My Five Strats

Well, something happened that kind of surprised me.  I ended up with another Stratocaster.  Here's the full story here:

http://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2014/02/awesome-guitar-weekend.html

And because of that, I am now up to five Stratocasters.  Which is funny because I always thought I was more of a Les Paul type of guy.  But I am into modding, and Fender's are easy and awesome to mod.  I will say this.  I've gotten some pretty darn good deals on all of them.

Here's the pictures.

From left to right:

1.  The sonic blue Partscaster.  It's made of a lot of parts from my overseas distributor, and a Squier neck.  It just so happens to be the best playing one that I've ever encountered.  I consider myself really lucky to have come across this.  Even though this is considered my "cheapest" guitar, it's probably the nicest playing. 

2.  The newest one I've picked up, a 1999 MIM Strat.  I usually don't like sunburst Strats, but this one has some mojo going on.  I have some pickups on order for it.  I just re-fretted it, and it plays nicely.  Oh, I didn't re-fret just for the heck of it.  I fret-dressed it first, and there wasn't enough frets left to be playable.  So I yanked them out, and re-fretted it.

3.  This is the one I like to call Smokey.  It started out life as a 1993 Olympic White MIM Strat, but whoever owned it smoked like a chimney, and gave it a tobacco patina.  When I got it I knew I was going to have to do something with the frets as they were chewed up.  So I re-fretted it as well.  I also have a new tremolo on order as the old one is rusted up and can't be adjusted. 

4.  I bought this one at a pawn shop after much haggling.  I bought it in 2009, and it's a 2008 MIM Strat.  I didn't know it at the time, but there's a reason why a new Strat would be hanging in a pawn shop.  It's due to it's the screwed up warping of it's neck.  But I took care of it with a fret-dress, and adjusting the strings up higher. 

5.  My oldest, and most costly.  I spent 9 months getting the money and parts together for this one.  I thought up every awesome thing I could put on a guitar, and made it a reality.  I still love the custom paint job on it. 

So as I close this out, I think to myself, "Man, I've got to slow down."  I'm going to end up with another five Strats.  I'm running out of room.