Someone who knows more than me. STRAT PLUS

BowynMadley

I've been looking at 90s Strat plus with lace sensors.  The only thing I know nothing about and what puts me off is the metal roller nuts. General consensus is they kill sustain and tone. So the question is can they be removed and replaced with a nice bone nut?

Cheers

Bo

maltingsaudio

Short and sweet yes but don’t think you’ll notice any difference, personally believe advantages outweigh any disadvantages. Less prone to damage and less prone to slot wear. Jeff Beck had them on his signature and he knows a bit about sustain and tone!

stratman3142

I've got a Strat Plus. I've not noticed a significant effect on the sustain compared to my other Strats, and it would surely only affect the open strings anyway.

The Gold Lace Sensor pickups are another matter. It sounds less 'classic Strat' than my other Strats.

Looking at where the strings pass over the first roller, I think there'd be a slight gap, which would need filling, if the nut were replaced by a bone nut. But I can't see why that shouldn't be possible.

FelineGuitars

Your options are 

1) leave the roller nut alone

2) If it is a Wilkinson Roller nut, you could change it to the newer style LSR roller nut

3) If swapping to a regular bone or Tusq nut you will need to put a spacer of about 1/16"  between the nut and fingerboad as the fingerboard is shortened so that the roller nut contacts the string properly at the "zero point"

4) look at an Earvana LSR replacement nut which is made from the same stuff as Tusq, but gives you the tuning improvements and also doesn't need any shim or spacer between it and the fingerboard.

ICBM

They can be, but it’s more work than just fitting a new nut because the roller is not at the front face of the nut.

Personally I would keep the roller nut - they work perfectly well and are part of the character of the guitar.

I wouldn’t fit one to a guitar that didn’t already have one, but I wouldn’t remove one if it did, unless it was broken in some way and couldn’t be replaced with another identical one.

Roland

I’d love to know where this “general consensus” comes from. Think about what a roller nut does. You only hear it’s affect on the string ringing when the string is played open. The rest of the time you’re fretting a note and the nut is not involved.

The other use is when bending or using the whammy bar. Here the roller is making sure that the string doesn’t get caught in the nut groove and fail to return to tension.

BowynMadley

By general consensus I meant that I'd read a fair few comments on different forums regarding their characteristics. If I go ahead and buy a strat plus like every guitar I buy I leave it alone and just play it for a few months before deciding of no.1 I like it enough to keep it long term and no.2 all its features function as I need them too. I'm a firm believer in if it ain't broke dont fix it

monquixote

It seems silly to buy a vintage guitar and remove one of its key features.

If you don't want a roller nut don't buy it.

My guitar teacher used to have one and I only remember it being a good guitar.

Funkfingers

I can think of other, more significant reasons against purchasing a Fender Stratocaster Plus or Plus Deluxe.

The main one is the “spread and veneers“ body construction. I have no objection to this in principle. It makes mid-price guitars more affordable. On the other hand, it does seem wrong on the premium price products.

ronnyb

If you're not sure about the roller nut then the Deluxe standard strat is an option. These were only produced during 1989 1990. They have the lace sensors but not the locking tuners or Wilkinson nut. Just a standard nut. I've read that there were only 400 produced but i've seem them for sale quite regularly. They are sometimes mistaken for the Plus series. 

ICBM

Funkfingers said:

I can think of other, more significant reasons against purchasing a Fender Stratocaster Plus or Plus Deluxe.

The main one is the “spread and veneers“ body construction. I have no objection to this in principle. It makes mid-price guitars more affordable. On the other hand, it does seem wrong on the premium price products.

The 80s ones don't have that - I don't know the year it came in for certain, but I think probably 1990. I've never seen a USA Standard or Plus from earlier than 1990 with anything more than a 3-piece body.

Another reason they're not always popular is the Hipshot Trem-Setter, but it's easy to remove that - although if you understand how it works and don't follow the instructions , you can actually make it work pretty well.

axisus

I had a strat plus, it was superb, played well, the pickups sounded great and no problem with the nut. The only thing I didn't like was the tremol-no, ditched that on day one!

