anodizing creates a layer of oxide which is non-conductive so once removed and bonded to the electronics (pots, switches, etc), you now have a RF shield or at least, the start of one
@@jeremiahfiek5495 no. First off, etching de-oxidizes the surface, making it more conductive - not less. Secondly, it wouldn't create a ground loop. It bonds the pickguard to everything else. See my video on guitar electronics for the difference between grounding & bonding.
Personally I won't call a £1000 guitar a budget guitar. And frankly, I would expect better quality for the money. At this point I would rather silversky SE, cheaper and better.
Why no concern with the string alignment with that sloppy neck pocket? I could tell the low E string was almost coming off the fretboard. And when you “fixed” the neck, you didn’t even bother aligning the strings with the neck. The neck was simply bolted back with no consideration for alignment.
If you noticed before the strings were removed, the low e was really crowding the fretboard margin. This tells me that even if the gap in the neck pocket is filled in, the string margin distance can only be corrected (a bit) by making a new nut, with adjusted string spacing, since the bridge cannot be relocated.
The string is almost falling off the edge because that neck is misaligned hence the almost 1mm gap £1000 guitar someone needs a new job. If you can't do the job Pick up a broom!
@@steven_uk I suppose from a certain point of view you could get away with less margin on the bass side of the fretboard, since we don't often upbend on the low end (I never do) but it's not ideal. I just finished building a short scale fanned fret offset V with a marginally narrower neck than most electrics. It's for a female player with really small hands. I'm making new nut for it at this very moment to give the edge offsets a bit of a nudge, since it has standard width bridge saddles with 10mm string to string distances. I made the first nut without considering some things lol
@@steven_uk Maybe is was a camera angle thing. Ben was able to look staight down on the strings but just a few degrees on the camera created what we took to be misaligned strings. They certainly looked way off to me.
holy crap, i saw your comment before seeing the video,..holy crap🤣 that is disgraceful, i will never order another fender without an option for exchange.
I wouldn't be happy with that neck pocket on a £300 guitar let alone a £1000 guitar! There's no excuse with todays cnc tech. I did like the matt finish fretboard though, glossy necks are not for me.
Every guitar I've owned with a shoddy neck pocket has hit the road due to issues with the way I thought they sounded. One guitar I owned had slop on the treble side, and that corresponded with the lack of volume and body on the higher strings. I'm sure there are guitars with sloppy pockets that sound good, but I would never buy one that had such a pocket without thoroughly test driving it. I don't think anyone would buy a set neck guitar that had such sloppy fitment prior to gluing, not sure why a bolt on should be treated any differently.
The QC and workmanship of Mexi Fenders used to blow the USAs out of the water, me thinks fender has upped the quota reducing the hands on time to purposefully reduce quality. If I got a fender with a pocket like that, I would send it back!
That neck pocket is a bit of a thing for the Mexican factory, it seems. I had a Hendrix signature at some point and the neck pocket was just like this one. The strings where not perfectly parallel to the fretboard because of that, and the low E was dangerously close to the edge. I was then talking to a friend about this and he said his Mexico strat had the same issue.
My first kit was a strat that I did up in the old gulf racing colours and, to keep the theme going, I put an anodised aluminium scratch plate on that and I absolutely love it!
I've got the J Mascis Jazzmaster with the gold colored aluminium pickguard. It took a minute for the color to grow on me, but I've loved the feel of it from day one. Feels way more luxurious than any plastic pickguard I've had on other Fender style instruments.
I think the worst neck pocket I've ever seen on a Fender was on a 1970 Competiton Blue Mustang in a Norman's Rare Guitars video. I'm guessing it was nearly an eighth of an inch oversized from what I could see in the video. At any rate, it makes this one look like a precision fit!
looking at all my Strats (yes im the guy with too many Strats lol) that low E looked to be in the wrong place before and after? looked like it was nearly off the fingerboard
Neck pockets needing to be tight is a myth. The neck only needs to be solid to the bottom and not shift from side to side. I have a guitar I built with an acrylic body. It’s in the shape of a Dano Longhorn. The neck pocket has no sides. The guitar functions as expected. That’s not to say you want a big gap, if for no other reason that it looks bad. This probably made aligning the strings faster in a factory setting. Kind of why Les Pauls have sloppy tenons.
I'm thinking the back bits of the pick guard are 'matted' down for earthing purposes, ensuring good continuity. I still use coper tape as opposed to shielding paint for the same reason.
I agree. Anodised aluminium is basically an oxide and theoretically not as good a conductor as raw aluminium (so ablating the surface improves conduction).
@@jeremiahfiek5495 really? Ben said they had ablated the anodised aluminium I.e. removing some of the surface. Surely ablating it makes the normally anodised part of the scratchplate more conductive and a good earth rather than insulated? And pots and switches are normally earthed in guitars by connection to shielded film or paint to reduce noise, rather than being insulated. If it was insulated to reduce ground loops then why are pots and switches normallly earthed by foil on the scratchplate? I’ve never heard of earth loops inside a guitar being an issue. Essentially the switch and pot casings are normally earthed and a section of the scratch plate, and the cavity has shielded paint. I see these as “parallel paths” forming a Faraday cage rather than something that would cause an earth loop problem. The only reason I can think of to insulate between the pots and switches would be if they don’t want the entire scratchplate earthed.
