*ender Road Worn guitars (Page 1 of 2)

Allright - here's my beef with the RW guitars...and sorry for coming out of the gate complaining, but it always drives me crazy when the fingerboard wear on a relic guitar looks like these!  Have you ever seen a vintage Fender guitar wear like these relics?  Just doesn't happen naturally that way...you can't just sand off the frets thru the finish in a nice even pattern and call it finger wear...and you'd think the guys at Fender would realize this.  Check out E's work over at Revelator Guitar Works and see how a Fender relic is supposed to look! Oh well, just my 2 cents!

I dig a good relic by the way...I just think there are alot of folks out there producing unauthentic ones - even the Fender Custom Shop

Too industrial in appearance in my opinion. They lack warmth.

I tried out 4 of these RW Strats a few days ago at Guitar Center and I came to the conclusion they are a POS!! All 4 of them had warped necks and the frets were terrible. Ive caught hell on another site stating this but its the truth! For $1000 these guitars aint even in the ball park when it comes to quality as a standard MIM. Honest to gawd, your better off buying a used MIM Strat at GC and taking a sander to the body. The MIMs in my opinion are twice the guitar then the RWs and only cost about $350 used at GC or Ebay. You can get an American Standard for $1000. But beware..... Im not sure if many of you have heard, Fender is increasing their prices 30%.

I took a look at the Strat today and the first thing that struck me was how heavy it was. I'm unconvinced about the uniform wear and tear but I guess you could modify it so that it was a little more original. It played ok, not too badly set up, the neck had a nice dark rosewood board and there weren't any sharp fret edges. Needs to be about £200 lower than the £779 price tag too I reckon. But.....I didn't plug it in, I thought there was no need. It would've sounded like a Strat

I like Nash's too but if you find a real good Custom Shop they're hard to beat. I wouldn't swap my Closet Classic for all my friends Nash's.

Stratpaulguy, 

Don take my word for it. Go try one yourself. The first time I heard about these I was impressed! I thought to myself, "wow! Thats a cool idea!". I went to GC last week to look at amps and seen some of them so I picked up a Strat and was instantly turned off! It felt like junk in my hands. I belong to another forum and many people were raving about these things. So I thought that maybe it was just the one I played. I went back to GC to pick up that Super Champ and thought I would gives these things a good looking over. Maybe the one I played previous was just a bad one. The first one I picked up felt like junk. So I said, ok, maybe that was the same one I played the other day. So I decided to play a bunch of them. The second one I picked up was even worse then the other. I looked at the neck and it was practically bent!! LMAO!! I swear! I picked up two more and same result. The frets were all sharp and it just felt like crap to me.
I then went over to try out some Fender amps and of course there are many MIM Fenders in them areas. I grabbed one (not a road worn) and played. The regular cheaper MIMs were much much nicer then them RWs. The MIMs are usually about $350 used and that a good price for a decent guitar. But $965 bucks for the RW?? No way! I dont think I would pay $300 for a RW. Maybe the Guitar Center I was at just had a bad batch of them in? I dont know.
Many people seem to like them. If thats what makes them happy then thats all that matters. Im just trying to give a non biased review on the guitar. My review is very fair. Hope this helps.

Rob

i tried one of the srats. i actually liked the feels of it. it had a great neck.

-E

Am I the only one on here that likes a shiney new looking guitar?  Even my '83 Gibson 335 '68 Dot RI is near mint looking.  My'92 PRS is the same.  I can understand if you came across a beautiful '57 strat that has the paint worn off or a '58 Les Paul that looks beat that this would be totally AWESOME...but to buy a new one that looks like it's been beat to crap?  I'd rather buy a great new guitar and spend years wearing it out myself.

Stand... applause for Danny G ! Here-ye, Here-ye ! I want my newer guitars to be worn by me.... but not relic'd... man, I hate mic stands !