We Tried To "Custom Shop" The Cheapest Fender Strat 

So basically most of the initial issue (the high action) was just a truss rod adjustment. You liked the initial tones so you tossed away all the pickups and all the electronics. I'd love to see what it looks like with a 5 minute truss rod adjustment, setting the intonation, adjusting the saddles, adjusting the nut if needed, adjusting the pickup heights to optimize the tone. I'd bet it would be a really nice guitar right then and there.

I did that with a $65 pawn shop - a Chinese Squire - I changed all of the electronics, Switchcraft jack, Fender Fat 50's pickups, a new switch and improved the grounds and shielding. I played it professionally for 10 years. Still have it - it plays well and sounds awesome!

The better comparison would be to which Fender Strat can you buy off the shelf new for $1900 and how does it compare to the upgraded Squier. I'd love to see this dollar to dollar. Keep up the great work, Rhett!

I literally do this with every guitar I buy. Not only do you save money, it’s really a great way to feel connected to your instrument. The more time and effort you put in, the more you really feel connected to your guitar, and for me, that’s been really important in making me want to play

What I heard is that this is a pretty darn good Strat that just needed a thorough setup. If your biggest beef is that the truss rod needs adjusted and the fret ends need attention, you're doing pretty well

Scotchbrite pad (pack of 3) = $3 Emory boards (pack of 25) = $2 Took an Epiphone Les Paul and buffed the neck to a dull satin using the scotchbright bads and sanded the finger board edge slightly and rolled the fret edges using a few emory boards. Set it up and with $5 and a couple of hours, had it playing as well as my Gibson SG.

I liked the sound of the original pickups. I think it would have been a fairer examination if they did a full setup before modding to see how it could have sounded. Then change it all out and see what is gained.

From the start, the guitar they upgraded is a professional level instrument. The hardware on the MIM guitars is excellent. As for the neck setup, fret polishing, etc, most of that can be done at home with a few basic tools. Replacing the pickups is a matter of taste: the original pickups on these guitar sound great already. The final price of can be a lot lower depending how much (or little) work you're willing to do yourself. Great video again. Keep them coming! Thanks.

I did this with a 1985 MIJ Fender Squire Strat. Over 37 years it's had every pickup made except a "filtertron" installed in it. Now it has Fender CS "TX. Spcl's". I rolled the fretboard edges on the 2nd re-fret with Jumbo fretwire. It's a nice touch. Always a "Bone" nut, upgraded pots, switches, & Jack's. Everyone has to remember I bought this guitar from a highschool friend, who owned it for 3 months, for $100.00 Yes, a $100.00. I will never get rid of this guitar, because now, after 37 years & all of the work done to it, it finally plays & sounds like a dream! Especially in the 4th pickup switch position! SPANKY!!!

Ben is the greatest. He talked me out of a guitar that they sell as not suitable for my use, and told me to look elsewhere for what he thought was a better idea. In the end, I believe he was correct. I am a fan for life.

Some food for thought. About 7 months ago I purchased an Indonesian made PRS SE Custom 24 for $850. I was blown away by how great this guitar looked, played and sounded right out of the box. Fret work was good except it needed a little leveling at the high end. Board edges was actually rolled nicely and IMHO there is something special going on with these pick ups. Very open and nice clarity. Took it to my local guru, he leveled the frets and did a setup for $100. I added some locking tuners for another $100. So now I have a fantastic guitar that plays and sound great for under $1100. I rarely pick up my 2 Gibby Les Pauls or Fender Tele Elite. You can get the S2 version for $1800 or the USA Core version for around 4K. Now I'm sure both those guitars are better than my cheaper model, but I can't imagine being 2 or 3 times the price better. Very happy with my $1100 guitar.

I have a player strat I bought a few years ago and it still sounds and plays great! I upgraded the saddles, the nut, and the tuners, and did a level and crown and it feels great! I kept the stock pickups because they sound good to me. Player Strats are an excellent deal no matter what level you're at.