@@ali2ndmail ok so this is kind of a weird thing about electricity and rf/emf which ive gotten into recently...so here im adding some info ive gleamed...not arguing or trolling. the switch and pots chassis are the ground points...removing the anodizing will improve the conductivity as you said.....but a ground loop is still a problem / undesirable. but this is not a ground loop(single ground point) as much as it is a faraday cage (multi grounded). ( as you said).... a ground loop can turn into a sort of rf/emf noise echo chamber and funnel..acting as a coil antennae...trapped under an aluminum pick guard echo chamber is not ideal. literally generating noise and amplifying it and choking its ability to get to ground.... right next to the pickups that generate and collect their own noise and ambient noise. now you have 2 rf/emf fields playing together...this is a recipe for disaster without shielding... in a closed loop/space its a breeding ground for interaction of the fields. the key in designing a grounding system for rf/emf dispersion and deadening is avoiding actual circular shapes that turn into coils...and multiple ground points (tictactoe but all tips ground) a Faraday cage can and will block signals but can also encase them within causing an echo chamber & amplification effect... a grid with 1 ground point is a bad fishing net.. hence why CSA /ULC and other electrical standards require multiple chassis grounds (not USA standards tho strangely) TLDR a ground loop in a closed system becomes a struck dome over daffy ducks head. no strike, no problem, kinda nice and dark and quiet....till bugs comes along
@@kazzxtrismus very interesting. So you’re saying it’s not a ground loop but under some circumstances faraday cages are not “problem free”? I think I get the key that you don’t want coils picking up emf, or several grounds that are at slightly different potentials. The classic “ground loop” situation is two bits of mains electrical equipment connected together by a signal cable, but there is a potential difference across the shield of the signal cable because the grounds on the two bits of equipment aren’t quite at the same potential.
Shouldnt be threading the screw into the neck pocket itself before it makes contact with the neck, those holes need to be just large enough for the screw to slip through so the clamping pressure is made by the neck and neck plate.... Not only that but it will assist in aligning the neck when there is a sloppy neck pocket involved... As for the handle being a game changer, my first crowning tool was a small triangular piece of wood with sandpaper taped to the edges, I believe the idea came from either Brad Angove or Dan Thompson way back when. Works great but forever changing the sand paper, just going to waste a lot of sandpaper on the handle as youll only ever touch the very outer edges of the paper, all the inner being left untouched and waster....
Absolutely agree - a real pet hate of mine is the neck screws being threaded into the body, rather than the holes being drilled properly oversize, they just don’t pull the neck into the body properly One of the first things I do with a bolt on is enlarge those holes and I think that’s also what Dan Erlewine does when he sets up and prepares a new bolt on neck guitar
Anodised aluminium is significantly less conductive than bare aluminium, so if they are using the scratch plate for earthing purposes this would explain the oblation of the surface.
Two things about this guitar. One Josh needs to put the high E string under the tree... second its the best tone I have heard on any of these demos. As for the cleaning of the anodizing under the scratch plate it is either for better ground OR that whole dissimilar metals and corrosion thing. The neck pocket just makes it shameful that this was even seen in public let alone the huge disappointment in something such a big name has put out. the more I see of these reviews the more I am thinking my kitchen has become my favorite guitar maker and my bedroom is my favorite guitar shop Thanks to Ben, Todd, Gio and a few other luthier influences.
I LOVE you! Thank-you. That is incredibly cool to learn about. I always assumed that the anodizing was conductive too.. also nice to know Fender care enough to do this tbh!
Anodized aluminum pickguard, anodizing is not electrically conductive, or a very bad one. Need to remove the anodize to get a good electrical connection.
I've wanted a Dave Murray Strat (MIM), but there's no way I'm paying $1300 for it. I treated myself to an Eric Johnson Virginia Strat for Christmas and it is absolutely divine! Supposedly my last guitar purchase ever, but that never goes well..
That neck was put in slightly crooked to the left, hence the gap + the strings don't align properly (low E looks almost outside the fretboard at the highest frets). That's just botched. What also bothers me slightly is that the pickguard doesn't lay nice and flat all over the body. And with a finish (which itself indeed looks really nice!) like this it's immediately noticeable. The Squier 40th Anniversary series look to be absolutely stunning!! I'd love a Pbass...
a "Custom Shop" like guitar by Fender Mexico.. ok.. do they want to enhance the status of these Mexican made guitars, to improve their "custom shop". Well - for 1000 bucks i expect a nicer one then this. Honestly. i mean i see it in the shops from a range 1100 to 1350. My answer to this guitar: give me the pickups and keep the rest. And yeah, Laser engraved Logos etc. looks awful cheap.. Like "made in china". the HER guitar model is far too overpriced for this workmanship...
As much as i love vintage stuff, i loathe plastic pickguards and I have swapped ALL of my strats over to anodized aluminum guards. IMO plastic doesnt even belong anywhere on guitars. Its cheap, ugly and feel like a toy under my picking hand. I dont have anything against laser etching but i would agree for the price point they should have cast the neck plates, or just done a signature slide decal.
i got a H.E.R. strat last year.. i love it. my neck was quite snug... i didnt have any gaps as you found with yours (Thankfully). my luthier did a little adjustment but was great otherwise.
I have 2 late 70's strats with appalling neck pockets to the extents that stings were falling off the fret board when playing - actually swapping the 2 necks improved the situation remarkably. CBS era fenders are not generally well fitted.
I just bought a Nitrocellulose finished Stratocaster body from G&B Guitars in the UK, and the neck pocket on that has a terrible fit just like this... It's supposedly built completely to Fender specs, but a genuine Fender jack plate cover that I bought can't be screwed in, as the one screw overhangs the cavity...
I had bought a Dave Murray signature Strat brand new several years ago at guitar center with the same poor neck pocket fit. I opened it and played it in the store and the neck moved while I played. It moved and creaked like 200 year old flooring. Immediately got my money back.
