What cheap fender Stratocaster would be ideal to practice all the maintenance and repair and modding possibilities? From a simple neck adjustment to a repaint, from pickguard substitution to fretwork or even fretwire replacement. The whole spectrum. I would like to create problems on it and then practice repairing them.
Then and only then will I feel confident working on my strats.
Id love to see how far I could turn the truss rod before the neck buckles just so I know never to do it.
I’d look for the ugliest finish too so I could get a better price and repaint it.
Ideally, I’d like to learn so I could teach others. Improving a cheap guitar could be a good start.
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Which would be the cheapest but decent fender Stratocaster? I could just get a cheap partscaster. I’d prefer to work on something half decent where I could take it to bits rather than replace parts. My strats are ‘54 based so I’d prefer the trussrod at the scratchplate rather than the top, although I’d promise get a quicker understanding of the truss within having to get in under the plate.
If I decided to manage a set up course or repair, it would be helpful if the students began with a guitar that would be playable to become a player.
Fender squire? What production year tends to have better quality parts over the others?
squire affinity?
I’m think more half decent quality. What’s the first contender in the fender family to be bought used? Any year is fine.
I taught myself after watching a few videos. It isn't too difficult if you are a fairly practically minded person.
Great platform for practice/modding.
It understand the point you're making but adjustments like neck relief, action, intonation, pickup swaps, rewiring can be done safely on your good guitars
Plug the screw holes and redrill.
Replace the bridge screws with some stainless screws from Bwicks & Qbase etc.
If the holes are stripped out in the metalwork you might consider tapping the hole bigger and inserting a bigger screw, but the fact that the metal is known as soft suggests thats a hiding to nothing other than the practice and accomplishment factor.
to be honest, i would make sure you get lots of practice on decent guitars before doing anything with anyone else's
you need to be familiar with doing the work on a variety of styles, and preferably with a variety of methods
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half decent.
If you really want a Fender then go for a cheap one from ebay, maybe two or three real shanners and build one good one.
A cheaper alternative would be a Squier.