Fender Postmodern Journeyman guitars?

Whitecat

I believe 'team built' CS Fenders are basically built by the same people who build USA Fenders too, no? So the real differences are probably a more-sorted wood selection pile and of course all the custom touches.

It does seem that whatever Fender positions as their 'entry level' CS model is always a tough sell and not really a value-holder. But perhaps it's because they are a bit of a mish-mash spec wise, and totally vary from year-to-year that they are less desirable?

I guess most people just want Time Machine reissue models...

Philly_Q

Whitecat said:

I believe 'team built' CS Fenders are basically built by the same people who build USA Fenders too, no? So the real differences are probably a more-sorted wood selection pile and of course all the custom touches.

I thought it was more along the lines of Team Built being built by essentially the same people who build Masterbuilt, but the master builder adds a couple of personal touches and sticks his name on the finished product.

But I could be wrong.  Maybe it's all the same people.

adampeter

I’ve got the NOS postmodern strat, by far the best strat I’ve ever played, bought it a few years ago before prices rocketed, 

Whitecat

Philly_Q said:

Whitecat said:

I believe 'team built' CS Fenders are basically built by the same people who build USA Fenders too, no? So the real differences are probably a more-sorted wood selection pile and of course all the custom touches.

I thought it was more along the lines of Team Built being built by essentially the same people who build Masterbuilt, but the master builder adds a couple of personal touches and sticks his name on the finished product.

But I could be wrong.  Maybe it's all the same people.

It probably goes in both directions...

I notice too they don't call them 'Team Built' anymore, they call them 'Custom Built'...

guitars4you

Philly_Q said:

Whitecat said:

I believe 'team built' CS Fenders are basically built by the same people who build USA Fenders too, no? So the real differences are probably a more-sorted wood selection pile and of course all the custom touches.

I thought it was more along the lines of Team Built being built by essentially the same people who build Masterbuilt, but the master builder adds a couple of personal touches and sticks his name on the finished product.

But I could be wrong.  Maybe it's all the same people.

They have used the name Postmodern Strat for a few years now - They have tweaked the spec each year including colour options

As an overview they are a vintage flavoured Strat but with 22 frets, a contoured neck/heel, sometimes 12" radius, sometimes compound radius

Same grade/quality as a team built model - similar price 

RandallFlagg

Fender Custom Shop guitars definitely feel different to regular factory guitars and typically have lighter more select woods for the body and neck.

I prefer them, they have less of a generic factory feel, especially relics. The pickups often sound very good as well.

The Postmodern Journeyman is closer to factory but still has that Custom Shop feel.

Mike58

octatonic said:

Mike58 said:

Tried a lefty Fiesta Red Journeyman Strat, no idea if it was postmodern.
pile of junk.. really.
fret buzz 11-21 st fret, choked out on bends, rosewood board super light colour and bone dry .. horrible.
righty electrics wired anti-clockwise , so totally fkin useless and also righty knobs so that didn't work either.
nice sticky lacquered neck.
piece of £2885 shit.
But it's a Custom Shop so it must be great
NOT.

Which shop?
Having worked in music retail (long time ago... in the 90's) it is often down to what the shop does when it receives the guitar.
Most shops unpack the guitar and stick it on the wall.
Good shops take the guitar out of the box, assess what it needs and does a restring or set up, tweak at the nut and then will offer you another setup as part of the sale.

There seems to be far fewer 'good shops' out there these days.
I was at a shop here in Geneva a few days ago- not a single guitar I played was intonating well or close to being in tune.
I pointed this out to the store owner and I got a shoulder shug.

OK, but I'm simply not spending 2-4k on an instrument that plays like a bag of spanners.
The thing is that there are plenty of people who will, so there is less of an incentive for vendors to up their game.
If 'we' collectively started complaining about this sort of thing then it is possible that a few retailers would get the message.

Mike58

Don't feel it's fair to name and shame the shop, I did let them know after I tried the guitar that it was poor, but response was not great. I followed it up with an email detailing what a poor experience I had and got an apology.
some of it is def down to the shop but the guitar was just a fancy distressed paint job with a high price tag.
Maybe it's me but every time I try a guitar " off the wall" it disappoints.
I've had better luck off EBay over the years, at least if you pay low you can cope with the inevitable minuses when buying used. This was a brand new ( made to look old) piece of crap.
there was a build sheet or factory spec sheet and it had the cheek to specify the rosewood board as AAA quality ( whatever the fk that means), the board was a horrible light colour , bone dry and you could feel the resistance of the wood when bending... the opposite of slick.
another joke on the spec sheet was "pots L/H". ... aye right!!
righty log pots wired backwards giving THE WORST taper immaginable .
Crap.

chris78

Whitecat said:

I believe 'team built' CS Fenders are basically built by the same people who build USA Fenders too, no? So the real differences are probably a more-sorted wood selection pile and of course all the custom touches.

It does seem that whatever Fender positions as their 'entry level' CS model is always a tough sell and not really a value-holder. But perhaps it's because they are a bit of a mish-mash spec wise, and totally vary from year-to-year that they are less desirable?

I guess most people just want Time Machine reissue models...

Not true. The custom shop is in corona, but is a different part. Fender in theory take the best of their workers and promote them to the custom shop. So, the guy who does the best fretwork ends up working in the custom shop and only working on their guitars. The guy who does the best neck sanding ends up in the custom shop only working on those etc. The master builders work with and apprentice some of those guys and in theory, the very best become master builders. 

There are some videos around that explain the wood selection process. The master builders get first dibs of all fender wood and it works down. Does it guarantee a good guitar? Obviously not. Nobody knows what the product will be like when you match wood together, but it gives you a better chance of getting one compared with, say, a Mexican when it’s a crap shoot. Of course, there will be stunning Mexican Guitars too when the wood just worked for some reason. Guitar building isn’t an exact science.

Wazmeister

Ive played a few Postmodern JMs and I thought that they were excellent.

Whitecat

chris78 said:

Whitecat said:

I believe 'team built' CS Fenders are basically built by the same people who build USA Fenders too, no? So the real differences are probably a more-sorted wood selection pile and of course all the custom touches.

It does seem that whatever Fender positions as their 'entry level' CS model is always a tough sell and not really a value-holder. But perhaps it's because they are a bit of a mish-mash spec wise, and totally vary from year-to-year that they are less desirable?

I guess most people just want Time Machine reissue models...

Not true. The custom shop is in corona, but is a different part. Fender in theory take the best of their workers and promote them to the custom shop. So, the guy who does the best fretwork ends up working in the custom shop and only working on their guitars. The guy who does the best neck sanding ends up in the custom shop only working on those etc. The master builders work with and apprentice some of those guys and in theory, the very best become master builders. 

There are some videos around that explain the wood selection process. The master builders get first dibs of all fender wood and it works down. Does it guarantee a good guitar? Obviously not. Nobody knows what the product will be like when you match wood together, but it gives you a better chance of getting one compared with, say, a Mexican when it’s a crap shoot. Of course, there will be stunning Mexican Guitars too when the wood just worked for some reason. Guitar building isn’t an exact science.

Cool, thanks for that.