Watch out that low e is gonna fall off the shelf! $1,000 is my high end price for guitars not budget. That’s LP and American teles, but they are usually used. The alignment was not correct on that model it appears to me. I’ve never had a crown and polish on a new or used purchase. $150 for level and crown and $300-400 for a refret makes the guitar more expensive than at first. I’d pass on that axe.
I love Fender but quality issues in the neck should never ever happen in this day and age , with precision machinery. I bought a £1800 vintage 2 and the neck pocket was absolute garbage , sort you stuff out Fender , come on squire a better made fir fit and finish !!!!!!
That neck pocket is a disgrace for a £1000 guitar. I have just bought a £150 Harley Benton bass and the neck fit is perfect. You can't see the slightest hint of a gap all the way round the pocket. Slide a cigarette paper in? - No chance. If the Indonesian factories have this level of quality control, why can't Fender insist that between Mexico and the USA, they step up to the plate and be equal to or better than Indonesia, especially when you consider the price differential.
Biggest mim flaw I've noticed is the neck screws catch and bind in body, it's the same drill width as screws that go into neck I believe is 4mm, usa strats have the body holes drilled wider, that's why you're neck alignments bad even though the neck is very loose in pocket. That's why at end of video you're worker was painfully screwing the screws though body, they should easy push through. This also kills sustain
I have a Squier Contemporary Strat, the black one with the aluminium scratchplate, and I really like it. Okay, it has a somewhat sharp edge, but it doesn't get in the way at all (my experience). It's a nice guitar with surprisingly good fretwork, no scratches, no edges, so no complaint there. And it's budget too. I appreciate that. Black and alu goes really well together, I honestly have some problems with the gold hardware and the flashier colours (40th Anniversary), looks a bit overdone to me.
$1,000 is NOT the new $179.99. It is not acceptable that a guitar with those defects left the factory. Full stop. I agree the routing is eye opening but that does excuse the other defects.
Cool guitar. But the string spacing is way too wide for the neck. The low E is about to fall off. That guitar needs a new bridge with narrower saddles. It looks they put a vintage 56mm trem on a guitar with narrow neck. Shame really for a guitar of that price!
How can a cnc get things so wrong! It's the QC that needs to be better on a guitar that costs a grand! Unless you actually want this specific guitar buy a second hand USA made fender strat and the noiseless pickups just don't do it for me. ( I do want the Kurt cobain jaguar tho but the price tag for a Mexican made fender just puts me off )
I'm sad to say that I reckon this will be another thing you'll have to stop doing due to profit loss. You're buying a bunch of guitars of not insignificant prices, putting time into them with fret work and anything else you may need to do (not to mention filming and editing the process (even if that does pay for it's self)) and then giving them away for not always more money than you bought them for in the first place *and* (just like the livestreams) over time people will eventually stop spending so much money on something when ~99% of the time there really is nothing physically in return.
Fender has the worst QC in the business. I recently received an AM PRO II tele where the holes didn't even line up for the neck bolts so they were pulling on either side of their respective holes and it was impossible to align the strings.
🙄 The neck pocket isn't made to hold the neck in the guitar. That's what the screws are for. Just because their opinion of how a neck should fit is different from yours doesn't mean it wrong. Yea the pocket could been tighter but that fact that it isn't affects nothing.
Would the components have been grounding out too much being connected to the aluminum. I built a guitar that was grounding out because of the conductive paint that I applied to the cavity and pickguard!
They buff the underside to cut down on static electricity held in the plating. If they don't do this, and you have the instrument turned on, you can rub the top of the scratch plate, and get electrical crackling if rubbed with the bare hand.
You know this or is it a guess? The plate would be earthed so, static would flow out IMO. EDIT: wait, are you saying they buff it so that it makes connection with he parts so that it is earthed? In which case I agree :)
Yeah neck pocket isn’t great, looking to get this guitar and I guess if the neck pocket is like that on mine I’ll probably cut some wood and glue it in
The guitar looks to be worth half its price as soon as it leaves the retail peg. Neck pockets of such atrocious construction would be laughed at by the chinese.
@@CrimsonCustomGuitars I'm going to have to save up my pennies and book a build a guitar course with you problem is I'm way too ambitious.im thinking stainless steel frets and single coil, bridge humbucker neck, single coil neck .. with Tbx 😭way too ambitious
not the worst....my Brad Paisley Esquire is worse. My new to me MIM Strat from around 2007 is a snug fit.......I've had the neck off both guitars in the last week and put new GHS strings on them. The Esquire has a "rough" surface on the fretboard while the Strat doesn't. Both sets of strings immediately emitted a black powder residue that I have never noticed before and I've used Boomers since 1983 or so. On the Strat the powder wipes off but on the Esquire it doesn't and looks nasty. It will get a couple coats of poly this week.......
That finish is awesome! This might genuinely be my favorite finish on any guitar I've ever seen. And a painted headstock is the best thing ever, it makes any guitar look SO much better.
About 4 years ago I bought a 115 euro Harley Benton jazz bass and I am still amazed by its quality. The neck pocket is perfect I mean really I got way more expensive guitars that are not as good. No shim to get correct angle blah blah no just solid workmanship. Even the ash body looks incredible, if it was on a 1000 even 2000 euro guitar I would be happy ! Oh yeah no neck cracks you can fit a rizla paper anywhere around the pocket. Like I said every time I pick it up it makes me smile for 115 euro !! Also I had once a Japanese Blade R4 that had the biggest gap in the neck pocket that I have ever had on any guitar , but it was one of the most resonate guitars I have ever played.