I "custom shopped" my Epiphone Les Paul. New Pickups, Duesenberg Les trem, Roller bridge, Locking tuners etc. Yes the investment was way higher than the guitar, but in the End, after playing it for some time, I think i've build myself a real player here. Stays in tune like a champ, and sounds just great. Even if I went for a more expensive Base guitar, I would have to make at least some of these Upgrades too. Maybe not the pickups, but the rest feels mandatory. And in the End it's also a Style thing. That's now My Guitar, und not something off shelf.

I recently did a blind Strat test before buying the winner at a large guitar store. They set 4 similar guitars up in a sound room with the same amp. I played them all without know any makes. I walked away with a Godin Session HT in matt black. Love it. The competitors were an American Strat, a Squier Strat, a PRS Silver Sky and a Godin Session. A True unbiased choice.

That's how I did it with my Epi Les Paul Custom. Bought it when I was 15 for 550 euros. Couple of years later put some seymour duncan SH18s in them. Then later redid the frets (stainless steel) and nut. I was never going to sell it. Now it plays and sounds great. It's no Gibson, but it's well played in and still reliable after many sweaty gigs.

I really do like the way they set up the guitar. The wiring was clean AF, and I liked the neck treatment. The mint green looks sleek too.

Keep in mind that in the 1919$ is included the hours of work. With basic knowledge and practice you can do that too, I did the same on a Mexican strat, I basically replaced everything, neck included, and it plays like a dream, and it feels like a more personal guitar, I've put some sweat into it and it only cost me 400 to upgrade it fully. I think at least a good setup and footwork is a need for a guitar and it's not very hard to do well

There is huge ‘hidden’ value in have a guitar that you created yourself and love and just never sell.

Many of Rhett's comments in the "after" review are simple things that should be taken care of by a good set-up. No guitar can be blamed for not being set-up properly straight out of the shipping box. Temperature variations, humidity, and other environmental factors during shipping from factory to store can take a factory set-up guitar to an unplayable state. A good guitar store should perform a proper set-up before they ever place it in a customers hands.

Ben is always sensational in every video. So knowledgeable and seems like such a chill dude.

Now this plays nice straight off the box! I got my mex strat with antiquity pickups, s1 switch, blend pot, trebble boost pot, super switch, locking tuners with only the bridge and nut original. Plays like a complete charm and top custom axe!

I'm 71 and have never owned a store bought guitar. I do however build my own from scratch as a hobby. Some of my home builds play as good as or better than a PRS SE my friend in a band plays stated. I do not sell my builds, I collect them as player guitars. Practice makes perfection as I only use the best parts I can be it pick-ups or tuners, old fashioned wiring etc. You did to the player strat what I do to my own. I'm proud of my guitars too! They're on FB page in my pictures. Just subscribed today to your channel. Loved the work done to improve that player!

Cool idea, so much of the value comes in doing the work yourself (short term and long term). I really enjoy making the improvements to my guitars myself and feeling/hearing them. Nice work, thanks to all those involved!

I’m a lefty and my main guitar is a telecaster. Bought all of the parts individually. MIM black body, Gotoh modern bridge and saddles. MIM Maple neck and added fender locking tuners. Pre-wired control panel from Wainwright Custom Guitars. Fender custom shop Texas special pickups. Took the PU cover off the neck PU and used an open faced cover. Wanted a copper colored pickguard, but being left handed that was impossible to find. Settled for a nice aluminum one. Put it all together when the last part came in and had it professionally set up. $987 total. The guitar is perfect in every way. The pickguard and open face bridge PU cover makes it look badass. A lefty can’t walk into a guitar store and play a telecaster that nice for under $1,600 if there are any lefty guitars to play. I stopped going to music stores because of the lack of options when I go.

A comfortable neck makes or breaks a guitar for me. Really impressed it didn't cost more. It's barely more expensive than an American Professional II. Someone is going to be very happy with it.