It was a good guitar but the two things I was less keen on were a maple fretboard (Not a fan) and the look of the pickups. Traded it in for a lovely 20th anniversary PRS ...... which I ultimately sold on ...

BowynMadley said:

General consensus is they kill sustain and tone. 

Rubbish! I've never heard of that as being a consensus of opinion! I used to hang out on a forum area somewhere and all the owners (unsurprisingly!) loved them.

ICBM

axisus said:

It was a good guitar but the two things I was less keen on were a maple fretboard (Not a fan)

A lot of them also have a problem with the lacquer flaking off - it can leave literally razor-sharp edges which slice your fingertips.

sunshinewelly

I love my strat plus. Best purchase I ever made from these forums. Yes the maple fret board issue is real but can be rectified 

Philly_Q

I had a 1989 Strat Plus Deluxe.  I hadn't owned many other guitars at that time in my life (maybe five or six previously), but I have nothing but good memories of it, it was a great guitar.  I only sold it out of financial necessity!

Mine had the Wilkinson nut with double rollers on all six strings (the early ones and the Jeff Beck signature only had single rollers on the wound strings).  I don't remember it having any adverse effect on sustain or tone, but the high E string would occasionally ping or, worse, suddenly buzz loudly.  I fitted Wilkinson nuts on a couple of other guitars and they all did the same thing, it was just something to get used to.

It also had the Hipshot Trem-Setter and I agree with ICBM, it was fine.  I spent a while setting it up and it worked perfectly, although I do remember a couple of little plastic/rubber washers at contact points wore out.  I used to take the unit out sometimes and just use normal trem springs, but it was easy to put it back again.  Now that I think about it, I put a Trem-Setter in a partscaster I made around that time but I could never get it set up quite as well as the Strat.

I didn't own my Strat Plus Deluxe long enough for the lacquer to start flaking off the fretboard.  Maybe the current owner is dealing with that problem!
 

imalrightjack

ICBM said:

axisus said:

It was a good guitar but the two things I was less keen on were a maple fretboard (Not a fan)

A lot of them also have a problem with the lacquer flaking off - it can leave literally razor-sharp edges which slice your fingertips.

I had one and chipped it all off, which was a bit of a pain. Nice guitar but found the Lace Sensor Gold to be a bit sterile. 

ronnyb

Couldn't resist the oppportunity......

artiebear

I have a '91 plus with a maple board. I have owned it since '93 having had a plus deluxe and another rosewood board plus. It's a great guitar and has been ultra reliable all the time I have had it. I must have been lucky as don't have the flaking lacquer issue on the neck. 
The wilkinson nut works really well along with the locking tuners and trem. Never had a moments problem with tuning slipping due to trem use. I still have the tremsetter in mine, took a while to figure it out but once adjusted it works well and tbh I mostly forget it's there.
I hear negative comments about the lace sensors and just don't get it.  They sound good, the trick being that they do not work Ito the usual rules of pick up set up. They can be set very close to the strings ( no magnetic pull) for very warm strat tones or further away if you like more glassy lower output. What I have noticed is that very small adjustments to pick up height lead to greater tonal changes than one might expect with regular strat pick ups. They do sound slightly smoother than a good 50's strat pick up but in some circumstances that is not a bad thing.

maltingsaudio

monquixote said:

It seems silly to buy a vintage guitar and remove one of its key features.

Anything 90’s “Vintage” now ???

monquixote

maltingsaudio said:

monquixote said:

It seems silly to buy a vintage guitar and remove one of its key features.

Anything 90’s “Vintage” now ???

We had no problems calling 60s guitars vintage in the 90s. 30 years is 30 years.

dilbert

Another Strat+ owner here and I love it. The only problem I've ever had was the bridge position Lace Sensor failed but I replaced it with a DiMarzio Fast Track 1 and it fitted right in. Some years later, I changed the whole scratchplate to convert it to HSS and loved it.

So why in the name of God I then converted it to a Big Apple layout I really don't know. Sounds okay, actually but I prefer the flexibility of HSS.     

And yes, the LSR does rob it of sustain!.