I've got a Harley Benton telecaster. It cost £80 and I cannot comprehend how that strat could be £900+ better to play. (I do own other guitars that cost me a lot more than £80)
I do kinda disagree about aluminum inlays. I finished a bass recently that I put copper side dots in and they look great but they are VERY hard to see in the wrong light. I would worry that aluminum inlays might suffer from the same problem, but I think I would have to actually see it.
That type of paint additive is called interference powder. It interferes with the like refraction of the base color and causes all those wild other colors.
I hate to say this but great guitar giveaways is a bit of a mess... A huge amount of your main page jpg's are missing and your website just shows a load of question marks instead of pictures. It might be fine for your website coder who probably has it cached on his machine but it looks a bit fake [not genuine]
We are having a huge issue with this and every solution so far seems to break something else. In the process of installing cloudflare can to serve the sites from hundreds of local servers..
I hate to get British on the explanation for the stain at the heel of the neck but that’s “A Bloody Mess” Shame on Fender! But if that’s actual DNA from the artist will it increase the value???? SORRY! 🤐
Personally I think it would look better with a Multi-Ply white/black/white Pickguard, but that's just me. Also never was a big fan of Automotive Painted Guitars, although I'm sure it's a great Guitar...never understood the hate for Mexican Guitars...I've had a few that were great...
Every Fender I have picked up that was built in the last two years has had terrible fret work. I just received my Yamaha Revstar RSS20L Standard, which is the same price in the USA as the Fender Player series and my Yamaha is so much better than the Fender Player Series Strats I have picked up locally it's criminal. I like doing my own work on my instruments but what Fender has been putting out lately is horrible.
I have a COVID era ( if that's a thing) Squier CV Tele. Scruffiest neck I have seen pocket seen and I have a few guitars at various prices. It works and so kept right or wrong, but prices only going north...... A lot of competition these days at all price points, so hopefully that makes the big companies think.
Ben. Could you Let Josh make a DVD 📀 of His Guitar playing. This man is Good. One Better put Crimson Team come Together to Do a DVD just playing any after each other. Ben you can Join too. lol
To me, this $1200 guitar is very poor quality build quality initially, my first and only build so far surpasses it as it came from Fender. I also spent that much for a bridge, pickups, tuners and pots.
Aluminium oxidizes immediately in air as its highly reactive metal. Roughening the surface will make sharp points of contact, helping the removal of the oxide and aiding a good/better electrical connection.
I have a flame maple top strat I made. No dye, clear gloss finish. gold hardware, gold aluminium pick guard. The aluminium pickguard finishes it off completely ;-)
VCR flake. It's the colour of old cheap VCRs. I think the (presumed) laser etching behind the pickguard is in hopes of making electrical contact and using the picguard as a shield. Could also add friction so parts are less likely to slip. A loose neck pocket would make me wonder how bad is the heel to body contact. But you're absolutely right of course: as long as the neck to body contact is fairly solid and you can align the neck well and screw it down getting enough friction that it doesn't wobble, it'll be about as good as a neck joint can be. The arrow towards the blood might actually be a marked defect. Someone just ignored the marking or it was mistakenly put in the pass-pile despite needing cleanup.
I'd bet they etched the underside of the pickguard to remove some of the anodizing to ensure electrical conductivity.
anodizing creates a layer of oxide which is non-conductive so once removed and bonded to the electronics (pots, switches, etc), you now have a RF shield or at least, the start of one
This!
I came here to say this. You beat me to it!
They etched it so that it is non conductive to avoid having a GROUND LOOP to make it as quiet as possible.
@@jeremiahfiek5495 no. First off, etching de-oxidizes the surface, making it more conductive - not less. Secondly, it wouldn't create a ground loop. It bonds the pickguard to everything else. See my video on guitar electronics for the difference between grounding & bonding.
Personally I won't call a £1000 guitar a budget guitar. And frankly, I would expect better quality for the money. At this point I would rather silversky SE, cheaper and better.
Why no concern with the string alignment with that sloppy neck pocket? I could tell the low E string was almost coming off the fretboard. And when you “fixed” the neck, you didn’t even bother aligning the strings with the neck. The neck was simply bolted back with no consideration for alignment.
If you noticed before the strings were removed, the low e was really crowding the fretboard margin.
This tells me that even if the gap in the neck pocket is filled in, the string margin distance can only be corrected (a bit) by making a new nut, with adjusted string spacing, since the bridge cannot be relocated.
The string is almost falling off the edge because that neck is misaligned hence the almost 1mm gap £1000 guitar someone needs a new job. If you can't do the job Pick up a broom!
Yeah, it's strange that he said the strings alignment is fine. It clearly wasn't.
@@steven_uk I suppose from a certain point of view you could get away with less margin on the bass side of the fretboard, since we don't often upbend on the low end (I never do) but it's not ideal. I just finished building a short scale fanned fret offset V with a marginally narrower neck than most electrics. It's for a female player with really small hands. I'm making new nut for it at this very moment to give the edge offsets a bit of a nudge, since it has standard width bridge saddles with 10mm string to string distances. I made the first nut without considering some things lol
@@steven_uk Maybe is was a camera angle thing. Ben was able to look staight down on the strings but just a few degrees on the camera created what we took to be misaligned strings. They certainly looked way off to me.
holy crap, i saw your comment before seeing the video,..holy crap🤣 that is disgraceful, i will never order another fender without an option for exchange.
I wouldn't be happy with that neck pocket on a £300 guitar let alone a £1000 guitar! There's no excuse with todays cnc tech. I did like the matt finish fretboard though, glossy necks are not for me.
My thoughts exactly.
When I had a 1mm neck gap. I just glued a bit of 1mm maple veneer to the side of the pocket!
you can see at 4.36 the bass E over the edge of the neck, shows to me the neck is out of alignment, probably because the neck pocket is pants.