Dude, the MIM wiring is BRUTAL! (Not to mention the fretwork) Should’ve started with a Squier Classic Vibes. Also, I hope the first step was to use a feeler gauge and check each fret individually for proper seating (or else the Plek job is a waste of $)

Modding cheapies is a ton of fun! Plus, they make great road axes.

The guitar store in my relatively small city takes every guitar (over, say, $500), adjusts action, intonation, nut, and dresses the frets - BEFORE putting it on the shelf. It makes a difference across the board but especially with cheap guitars.

Man Righteous is one hell of a guitar shop! I can only hope some day a shop like this pops up in my city. We are stuck with guitar centers ughhhh.... Ben you are the man! I love your shop and your service in all these videos. Best guitar shop on you tube by far! Keep em coming!

From the before to the after sound it was mostly EQ and amp settings. Im sure the guitar plays alot nicer now and is correctly intonated but that super bright screeching sound of it in the beginning was not from just the guitar. The warm and fuzzy tone after it was done was mainly from EQ and amp settings.

Coolest thing about fenders is being able to do all of this ourselves.

The main difference between players like you and me is Everything! You took it out of the box, played it, and I said, sounds great!!

"let's play it without touching it" 😂 I knew this guy was good but I didn't know he was that damn good.

Here’s the thing about all of this: you can do it all yourself for pennies on the dollar. Good setups aren’t hard. Truss rod adjustments aren’t hard. Lightly sanding fretboard edges isn’t hard. Polishing frets isn’t hard. If you must have it plek’d, yeah, you’re gonna have to pay someone for that, but the vast majority of guitars don’t actually require it. I got one of these for a super low price because I work at a guitar retailer and get crazy discounts, put maybe $300 worth of parts/upgrades into it, did the work myself, and very much accomplished what the shop in this video called $800 worth of labor.

My favorite number one guitar is the Squier Stratocaster that I had a custom built Warmoth neck put on. Added some new pick ups and it’s absolutely amazing. Nothing like any other guitar I’ve ever played or heard. And it didn’t cost that much.

I bought a new Squire bass without even plugging it in to change the pickups etc. I got it home and played it for about month then concluded there was nothing wrong with it! It was a perfectly good guitar and any expensive 'improvements' would just be lost in the mix. I barely own a guitar that still has it's original pickups, so this came as a pleasant surprise.

I have to say, I've plenty if guitars and have owned many Fender Strats. The Mexican Player series are great for the money and mine have never had the issues this had our of the box. So either standards are changing in QC or I've been lucky. Because I can't claim the American feels any better holding them side by side. Both sounds great too.

I did something similar to a Squier Deluxe Strat a few years ago to bring it close to Player grade. New electronics, new Texas Special pick-ups, leveled-crowned-dressed the frets, upgraded brass-block 2-point Tremolo bridge, low friction string trees and saddles. It cost me several hundred dollars more than if I had bought a new MIM Fender Player. AND it still wouldn't stay in tune. I put the original Squier parts back in it and sold it for half of what I originally paid for it new. Lesson Learned!

Using a MIM is within the realm of doable, but a great idea nonetheless Want a challenge? I'd love to see you guys do this same thing with a Squier -- think it can be done?! Make a custom shop level Squier, and you guys will be heroes to people having to always sit in the cheap seats! I'd love to see this same thing done with an Epiphone too! Great vid!

What Ben was saying towards the end there was spot on. I've been playing acoustic for a few years and wanted to get into electric, but I don't have the money. Just a couple days ago I bought a 2010 'Starcaster by Fender' for next to nothing. It is known for being the cheapest guitar associated with the Fender brand, but it's a Strat. While I learn the instrument, I can make adjustments and modifications that make it sound and feel like an expensive guitar. Slowly I can upgrade it to build the guitar I really wanted to buy, one component at a time. And eventually I'll pair it with a nice expensive amp.

wtf kind of fretboard does an $850 fender have that it digs into your hand?! not even my 140€ yamaha had rough edges.

