MIJ 50's Hot Rod Reissue Strat with Floyd Rose Original Bridge

Last updated 11/3/04    

Since there is practically nothing on the web about MIJ (Made In Japan) Strats, I decided to make this little webpage about the example that I have. I started out wanting to find an online wiring diagram for my guitar, but couldn't find anything at all. I even wrote to Fender, but even they can't provide my a wiring diagram for my guitar. So I drew up my own wiring diagram to share with the world at large (see links at bottom of page). Below are some pictures and details of my guitar.

	Here is the guitar in its case. The finish is called "Crimson Sunburst". I have also seen grey and purple sunburst examples. This guitar uses what is called "foto flame", which is apparently a decal of some sort that is placed on top of real wood grain to simulate a real flame maple top. It's pretty convincing to those who are uneducated in the finer points of electric guitars on the market. Overall quality of the finish and workmanship is superb and has a high degree of playability. This one also has the Floyd Rose Original locking vibrato.
	Here's a closer view of the foto flame finsh. The pickguard shown is not the original white single ply pickguard, but a replacement. I had to modify it to work with this guitar by enlarging the area near the bridge and the neck. I replaced the original pickguard because my right hand technique causes a static buildup on the pickguard which would end up causing popping noises when I touched the strings. This new pickguard is a 3-ply type, and virtually eliminates my problem while at the the same time dressing up the guitar. A direct replacement pickguard is not available for this guitar as far as I can tell.
	Here is a view "under the hood" showing the original pickguard. The shielding was added by myself. The stock pickguard had very little shielding at all, and the pickup cavities had none at all.
	At first glance, it looks kind of like a standard Strat wiring job, but the volume control has a push-pull DPDT switch which grounds one of the pickups in the humbucker to give you a single coil on the bridge. The other tone control has the Fender TBX circuit. The pickup switch has five positions.
	Here is the pickups from the backside. There is what appears to be a DiMarzio Super Distortion on the bridge and standard Fender single coil pickups in the middle and neck positions. You can get a wide range of tones with this pickup and tone control scheme.
	Here is the pickup cavities. Three individual cavities instead of the one large one that newer manufacture Fenders have. Some feel that this makes the Japanese made Fenders better than the ones being made today. I agree, but not for the reasons usually cited, but because it gives the body a little more mass, which in theory helps with getting a little more sustain.
	Here is a view of the cavity for the Floyd Rose. Notice that the body is routed so that the bridge can be recessed into the body.
	The headstock is just like the original Fender Stratocaster, except for the addition of the locking trem nut. Pegheads have slots vs. the conventional peghead with a hole drilled through the side. Notice also the original Fender script logo.
	The tuners at more or less like the vintage ones, with a couple of concessions to modernization, like the slotted pegheads.
	Here is the neckplate, which says "Fender USA" on it. I like the rounded corner which makes access to the higher frets a little easier. The serial number on these guitars is on the back of the neck, near the neck plate. The serial number on this guitar is N002986, which indicates that this guitar was manufactured somewhere between 1993-94. The neck is one-piece maple with jumbo frets with black dots in the historically correct locations. Fretboard radius appears to be 22" and the back of the neck appears to have a 6.5" to 7" radius.
	Here is the original pickguard next to the replacement.

The wiring diagram linked below is complete except for the values of the resistors and the pot value of the TBX tone control circuit, which appears to be different than the TBX circuit that Fender is using on their guitars today. This guitar has two resistors whereas the newer Fenders only have one resistor. I think that the TBX pot is a dual concentric 250K/1M pot, but I have not verified this. I was not able to determine the values of the aforementioned components without desoldering stuff, which I didn't feel like doing at the time (the resistor color codes were hard to interpret and didn't make sense to me). I will tackle finding out these component values at a later date. If you have any information on the TBX circuit used in these guitars, please email me.