Every guitar I've owned with a shoddy neck pocket has hit the road due to issues with the way I thought they sounded. One guitar I owned had slop on the treble side, and that corresponded with the lack of volume and body on the higher strings. I'm sure there are guitars with sloppy pockets that sound good, but I would never buy one that had such a pocket without thoroughly test driving it. I don't think anyone would buy a set neck guitar that had such sloppy fitment prior to gluing, not sure why a bolt on should be treated any differently.
The QC and workmanship of Mexi Fenders used to blow the USAs out of the water, me thinks fender has upped the quota reducing the hands on time to purposefully reduce quality. If I got a fender with a pocket like that, I would send it back!
That neck pocket is a bit of a thing for the Mexican factory, it seems. I had a Hendrix signature at some point and the neck pocket was just like this one. The strings where not perfectly parallel to the fretboard because of that, and the low E was dangerously close to the edge. I was then talking to a friend about this and he said his Mexico strat had the same issue.
like on this guitar at the highest fret (well before the work of Ben and Josh). I don't know if the montage Josh did in the end fixed that issue.
string alignment is garbage..
Why is no shielding paint great. 🤔
My first kit was a strat that I did up in the old gulf racing colours and, to keep the theme going, I put an anodised aluminium scratch plate on that and I absolutely love it!
Love that color combo!
I've got the J Mascis Jazzmaster with the gold colored aluminium pickguard. It took a minute for the color to grow on me, but I've loved the feel of it from day one. Feels way more luxurious than any plastic pickguard I've had on other Fender style instruments.
Same here. Great guitar. Doesn’t hold up to my 89 strat (feel), however lots of fun to play and great sound.
I owned a sunburst ‘59 Jazzmaster with the gold anodized pickguard.
if it's anodized both sides it would make a poor ground. So they used the laser to expose bare metal. All 3 pots grounded
Is fender going the way of gibson, quality wise? String alignment issues are alarming!
I think the worst neck pocket I've ever seen on a Fender was on a 1970 Competiton Blue Mustang in a Norman's Rare Guitars video. I'm guessing it was nearly an eighth of an inch oversized from what I could see in the video. At any rate, it makes this one look like a precision fit!
looking at all my Strats (yes im the guy with too many Strats lol) that low E looked to be in the wrong place before and after? looked like it was nearly off the fingerboard
I like to take a jenga block and wrap my sand paper around it to finish the frets, works like a charm and is cheap as hell.
i would also like to know what "No shielding - which is fantastic!" means?
Sister Rosetta and Joni Mitchell should bot have signatures. A Gibson for Sister and an Ibanez for Joni.
From my vantage point, the paint looks golden. Then close up looks silver. Two guitars for the price of one. Thanks for all you do.
Neck pockets needing to be tight is a myth. The neck only needs to be solid to the bottom and not shift from side to side.
I have a guitar I built with an acrylic body. It’s in the shape of a Dano Longhorn. The neck pocket has no sides. The guitar functions as expected.
That’s not to say you want a big gap, if for no other reason that it looks bad. This probably made aligning the strings faster in a factory setting. Kind of why Les Pauls have sloppy tenons.
Yup, more important to have the holes in the neck pocket drilled out so the screw slips through, which they didnt do....
I think the mat sections are there to remove the anodizing which inhibits the ground? ;)
I'm thinking the back bits of the pick guard are 'matted' down for earthing purposes, ensuring good continuity. I still use coper tape as opposed to shielding paint for the same reason.
I agree. Anodised aluminium is basically an oxide and theoretically not as good a conductor as raw aluminium (so ablating the surface improves conduction).
They did it so that it's non conductive to avoid any kind of ground loop so that it's as quiet as possible.
@@jeremiahfiek5495 really? Ben said they had ablated the anodised aluminium I.e. removing some of the surface. Surely ablating it makes the normally anodised part of the scratchplate more conductive and a good earth rather than insulated? And pots and switches are normally earthed in guitars by connection to shielded film or paint to reduce noise, rather than being insulated. If it was insulated to reduce ground loops then why are pots and switches normallly earthed by foil on the scratchplate? I’ve never heard of earth loops inside a guitar being an issue. Essentially the switch and pot casings are normally earthed and a section of the scratch plate, and the cavity has shielded paint. I see these as “parallel paths” forming a Faraday cage rather than something that would cause an earth loop problem. The only reason I can think of to insulate between the pots and switches would be if they don’t want the entire scratchplate earthed.
@@ali2ndmail ok so this is kind of a weird thing about electricity and rf/emf which ive gotten into recently...so here im adding some info ive gleamed...not arguing or trolling.
the switch and pots chassis are the ground points...removing the anodizing will improve the conductivity as you said.....but a ground loop is still a problem / undesirable.
but this is not a ground loop(single ground point) as much as it is a faraday cage (multi grounded).
( as you said)....
a ground loop can turn into a sort of rf/emf noise echo chamber and funnel..acting as a coil antennae...trapped under an aluminum pick guard echo chamber is not ideal.
literally generating noise and amplifying it and choking its ability to get to ground....
right next to the pickups that generate and collect their own noise and ambient noise.
now you have 2 rf/emf fields playing together...this is a recipe for disaster without shielding...
in a closed loop/space its a breeding ground for interaction of the fields.
the key in designing a grounding system for rf/emf dispersion and deadening is avoiding actual circular shapes that turn into coils...and multiple ground points (tictactoe but all tips ground)
a Faraday cage can and will block signals but can also encase them within causing an echo chamber & amplification effect...
a grid with 1 ground point is a bad fishing net..
hence why CSA /ULC and other electrical standards require multiple chassis grounds (not USA standards tho strangely)
TLDR
a ground loop in a closed system becomes a struck dome over daffy ducks head.
no strike, no problem, kinda nice and dark and quiet....till bugs comes along
@@kazzxtrismus very interesting. So you’re saying it’s not a ground loop but under some circumstances faraday cages are not “problem free”? I think I get the key that you don’t want coils picking up emf, or several grounds that are at slightly different potentials. The classic “ground loop” situation is two bits of mains electrical equipment connected together by a signal cable, but there is a potential difference across the shield of the signal cable because the grounds on the two bits of equipment aren’t quite at the same potential.