I have like 12 guitars or something... My favorite one to play is a little black body/maple neck Squier Vintage Modified 70's style Strat. I bought it for like 250-300$ about a decade ago. I traded a

Informative. I've been playing now for 50 Years. Owned a few music store's, worked on my share of guitars also. I've had top end brands but around 10-12 years ago I finally realized that the Neck on an Electric is #1 priority for the pros. Everything else is subjective. I've been rolling the fretboard, rounding the frets on all my electric s. But there is one other thing I do that y'all left out. Up untill 2017, when " Real Rosewood" Plank's were used (NOT PAU FERRO OR INDIAN LAUREL 😡👎👎👎) I would specially Treat the The Rosewood Board with baby oil, let settle then wipe, Then melt candle wax over the whole fretboard, rub wax in pore's of the wood, take off using a guitar pick, then clean real good, then last baby oil treatment, Let dry, wipe down and fellas, that neck'll Feel and play so good it'll make a train take a dirt road. BTY, I "Exclusively" play and seek out old Squire Affinity Teles and Strats. Nice necks with medium frets for smaller to medium sized hands. And what is it with these guitar manufacturers putting "JUMBO FRETS" On all their instruments. Like Jaco stated: Frets are like Speed Bumps! ESP/LTD Are notorious for this crime. Anyhow.... Don't Fret and Happy Playing

I did this fairly recently with one of those $100.00 Squire Strats from Guitar Center from about 20 years ago. Transformed it. Upgraded tuners, better electronics. New bone nut, and roller bridge. Spent some real time doing a full fret job. I have some nice guitars, but this one plays sooo nice. I'm surprised at how much I've been playing it vs the others. I probably just got lucky with the set up, not having a fancy fretboard scanner. I did take some light bow out of the neck by tightening the truss rod, but this was all done by eye and feel. I'm no professional player, but as far as I can tell it is now flawless.

The Fender Mexico Standard has actually come up to a really good level today from 2017. They actually even has the old American standard bridge in it. Tried many many of these and you could maybe ask more from the set up, but otherwise I can gig professionally with these with no problem at all.

$800 guitar that doesn’t play well is an instant no. Send it back. That’s just crazy these days

I have a handful of cheap gtrs that I totally mod to have laying around as options in the studio. Totally worth it. Specially if you buy the gtr used to start with and do the work yourself. Cool vid!

So I did a superstrat. Took a fender starcaster, sunburst, installed a full block fender stamped tremolo, double rail humbucker in the bridge position, roasted maple off brand neck with bone nut, headstock shaped like a strat. Installed locking machine head tuners. And bought the f stamped neck plate and installed it. Guitar came out awesome. Got my single coils infront, classic strat sound, double rail humbucker in the bridge gives me the crunch and metal sound. Very versatile guitar for cheap. Cost about 160 total with parts and shipping. The guitar was gifted to me. Had some neck buzz with the original neck. Made it sustain well with the full block trem and locking tuners. Intonated it good, adjusted neck, great action. One of my best guitars now.

I've got a cheap '96 Squier Strat made in China, one of the very early Affinity series (no Affinity logo but just says Strat on the decal). The difference you can make to a cheap guitar like that just by changing the pots, switch, jack, wiring and the capacitor is absolutely huge. 500K pots and bad cap values are standard on a lot of cheap Strats and mean the tone controls barely work except at the extreme edges. My other Strat is also a Squier, from the Protone series, and even that much higher end guitar had cheap rubbish pots, jacks and switch in it. Bottom line (IMO), make sure you replace the electronics and try the guitar again before you even consider splashing out on new pickups. Shielding with kitchen foil on the back of the scratchplate and in the cavity also makes a huge difference with background noise, again IMO.

