Just played a road worn strat! LMAO!

[phil_104]

LMAO!!!! AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! LOL!!!!!

Man, that was a funny trip to the music store. I get there, and see the roadworn strat. It looked like someone took a Highway one (same mate look to the finish), then used a belt sander on the forearm rest, and some sport on the back, then rubbed it a few times with fine sandpaper. You could even see what looked like a burn mark from the sander on the forearm ''wear''. Then, it looks like they hit it with a screwdriver a few times. The bridge looked like it has been ''sprinkled'' with rust powder. And the pickguard looked like it had been rubbed on a few spots with brown shoe polish, then scratched with fine sandpaper. The neck didn't feel worn in, it just felt like it had been violated by a kid trying to make his guitar look old.

It was ridiculous.

I seriously, honestly, truly believe that anybody on this forum, given a highway 1 strat, could do a more convincing job. It was so horrible, that I started laughing with one of my friends, and some other people came to see what was funny, and started laughing also.

Fender, your roadworn guitars are a joke. If anyone wants a strat, take that kind of money and look at the G&L imports please, or just hit a highway 1.

Rant over.

[scottish]

i played a roadworn recently. while i wasnt overly impressed with the relic work...it played better than half the MIA strats in the store, maybe i just got one of those lucky MIMs.

[Petrovsk Mizinski]

the pre-worn guitars new from factory concept is just idiotic, put simply, and this "Road Worn" strat is no exception. These are, IMO, just blues lawyer instrument. No one that has ever done their homework before hand and is a working musician would buy these in their right mind.
It's a blatant money grab,I mean, how do you justify massively bumping up the price of a guitar that's been intentionally damaged? You may as well go to a scratch and ding sale at a guitar store and actually get a DISCOUNT for the damage and actually get a guitar that might be within the realm of good value for money.

You want a worn guitar? Buy a guitar and PLAY IT and play it for hours each day like a passionate guitarist does. That's how my guitars become worn and I didn't have to pay extra for the worn mojo.

[Ayrton]

I played one as well, and I thought the neck felt much nicer than the usual MIM. The "relicing" is terrible though.

[idsnowdog]

The next big fad, relic'ed underwear.

[jimijames]

Fender, your roadworn guitars are a joke. If anyone wants a strat, take that kind of money and look at the G&L imports please, or just hit a highway 1.

Rant over.

Really? Aww, I was hoping they'd do a better job than that. Although from the other posts it looks like it at least has a nice neck on it.

But I guess when you have to mass produce something that's as unique as a genuinely relic'd guitar, shiet like this is bound to happen.

[jasona84]

yay pawning off factory seconds as better than firsts! Go fender!

[millsart]

Its a great concept and like it or not, its giving people what they want to buy, which a company would be crazy not to do.

I'll tell you what, with my own homemade relic I've gotten about 10x the compliements on what a cool looking guitar it is rather than when it started life as a generic looking new from the box MIM strat.

I'm 31 years old and even if I played that guitar everyday for the next 40 years that modern POLY finish Fender uses these days is not going to wear.

I bet you could stick the guitar in a landfill and in 200 years it would still look like it did day one.

Trust me, try to sand or chem strip that stuff off and after about 40 hours when you've hardly made a dent come back to me about playing it to wear it LOL




Honestly though, while the idea is good, the way Fender goes about it is so stupid.

The wear makes no sense in terms of actual playing, unless you happened to have a belt sander accident!

I mean think about where the forearm wear actually would be, wear from straps rubbing etc.

Sorry but Ive seen them with the buttom edge all worn off and unless someone way playing it flipped like Hendrix theres no way that would ever happen


Plus relic and poly just dont go together, you can't get a gradual blend through as its all or nothing with undercoat color.


For maybe 30 extra minutes per guitar Fender could use some of their custom shop technics and teach even the MIM builders how to create some realistic and unique instruments.

For the price they are charging I think they hardly look better than some ebay hack jobs.

Maybe for $499 MIM's but at $949..... sorry but they need to step it up a bit



Then again, I think everyone who wants a relic should do it themselves. Its fun and easy and while you didnt wear it out yourself, at least you did have something to do in the looks and wear.

[ganzosrevenge]

I mean think about where the forearm wear actually would be, wear from straps rubbing etc.

Sorry but Ive seen them with the buttom edge all worn off and unless someone way playing it flipped like Hendrix theres no way that would ever happen

+1, I play a la hendrix, and I'm starting to dull the finish on my american special HSS, but the way they did it, it looks like they just made "quick, random, 'value-added', extra revenue generating, authentic yet fake" dings and dents. I don't like obviously fake relicing, and I don't like a lot of CS strats getting the "blackie / rory" treatment (unless it's actually blackie or rory's strat), so I'll pass and go back to the actual relicing process of PLAYING, for my strat.

Jason

[the guy who invented fire]

Forget the relic work on them...I played a few recently (4 guitars in total) and was really impressed with the guitars as a whole...