Shouldnt be threading the screw into the neck pocket itself before it makes contact with the neck, those holes need to be just large enough for the screw to slip through so the clamping pressure is made by the neck and neck plate.... Not only that but it will assist in aligning the neck when there is a sloppy neck pocket involved...
As for the handle being a game changer, my first crowning tool was a small triangular piece of wood with sandpaper taped to the edges, I believe the idea came from either Brad Angove or Dan Thompson way back when. Works great but forever changing the sand paper, just going to waste a lot of sandpaper on the handle as youll only ever touch the very outer edges of the paper, all the inner being left untouched and waster....
Absolutely agree - a real pet hate of mine is the neck screws being threaded into the body, rather than the holes being drilled properly oversize, they just don’t pull the neck into the body properly
One of the first things I do with a bolt on is enlarge those holes and I think that’s also what Dan Erlewine does when he sets up and prepares a new bolt on neck guitar
Anodised aluminium is significantly less conductive than bare aluminium, so if they are using the scratch plate for earthing purposes this would explain the oblation
of the surface.
Two things about this guitar. One Josh needs to put the high E string under the tree... second its the best tone I have heard on any of these demos. As for the cleaning of the anodizing under the scratch plate it is either for better ground OR that whole dissimilar metals and corrosion thing. The neck pocket just makes it shameful that this was even seen in public let alone the huge disappointment in something such a big name has put out. the more I see of these reviews the more I am thinking my kitchen has become my favorite guitar maker and my bedroom is my favorite guitar shop Thanks to Ben, Todd, Gio and a few other luthier influences.
Those strops would be great! I 100% agree that you get massive hand cramps when you polish frets by hand
That arrow is making me think that this neck was meant to go around the loop again and be cleaned up or discarded but wasn’t for some reason.
Floppy pocket would be a great band name
Laser ablation so they can ground to the aluminum. Anodize is dielectric...no ground path except through the sides of the screws.
I LOVE you! Thank-you. That is incredibly cool to learn about. I always assumed that the anodizing was conductive too.. also nice to know Fender care enough to do this tbh!
Anodized aluminum pickguard, anodizing is not electrically conductive, or a very bad one. Need to remove the anodize to get a good electrical connection.
As Ben might say were he to have known this, "That is spot on."
I've wanted a Dave Murray Strat (MIM), but there's no way I'm paying $1300 for it. I treated myself to an Eric Johnson Virginia Strat for Christmas and it is absolutely divine! Supposedly my last guitar purchase ever, but that never goes well..
That neck was put in slightly crooked to the left, hence the gap + the strings don't align properly (low E looks almost outside the fretboard at the highest frets).
That's just botched.
What also bothers me slightly is that the pickguard doesn't lay nice and flat all over the body. And with a finish (which itself indeed looks really nice!) like this it's immediately noticeable.
The Squier 40th Anniversary series look to be absolutely stunning!! I'd love a Pbass...
I saw that the pick guard wasn’t laying exactly flat as well, specifically, around the bottom horn. I’m glad it’s not just me.
a "Custom Shop" like guitar by Fender Mexico.. ok.. do they want to enhance the status of these Mexican made guitars, to improve their "custom shop". Well - for 1000 bucks i expect a nicer one then this. Honestly. i mean i see it in the shops from a range 1100 to 1350. My answer to this guitar: give me the pickups and keep the rest. And yeah, Laser engraved Logos etc. looks awful cheap.. Like "made in china". the HER guitar model is far too overpriced for this workmanship...
I can't stand Fenders mass produced crap
As much as i love vintage stuff, i loathe plastic pickguards and I have swapped ALL of my strats over to anodized aluminum guards. IMO plastic doesnt even belong anywhere on guitars. Its cheap, ugly and feel like a toy under my picking hand.
I dont have anything against laser etching but i would agree for the price point they should have cast the neck plates, or just done a signature slide decal.
I’ve got a Stratocaster with a larger than normal neck pocket. Plays and sounds better and has more sustain than any other guitar that I own.
i got a H.E.R. strat last year.. i love it. my neck was quite snug... i didnt have any gaps as you found with yours (Thankfully). my luthier did a little adjustment but was great otherwise.
Did yours have the same blood sacrifice on the neck heel?
@@marsvoltron not that I remembered.
They removed the anodizing so the pickguard could be used as ground. Anodizing is no conductive or a poor conductor depending on how they did it.
I have 2 late 70's strats with appalling neck pockets to the extents that stings were falling off the fret board when playing - actually swapping the 2 necks improved the situation remarkably. CBS era fenders are not generally well fitted.
Why is a $1000.00 guitar not being sanded properly to be expected?
I just bought a Nitrocellulose finished Stratocaster body from G&B Guitars in the UK, and the neck pocket on that has a terrible fit just like this...
It's supposedly built completely to Fender specs, but a genuine Fender jack plate cover that I bought can't be screwed in, as the one screw overhangs the cavity...
You showed everything except adjusting the pickups. That's always the longest part for me.