I did this with a Chinese strat. gave it to a local luthier, told him what I wanted to do , I put a SD pearly gates in the neck, WCR Godwood in the bridge and a JB super S in the middle. Put Fender locking machine heads on it. Had it wired like a Steve Morse set up, with volume and tone push/pull pots, replaced the trem with a fender standard one. The neck was already decent and the body was a great piece of wood. I have 2 custom shop strats and this thing beats the crap out of them. Total cost , Guitar 600 , PUPS 400, Machines heads 100, set up and fret work 250, total, odds and ends total cost at the end of the day is around 1400/1500. Will I get that for it, No. Do I love how it plays and sounds , yes. Um that part is priceless.

Those prices are outrageous! When did guitars start costing twice what they should? Or am I just way behind the times?

I love it! I would recommend that any ( young ) musician watch this episode so, that they can understand that affordable guitars can be slowly upgraded over time. Some "partscasters" play better than some very expensive guitars. Great job ...Love the channel !

Plays guitar flawlessly and produces a good sound* 'ugh, this guitar is really difficult to play...'

I did this with a Squire Classic Vibe 60s Strat that had a fantastic neck so I dumped $675 into it and it turned out really awesome! The Upgrades: 1. Rio Grande Big Bottom three pickup Set. $285 2. Emerson Custom 5-Way Prewired Kit for Fender Strats - 250k Pots. $75 3. Super-Vee "Custom Shop" BladeRunner bridge Kit. $235 4. Vintage Fender Tuners. $70 5. Graphtec Tusq XL Nut. $12 6.Rolled the edges

A week ago a friend of mine saved up some 5k to buy a customshop fender. At the shop there were 5 cs fenders and one secondhand 1976 fender mocha with big headstock. It, the 76 was naturally reliced and felt better and sounded better than all the cs fenders. The 76 was all original except for the 3 way switch which was replaced with a 5 way. To be honest I never played a cs before and was actually disappointed because I expected something special for the 4300+ euros CS fenders. Maybe my expectations were too high, my friend also really preffered the 76 which was 1000 euros less expensive...yes, I use the word expensive and not cheaper. My conclusion for that day is that the CS failed to truely experience an old fender by making a new fender old.

I've got a HSS strat type Peavey I paid £35 for in a charity shop...it now has a Pearly gates (£50) and two maxon single coils from a 1974 Greco (£100), 2 additional double thickness baseplate magnets (£20), a brass trem block and saddles (£35). The neck just needed wire wool and the frets a very minor clean up. I stripped it and did a sunburst with a satin finish and sprayed the pickguard in a tasteless pink sparkle...for the money it is an absolute beast

At $265 (according to the give away page), the fret work plus $40 for rolled fretboard edges seem like beneficial and reasonable ways to improve a Mexi Strat. But if you don't like the pickups and electronics, that additional $500 puts you into crazy territory. The nut is a great upgrade too, but $150 is a lot for the benefits it will provide.

So I bought a Squire s,s,s for $68 used in great shape. The previous owner had done all the neck work. I replaced everything with Fender Custom Shop parts. All the hardware and electronics. Now I've got a $600 guitar that sounds, and plays incredibly. It works great for me. I highly recommend it.

Considering the total cost, you are getting some really nice upgrades and a really nice guitar for less than a Fender USA equivalent. Custom Shop is a tough comparison - those are hand-crafted guitars from end-to-end - but I think it is comparable to a Fender USA production model. One additional thing you could have done for a small incremental cost is put Fender locking tuners on it - that would really make it close to a Fender USA model overall - and still be cheaper.

Man, let the outsiders participate. I’m from Brazil and I would be happy to receive and pay the import taxes to get it and I’m your subscriber as US people are. God bless you!

