Fender Custom Shop Bonetone 1962 Stratocaster Journeyman Relic 3-Tone Sunburst

Bonetone '62 Strat

Ever since the Stratocaster debuted in 1954, it has evolved, even in the earliest days.  The Strat has continued to change over the years, but for many, stepping back to how it was done in the early 60's is the way to go.  The Fender Custom Shop excels at recreating the look, feel and sound of these guitars, often with special tweaks.  That's where we decided to go with this one.

The Custom Shop Bonetone '62 Stratocaster testament to this, featuring very special upgraded pickups, a modern radius and fret size, and an otherwise all-tradition design.  It has a two-piece select alder body that has been hand-selected to be lightweight, a rock solid quartersawn maple neck with a '63 Strat C neck shape, slab rosewood fretboard, and all of the correct vintage hardware.   We went with a 9.5" radius and Narrow Tall (6105) frets for easy playing and bending - this is one of the most common and popular modifications to vintage-styled guitars out of the Custom Shop.  

We didn't want to keep this one too traditional, so we went with a different set of pickups - and ones that are rarely seen in Custom Shop builds.  This guitar is loaded with handwound Master Design Bonetone Strat pickups.  Our opinion is that these are hard to beat for top-shelf single-coil tone.   It's all about how they are made in the Custom Shop:  handwound, with fewer turns of heavy formvar wire, and beveled alnico 2 magnets.  The result is glassy highs and warm lows, with increased clarity and headroom that's perfect for both clean playing and overdriven sounds.  We also chose the Vintage Modified # 2 wiring setup.  This features a master volume, tone # 1 (neck & middle pickups), and tone # 2 (bridge) with treble bleed (for keeping mids and rolling off highs without adding bass).  This guitar sounds downright amazing.