I had bought a Dave Murray signature Strat brand new several years ago at guitar center with the same poor neck pocket fit. I opened it and played it in the store and the neck moved while I played. It moved and creaked like 200 year old flooring. Immediately got my money back.
Watch out that low e is gonna fall off the shelf! $1,000 is my high end price for guitars not budget. That’s LP and American teles, but they are usually used. The alignment was not correct on that model it appears to me. I’ve never had a crown and polish on a new or used purchase. $150 for level and crown and $300-400 for a refret makes the guitar more expensive than at first. I’d pass on that axe.
Do any guitars have perfectly level frets, the answer is no!! Especially after a few months of hard playing plus the wood is always moving.
I love Fender but quality issues in the neck should never ever happen in this day and age , with precision machinery.
I bought a £1800 vintage 2 and the neck pocket was absolute garbage , sort you stuff out Fender , come on squire a better made fir fit and finish !!!!!!
That neck pocket is a disgrace for a £1000 guitar. I have just bought a £150 Harley Benton bass and the neck fit is perfect. You can't see the slightest hint of a gap all the way round the pocket. Slide a cigarette paper in? - No chance. If the Indonesian factories have this level of quality control, why can't Fender insist that between Mexico and the USA, they step up to the plate and be equal to or better than Indonesia, especially when you consider the price differential.
Biggest mim flaw I've noticed is the neck screws catch and bind in body, it's the same drill width as screws that go into neck I believe is 4mm, usa strats have the body holes drilled wider, that's why you're neck alignments bad even though the neck is very loose in pocket. That's why at end of video you're worker was painfully screwing the screws though body, they should easy push through. This also kills sustain
I have a Squier Contemporary Strat, the black one with the aluminium scratchplate, and I really like it. Okay, it has a somewhat sharp edge, but it doesn't get in the way at all (my experience). It's a nice guitar with surprisingly good fretwork, no scratches, no edges, so no complaint there. And it's budget too. I appreciate that. Black and alu goes really well together, I honestly have some problems with the gold hardware and the flashier colours (40th Anniversary), looks a bit overdone to me.
$1,000 is NOT the new $179.99. It is not acceptable that a guitar with those defects left the factory. Full stop. I agree the routing is eye opening but that does excuse the other defects.
I've been pondering a finish scheme for a build in progress. Think I found it.
Cool guitar. But the string spacing is way too wide for the neck. The low E is about to fall off. That guitar needs a new bridge with narrower saddles. It looks they put a vintage 56mm trem on a guitar with narrow neck.
Shame really for a guitar of that price!
How can a cnc get things so wrong! It's the QC that needs to be better on a guitar that costs a grand! Unless you actually want this specific guitar buy a second hand USA made fender strat and the noiseless pickups just don't do it for me. ( I do want the Kurt cobain jaguar tho but the price tag for a Mexican made fender just puts me off )
I'm sad to say that I reckon this will be another thing you'll have to stop doing due to profit loss. You're buying a bunch of guitars of not insignificant prices, putting time into them with fret work and anything else you may need to do (not to mention filming and editing the process (even if that does pay for it's self)) and then giving them away for not always more money than you bought them for in the first place *and* (just like the livestreams) over time people will eventually stop spending so much money on something when ~99% of the time there really is nothing physically in return.
Polishing frets is hurting Josh's hands? Poor thing. Let's tape some sand paper to a piece of wood, it'll be a game changer.
a 1000 punds for a mim strat!! The world has gone insane! This one shouldn't have left the factory
Fender has the worst QC in the business. I recently received an AM PRO II tele where the holes didn't even line up for the neck bolts so they were pulling on either side of their respective holes and it was impossible to align the strings.
🙄 The neck pocket isn't made to hold the neck in the guitar. That's what the screws are for. Just because their opinion of how a neck should fit is different from yours doesn't mean it wrong. Yea the pocket could been tighter but that fact that it isn't affects nothing.
Please let me know when you (if you) guys start selling that fret polisher ;-)
Would the components have been grounding out too much being connected to the aluminum. I built a guitar that was grounding out because of the conductive paint that I applied to the cavity and pickguard!
I thought that Fender typically painted the various cavities with conductive paint.
They buff the underside to cut down on static electricity held in the plating. If they don't do this, and you have the instrument turned on, you can rub the top of the scratch plate, and get electrical crackling if rubbed with the bare hand.
You know this or is it a guess? The plate would be earthed so, static would flow out IMO. EDIT: wait, are you saying they buff it so that it makes connection with he parts so that it is earthed? In which case I agree :)
@@cheapskate8656 Yes...That would be correct. I build guitars as a hobby and have to do this myself.
Yeah neck pocket isn’t great, looking to get this guitar and I guess if the neck pocket is like that on mine I’ll probably cut some wood and glue it in
I do like how clean the routing is I have an older MIM Strat that is horrible looking inside because of painted over trash
The guitar looks to be worth half its price as soon as it leaves the retail peg. Neck pockets of such atrocious construction would be laughed at by the chinese.
What other "black female fender players" are there out there?.....
Honest question.
Who would fender have made a signature for before HER?
Joan Armatrading
Anodised aluminium is non conductive, that is why they have laser ablated under the components to ensure a good connection with the screen
Boss the lowE string has no room it's too close to the edge of the fretboard near the body 😞
It is a bit closer than I would like, well spotted. this damn neck pocket will make that a very easy fix on Monday though
@@CrimsonCustomGuitars I'm going to have to save up my pennies and book a build a guitar course with you problem is I'm way too ambitious.im thinking stainless steel frets and single coil, bridge humbucker neck, single coil neck .. with Tbx 😭way too ambitious
not the worst....my Brad Paisley Esquire is worse. My new to me MIM Strat from around 2007 is a snug fit.......I've had the neck off both guitars in the last week and put new GHS strings on them. The Esquire has a "rough" surface on the fretboard while the Strat doesn't. Both sets of strings immediately emitted a black powder residue that I have never noticed before and I've used Boomers since 1983 or so. On the Strat the powder wipes off but on the Esquire it doesn't and looks nasty. It will get a couple coats of poly this week.......