Interesting video, I've played about 30 strats in the last 2 weeks while shopping for one(pro2, hybrid ii, jv, traditional ii, player), ranging from second hand Japan to new USA, none of the new ones really jumped out at me. I played about 6 different player series from Mexico and some played nicer than others. There was one particular silver player that I liked more than the pro 2's, I tried a bunch of second hand MIJ ones too which where pretty nice. Hands down best strat I've played of that 30 was a 1986 squire that had insanely low action and fast neck (obviously been set up very well). That squire is now my benchmark to judge all strats against. After watching this video I definitely will make an effort to try a custom shop. (update. I since asked the play the best custom shop strat in the store. It was aesthetically amazing, there was not a single thing that needed fixing or changing, the fret work was pretty special, but it wasn't faster or more playable in any particular way to me)

I used a foamy sand block with an angled side for the fret job on my Squier Strat to smooth out the sharp frets. Since the neck has no finish (varnish), there was no risk of damaging anything. What an improvement! My USA Pro 1 Strat now sleeps into its case... and I sold my Custom Shop 56'!

I liked the original pickups more. But the frets and action is much better for sure after the optimization

I almost prefer cheap Strats. My go to for pop and funk is a 100% stock Squier Strat that I paid $99 for used at Guitar Center. I kept the original 9's on it for a few years. Seriously stock. I used it to write and play ETA off of Justin Bieber's Changes album. So you can hear it there.

If you start from a Squier classic vibe you can save 500 already without any mod. And you get a proper body and neck to start with. Not having bone nuts on a Player for 850 it is sad. MIM used be around 500 new not a long time ago. Prices went up like hell without any real improvement.. and that it is not just inflation, it is agressive pricing strategies.

I bought an ASAT deluxe for 600 and set it up myself and it plays better than most guitars you will come across. Glad I had a shit cort strat to learn to work on. BTW that guitar plays and sounds great too. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I wouldn't pay more than 300 for a MIM strat. I think the best cheap work comes out of Indonesia these days.

Great work on this, and on that Strat! It seems close to the Player Plus series Strats that came out a little while ago. How would you say it compares to those at $1,129?

I set up my buddy's Squire a similar way. Rolled the fretboard edges, dressed the fret ends, polished the frets, cut the nut, set relief and intonated. Now he plays it!!!

As a welder by trade guitar player by hobby, I’m getting a laugh out of watching people I consider to be guitar snobs attempt to make something they don’t like at least a little closer to their price range.. when 99% of us would take that player strat str8 out of the box and love it because we can’t afford anything more.

I love how the guitar turned out. It is exactly like I would have it done If I had the money. Superb inside and out.

Totally unnecessary work given that a complete set up would have trumped an 800 dollar upgrade or even saved a few hundred dollars. Would have been worth it to hear it after a complete set up and before the upgrades. I have a Les Paul Epiphone Studio that runs circles around Les Paul Gibson(s) worth 10 times more money and without any upgrades.

I've got four Mexican Strats. All have Blaberunner trems, GraphTech nuts, D'addrio locking tuners and any assortment of DiMarzio's with any combination of push/pull pots or switches. Perfect setups. Never once did I play one and think, "if it was only custom shop I'd play better and be cooler." I've got three of the old Japanese Squier E-series Strats from the 80's...same thing.

I come to a very different conclusion that Rhett Shull did in this video. The question being, can you custom shop the cheapest Fender Strat, is worded a little strange, but it basically means can you upgrade the cheapest Fender Stratocaster to the point that it is just as good as a Custom shop guitar. The answer he came up with is No, but you can end up with a really good guitar. My answer is yes, and in fact you can customize a guitar to be better than a Custom shop. You don't get the resale value, but if you are buying a guitar to sell it, then you don't really have a reason to upgrade it at all. No, you upgrade a guitar to make it better suited for you. If the finish isn't good enough, then you can refinish the guitar just the way you like it, if the pickups are not as good, you can upgrade them, so on and so forth. You can start with a Fender Squire guitar and upgrade it to the point that it is better than what Fender will do in there Custom shop. Now can you do it for less? You could, if you did some of the work on your own, you could save a lot of money by doing a lot of work in the home. You could sand down the finish to do away with the clear coat on it and then refinish it with what ever type of finish you like. You can reshape the neck to how ever you like, you can even give the guitar a better access cut for the high frets if you want. You can do a lot of stuff at home, you can have a shop do a lot of stuff that you ether don't want to do at home or can't do at home. Now, with all that work, you can come up with a guitar that is better than what you can get or will get from the custom shop, any day of the week. The only thing you can't do, is make the market recognize that the guitar you upgraded and refinished and did all that work on, is miles better than what Fender Custom shop can do. Even though the guitar can play better, it can sound better, it can even look better, but you can't convince stupid people that all that effort and work made it better, because to foolish folks, the only thing that matters is what the factory did.