[Atomic Chameleon]

It was so horrible, that I started laughing with one of my friends, and some other people came to see what was funny, and started laughing also.

My experience matched yours

[scottish]

Its a great concept and like it or not, its giving people what they want to buy, which a company would be crazy not to do.

I'll tell you what, with my own homemade relic I've gotten about 10x the compliements on what a cool looking guitar it is rather than when it started life as a generic looking new from the box MIM strat.

millsart...i never saw pics of your finished relic project. can you post some up?

[TheArchitect]

the pre-worn guitars new from factory concept is just idiotic, put simply, and this "Road Worn" strat is no exception. These are, IMO, just blues lawyer instrument. No one that has ever done their homework before hand and is a working musician would buy these in their right mind.
It's a blatant money grab,I mean, how do you justify massively bumping up the price of a guitar that's been intentionally damaged? You may as well go to a scratch and ding sale at a guitar store and actually get a DISCOUNT for the damage and actually get a guitar that might be within the realm of good value for money.

You want a worn guitar? Buy a guitar and PLAY IT and play it for hours each day like a passionate guitarist does. That's how my guitars become worn and I didn't have to pay extra for the worn mojo.

Its not completely idiotic. While the look is marginal at best I do like the feel of the finishes. That said. I tried 3-4 at the local GC and everyone one of them had nasty setups and fretted out pretty badly. They haven't been there long enough for the Staff to screw them up so something is not right.

As for the blues lawyer thing, come on. Its still under a grand. No blues lawyer would pay less than 3 large

[sosomething]

I played one the last time I was in GC buying strings. The "relic" job looked anything but authentic. I'd say the fretboard was the worst.. nothing even approaching the appearance of actual wear from playing. More like somebody just went at entire spaces between 1/2 the frets with a sanding block and some dirt.

Despite it all, the neck felt pretty good to play.

I still don't think I'd buy one.. I just can't reconcile shelling out $999 for a mexi strat some monkey attacked with a belt sander, plus gig bag.

[Fender_Punk]

I just think it's ridiculous that anyone would buy these because you can get the same instrument in a brand new state for a few hundred less, or you could spend $50 more and get a brand new American Standard, that has a Nitro finish that will wear over time.

I think this means that anyone with a worn MIM Fender can now sell it for more on the used market as a "road worn". Clearly it's what people want, lol.

[d1dsj]

I haven't seen any yet... but I bet the guy who thought it up is on a massive bonus! Any guitars that are seconds due to paint runs or any other finish problems just get dropped at the "new" road worn dept and get beat up a bit... then sold for more. Very clever... now they can save even more money by sacking some of the Q.C dept!

[JohnnyGuitar]

It's like paying the cook to spit in your own lunch I guess.

[St_Genesius]

The last time I was in GC, the clerk tried to push one of those into my hands. Now, as the happy owner of a late 90s Tex-Mex Tele, I'm well aware of how good Mexican Fenders can be, but the relic job on this thing looked amazingly cheesy, so I wasn't interested.

Of course, the fact that the dude was pushing it on me when I expressly told him that I was there shopping for a Les Paul just adds another tick in the "GC employees are idiots" tally.

[blueman335]

Any guitars that are seconds due to paint runs or any other finish problems just get dropped at the "new" road worn dept and get beat up a bit... then sold for more. Very clever... now they can save even more money by sacking some of the Q.C dept!

+1. Used to be you had to look on eBay to find some teenager's abused and mangled guitars. Now you can bypass the middleman & buy nasty guitars straight from the manufacturer! Of course, instead of getting them super cheap, now you'll pay even more than one in mint condition. No problem, as long as your disposable income isn't potentially effected by the stock market, real estate market, bank failures, corporate bankruptcies, and massive lay offs. Nothing I like doing more than blowing large amounts of money on beat-up 'new' guitars when I have no job security.

Fender was able to eliminate quality control and raise the price. Bonus time! Every guitar makes it thru now, straight into the stores. What other manufacturer can boost a 0.00% reject rate? Only in America. Not only is our economy collapsing, we're taking down the rest of the world with us. Ideas like this help that happen.

[Pink Unicorn Horsey]

+1. Used to be you had to look on eBay to find some teenager's abused and mangled guitars. Now you can bypass the middleman & buy nasty guitars straight from the manufacturer! Of course, instead of getting them super cheap, now you'll pay even more than one in mint condition. No problem, as long as your disposable income isn't potentially effected by the stock market, real estate market, bank failures, corporate bankruptcies, and massive lay offs. Nothing I like doing more than blowing large amounts of money on beat-up 'new' guitars when I have no job security.

Fender was able to eliminate quality control and raise the price. Bonus time! Every guitar makes it thru now, straight into the stores. What other manufacturer can boost a 0.00% reject rate? Only in America. Not only is our economy collapsing, we're taking down the rest of the world with us. Ideas like this help that happen.

But people are buying them, are they not?