Sorry to hear about the powder. Hope you manage to get it off the Esquire.
I have a 93 MIM Strat that I've had since new, and the neck pocket is horrible as well
That finish is awesome! This might genuinely be my favorite finish on any guitar I've ever seen. And a painted headstock is the best thing ever, it makes any guitar look SO much better.
Strange, I've alway despised painted headstocks on a Fender, regardless how nice the guitar is.
"Abalone" ends in an "ee" sound; it rhymes with "matrimony".
Please do a Jason Isbel Tele. Would love to know your thoughts.
About 4 years ago I bought a 115 euro Harley Benton jazz bass and I am still amazed by its quality. The neck pocket is perfect I mean really I got way more expensive guitars that are not as good. No shim to get correct angle blah blah no just solid workmanship. Even the ash body looks incredible, if it was on a 1000 even 2000 euro guitar I would be happy ! Oh yeah no neck cracks you can fit a rizla paper anywhere around the pocket. Like I said every time I pick it up it makes me smile for 115 euro !! Also I had once a Japanese Blade R4 that had the biggest gap in the neck pocket that I have ever had on any guitar , but it was one of the most resonate guitars I have ever played.
I've got a Harley Benton telecaster. It cost £80 and I cannot comprehend how that strat could be £900+ better to play. (I do own other guitars that cost me a lot more than £80)
I do kinda disagree about aluminum inlays. I finished a bass recently that I put copper side dots in and they look great but they are VERY hard to see in the wrong light. I would worry that aluminum inlays might suffer from the same problem, but I think I would have to actually see it.
Yeah, side dots just need to be visible. On my GGBO build I used brass dots but the brass was too hard to see in the side so I used "green sparkle"
The shape of the scratch plate doesn't follow the lower horn towards the neck...
That type of paint additive is called interference powder. It interferes with the like refraction of the base color and causes all those wild other colors.
I hate to say this but great guitar giveaways is a bit of a mess... A huge amount of your main page jpg's are missing and your website just shows a load of question marks instead of pictures. It might be fine for your website coder who probably has it cached on his machine but it looks a bit fake [not genuine]
We are having a huge issue with this and every solution so far seems to break something else. In the process of installing cloudflare can to serve the sites from hundreds of local servers..
Points at sign *NO CONTENT MATCH DODGING STAIRWAY SOUNDALIKES*
"Denied!"
I hate to get British on the explanation for the stain at the heel of the neck but that’s “A Bloody Mess”
Shame on Fender! But if that’s actual DNA from the artist will it increase the value????
SORRY!
🤐
The etching around the pots and switch is for better electrical contact through the anodizing.
That neck pocket is TRASH! Really for 1000 quid, it’s shameful! If I was Her, I’d raise hell about that. Disrespectful…
What was the reason for not putting the high e string under the string tree?
Personally I think it would look better with a Multi-Ply white/black/white Pickguard, but that's just me. Also never was a big fan of Automotive Painted Guitars, although I'm sure it's a great Guitar...never understood the hate for Mexican Guitars...I've had a few that were great...
Every Fender I have picked up that was built in the last two years has had terrible fret work. I just received my Yamaha Revstar RSS20L Standard, which is the same price in the USA as the Fender Player series and my Yamaha is so much better than the Fender Player Series Strats I have picked up locally it's criminal. I like doing my own work on my instruments but what Fender has been putting out lately is horrible.
Pleas finish the travel guitar. Thanks
I have a COVID era ( if that's a thing) Squier CV Tele. Scruffiest neck I have seen pocket seen and I have a few guitars at various prices. It works and so kept right or wrong, but prices only going north...... A lot of competition these days at all price points, so hopefully that makes the big companies think.
Never heard of "Her". And what does being black have to do with anything??
Not much, except they made a point of mentioning it.
They couldve done block inlays 😍
Ben. Could you Let Josh make a DVD 📀 of His Guitar playing. This man is Good. One Better put Crimson Team come Together to Do a DVD just playing any after each other. Ben you can Join too. lol
To me, this $1200 guitar is very poor quality build quality initially, my first and only build so far surpasses it as it came from Fender. I also spent that much for a bridge, pickups, tuners and pots.
Aluminium oxidizes immediately in air as its highly reactive metal. Roughening the surface will make sharp points of contact, helping the removal of the oxide and aiding a good/better electrical connection.
How can I CNC machine mess up a neck pocket? 🤪
I'd have sent it back.
I have a flame maple top strat I made. No dye, clear gloss finish. gold hardware, gold aluminium pick guard. The aluminium pickguard finishes it off completely ;-)
VCR flake. It's the colour of old cheap VCRs. I think the (presumed) laser etching behind the pickguard is in hopes of making electrical contact and using the picguard as a shield. Could also add friction so parts are less likely to slip.
A loose neck pocket would make me wonder how bad is the heel to body contact. But you're absolutely right of course: as long as the neck to body contact is fairly solid and you can align the neck well and screw it down getting enough friction that it doesn't wobble, it'll be about as good as a neck joint can be.
The arrow towards the blood might actually be a marked defect. Someone just ignored the marking or it was mistakenly put in the pass-pile despite needing cleanup.
18:20 "ladies and gentlemen, coming in at #10 on the countdown, the hugely requested song, 'Ive got a Leatherman '" 😂