Sound's much better I'll bet plays better great video!!!

I don't see the logic of buying a guitar with the expectation that you're going to sell, unless you're a collector, in which case you're not going to buy this guitar in the first place. I've had ~20 guitars, and still have 4. Of the 16 I sold, 2-3 got me more than I paid, 5-6 were within $100 of what I paid, 1-2 sold for more than $200 less than I paid and the rest were within $200 of what I paid. I look at the resale "loss" as a rental fee to determine if I could bond with the guitar. BTW, the guitars were G&Ls, Fenders, Godin, and Gibson.

I did something kinda similar. Bought a 2020 Player Strat, sure it needed a setup and fret work, I didn’t have the board rolled but I did have the frets profiled and polished along with the sharp edges filed. Actions and intonation sorted along with fitting some SSL-1s. Over the next year I changed for locking tuners, TUSQ XL nut and swapped out the electrics for US spec. I’ve played it a ton and the fret board edges wore themselves which was perhaps the extra thing that was featured in this video. I love my strat, the journey was a lot of fun, I bought it new for £550 and spent maybe £700 including labour on it, not all at once though. I think it’s totally worth doing, you learn a lot swapping things out and they guitar will feel more like yours than a very expensive custom shop, not that I wouldn’t turn down the latter if I could afford it. The video does make one point which is so true, how a guitar plays is so important, always get a guitar setup and some fret board work if you can!

Very curious to pair this against an American pro 2. Costs less, in total, and in theory, would come out of the box closer to this thing. Plus better hardware, and neck

When I bought my first guitar, I was had the Master Plan. I was going to buy the cheapest guitar I could find, whack in high end parts and sell it for at least a 50% profit. Then I was going to parlay that into the next and keep it rolling until I was able to retire off my proceeds. So I got my Daisy Rock w/metallic flake paint, EMG Het Set pickups, CTS pots and switches...the works. Took it back to GC to sell and not only was it not worth more, it was LESS because it was not stock anymore, regardless of the aftermarket parts. I was stunned. My plan failed, I had a thousand dollar boat anchor. THAT is how you learn the hard way. Being naïve and ignorant with no research into the used guitar market. And I had no clue about fret dressing, polishing, rolling edges, nut prep, etc.

If you can swing it, getting your guitar Plekd is a worthwhile investment. I've had guitars set up by hand by very good, talented luthiers and the Plek job was hands down the way to go. No comparison.

That finished Strat would be just fine for me! I also agree with all others that the original guitar would have been just fine with a proper set up. I'm sure all would sound great.

I would have been interested in some numbers about right out of the box action and neck relief. What was your starting point? Then where did you finish up? That sort of thing is good to know for us learners. If you do this again, can you include that?

As someone that bought a player series strat a year ago and no sense of what is "good" vs what is "bad", this video really helped me focus on where I can spend money on it for improvements! First course of action -- fret board!

Strats are so simple in concept that I really don't see the downsides of doing something like this. Sure you can pay thousands more to begin with but you're still paying for an alder body and a bolt on maple neck. At least this way you get to mod it to your preference

On my 1st visit to Georgia, I went to Righteous..great shop!

I'd love to see how this guitar compares to the Fender American-made models, since with all the upgrades your at pretty much the same price as the Americans

For about $1600, I made a parts guitar that is way closer too custom shop. Nitro finish and spitfire tort pick guard too. Parts is the way to go over modding a player Fender.

