Custom Shop Fenders

Strat54

Its 21 years since I bought my first relic Nocaster....who'd have thought the process would still be selling strongly. I was told that it was originally only planned to be for a limited run of guitars....a couple of hundred or so blonde MK Strats and a hundred Nocasters. Wonder how many tens of thousands they've sold now? 

FelineGuitars

crunchman said:

GavRichList said:

Here's a question. Sort of. Can a good luthier not get a stock guitar pretty close to a CS? - for example, I routinely ask Howard to roll the edges of my boards and frets, I tend to have the necks finish stripped back, a new bone nut cut etc - the guitar then feels immeasurably better than stock. 

How much does that cost to do?  Looking at the Feline website a new nut is from £50 - and that's probably some kind of plastic.  Add in the other work you are looking at a £150 bill.

It depends what stock guitar you are looking at, but if you take an AV reissue at £1500 and add £150 worth of work to it, with the better resale value of the CS guitar you won't be a lot better off with the AVRI.

Wait a minute with your assumptions 
The price quoted is usually for Graphtech Tusq or bone and is actually in most cases making a nut and not just dropping a piece of pre-cut plastic into place. It's typically 3/4 of an hour to an hour of work and a bit of set-up work too.
The reason it says from is that some materials which we may wish to use either cost a bit more - like an Earvana nut or aged unbleached bone, or maybe may take a little longer if we are custom cutting a piece of brass.
We tend to time jobs like that as some jobs may be quick when it comes to it so we would always be fair , but you have to put a guide price on a menu of prices and it needs to be reasonably accurate - if you tell a customer their job is cheaper they are happy, but not so happy if it costs more, so a low quote is alway

Anyway don't want to derail the general conversation.
You can definitely make a lot more out of a stock standard model guitar in many cases

guitars4you

Strat54 said:

Its 21 years since I bought my first relic Nocaster....who'd have thought the process would still be selling strongly. I was told that it was originally only planned to be for a limited run of guitars....a couple of hundred or so blonde MK Strats and a hundred Nocasters. Wonder how many tens of thousands they've sold now? 

Fender have had the same conversations - yet last year was on of the best years for them - beat sales targets