Fngd

[Genebaby]

What's better than NGD? Free NGD!

A close family friend had a Strat for a long time. I vaguely remember jamming with him once while I started playing too.

He hasn't played in forever and has pretty much forgotten how to.

I saw him recently and he wanted me to have it, to fix it up and add it to my collection. I agreed with this idea.

All I remembered about it was it was an interesting model from the early 80's with new features like buttons for the pickups, active circuitry and a new tremolo.

This makes it an Elite Strat, and I picked it up today in its original case and was pleasantly surprised to find it was sunburst.



New strings and a clean up of the frets will go a long way to getting back to playing condition. I'm glad these had a flatter radius than regular Strats, so that's a bonus for me.

[shreddermon]

Free is good.

[Number Of The Priest]

These Stratocaster Elites not only had 12" radius fretboards, but also jumbo frets from what I have gathered. You don't often see these models. Nice!

[Hotrod]

Free is good, but the fact that it came from a personal friend and you can keep that connection alive is even better. I'm sure he really appreciates it as well. Nice!

[Genebaby]

NOTP, yes, it does have jumbo frets, so it's much more to my liking than regular Fender products.

I'll give it a good going over and then make a video of me playing it for my friend, so he can see what happened to it.

I've got it at work today and just replaced the battery, which was old, but luckily didn't corrode the connection, which happened to my Spectrum when I looked at it after many years of non use.

[Genebaby]

This is quite the time capsule, it has all the wrenches and tools, the strap locks are in there along with a schematic of the electronics and the booklet of info and the inspection tag showing it was hand set up, in December 84, prior to being sold in 1985.

This all makes sense as the neck is dated October 23 1984. The serial used was valid from late 82 to early 85, not the hard and fast rule of 1983 my friend thought. I'll tell him all this tomorrow.

It has the trem bar too of course. He's hoping to locate the Fender strap that he got when he bought it, that would be a cool touch.

[toejam]

Nice! I remember those with the push buttons. Couldn't remember them having active electronics, though.

How well does that trem stay in tune?

[Genebaby]

Yes, these had two active circuits, similar to the two that EMG offer and put on their DG20 pickguards.

The boosts were later put into Signature Strat models, starting with Eric Clapton's, and including Ritchie Sambora's, even with his having a humbucker in the bridge.

I now also know that Ty Tabor used the Elite Strat and loved the electronics in it. He used it for years and then had the boost circuits put into his rack, and also incorporated into his first signature guitar with Zion, along with the push button pickup switches.

The pickups don't hum due to there being a dummy coil in there somewhere, rather than them being active, so I'm going to guess that they should work without the battery, but I haven't plugged it in yet to see what noise it makes.

I've cleaned it up but I've got an AO solution ready for the weekend to remove the light rust on the locking nut part. After that's cleaned up I'll string it up and see how she sings.

I have noticed that for some reason this guitar doesn't have the string retainers, nor any evidence they were ever mounted, which is strange as there were special retainers on this guitar as one of the many "improvements" they made.

I've heard good and bad about the trem staying in tune. I'm not sure if that's user error, or luck, or that some of them didn't have the big locking nut thing that they tacked on. I'm gonna try and set it up to float a bit, see how it goes. It's certainly all a learning curve on this guitar.

[toejam]

Cool. I look forward to your review and the end results.

[VitaminG]

you are absolutely correct. FNGD is even better than NGD.

I had to look up the Elite strat. Bit of an odd bird, but it looks cool. I imagine they would have felt super modern when they first came out

[pianoguyy]

Free is always good. But, just in case he turns out to be a dick, you can't sell it, damage it, or modify it in any way. There's always the chance that he is going to want to start playing and will expect you to give it back to him.

I know what you are going to say, "nah, he's not that kind of guy."
But if you have ever been through a divorce/break-up, or gone into business with a friend, you understand how quickly those that aren't that type will turn into that type.

[Razor]

That is friggin' awesome! Congratulations on the Fender!

[Catharpin]

Very cool. Enjoy it guilt free.

[Genebaby]

you are absolutely correct. FNGD is even better than NGD.

I had to look up the Elite strat. Bit of an odd bird, but it looks cool. I imagine they would have felt super modern when they first came out

They are a little known part of Strat history due to the short life, though they have a new one named the Elite just recently, but not in the same vein as this.

It probably did feel pretty modern then, but not much to me these days. Changing strings with that locking nut is a pain in the butt!! It also blocks access to the truss rod, which is strange.

I do know now that the pickups work. The midboost is the cooler function, it does fatten things up.

Now I gotta read up on setting up the trem.

[Genebaby]

Free is good and she looks a lot better now after the clean up. I'll see what I can make of it.

I won't be doing any mods or changes, there is really no need, I have so many guitars I don't need to change this one to make it something different. It already is something different!