Wait so… what I learned from this video is that if i take my current guitar, which cost me 1000, and pour another 1000 into it… it’ll be 90%+ of the quality of a 4-5 thousand dollar custom shop guitar. But your conclusion at the end is… i should NOT do that thing? I should, instead, buy the 4-5k guitar? Why is this the conclusion?! I am so confused by this video hahaha

Took a used $150 Squier (ESR Silver Flake) and redid everything but the surprisingly excellent floating bridge, old jack, and Agathis wood body. Found a Fender Elite ebony neck with bone nut and locking tuners ($350 used) and upgraded the pots/caps and added an S-1 switch with a 4-Pole 5-Way switch. The Indonesian pickups were replaced with a Pearly Gates in the bridge and Ultra Vintage Noiseless M and N. So, almost $1000 in (Elite necks, no longer made, were $900 as a Fender part) minus leftover parts, an extra bridge Ultra Vintage Noiseless P/U, a nice Indonesian Squier neck, and an HSS Indonesian set of electronics/pickups. Pickups made a HUGE difference, and the compound radius neck with a flawlessly black ebony fret board . . . not Custom Shop but equal to a $2500 Strat.

What have we learned? Fender does not provide the best setup guitar out of the box. Changing pickups, pots, and caps doesn't change the sound of a guitar by very much.The Custom Shop charges too much and any of the improvments can be done buy the buyer for far, far, far, less money.

I love the video mostly because it’s part of a store giveaway, the dude who did the work is super chill wish he was in LA need more guitar guys like that here, seriously.

Might not have played that great out of the box but it sounded pretty good 👍

I agree with Ben, I own 2 workhorses about 1K each (platform guitars and pickups I bought used) and meticulous work (time). In my case I personally do the job just for fun and sound, but investing money in tools,and skill takes time. Excellent videos.

The question I have that I think would be interesting to answer : Is the guitar now equivalent to or better than a 2000k Strat?

I bought my MIM Strat about five years ago and did pretty much the same mods over about 18 months, total cost ( I put in Texas Special pick-ups, 500 k pots and orange drop resistor) about $1200 because I was able to do much of the work myself such as the fret work and setup. The guitar plays and sounds great.

I guarantee that there's almost no guitars out there that would sound and play this good at the price point they have come to with all this work.

When you consider how much better it plays and feels it's worth it. YOLO, and SRV had his # 1 worked on all the time and by all accounts it kept getting better

Really interesting! Been doing something similar to my old 90s Mexican Tele… have replaced the electronics and pickups and it sounds fantastic! Fretboard edge is already pretty well rolled! Just got to get the frets done… they’re pretty worn, so it’ll probably be a refret! Seriously thinking about getting a cheap Squier Strat and doing something similar!

Bought a Classic Series 50`s lacquer used for $600 and Dave Murray-ified it with hotrails/Jb jr, pearloid pickguard, VIPots, locking tuners. Ended up as my favourite guitar. Since than I´ve sold an Am. Ultra, EBMM Cutlass, ESP George Lynch signature and an 80s ESP Navigator. They just didn´t get any use. I guess it helps that it´s a great guitar to start with, as a friend who´s a technician says, «shit in, shit out».

"it plays pretty terribly." Didn't seem like it to me, it seemed like a beautiful guitar. Gear snobs.

I have a chinese strat copy, an Ashtone, it was my first guitar. I "custom shopped" it because despite it being a cheapo knock-off, the neck is actually fantastic and with upgraded hardware and proper nut it actually stays in tune amazingly and plays like a dream, better then any actual fender I've played since. Still, the guitar is far from my favourite in my collection, I harbour quite a distaste for strats, most of my guitars are modern and super ergonomic metal machines or mean explorers, but this silly little Ashtone holds great sentimental value to me, so I keep it around and play it every now and then.