 'new' model but couldn't remember the name.

The pile of bodies in that photo are all rejects.  There were doing the final shaping on a few of these bodies at the time.

No gift shop.  I wouldn't have been leaving with a custom shop guitar anyway, but a bottle opener would have been nice.

SNAKEBITE

That's going on my bucket list!

DulcetJones

Very cool, thanks for posting.