Back to home page       Back to Estimation

Back of a "Strat 54"

What a gorgeous piece of swamp ash that is. This particular "Strat 54" has a one piece body, it s a very common thing amongst them but not always the case. Some of them are made of multiple pieces of wood, sometimes it s very hard to see it, sometimes it s very obvious. The "sunburst" is changing over the years as you may see on the 58 and 65 s detailed pictures. Not only the addition of the red line in it later around late 57 begining of 58 but also the varnishing process itself. The very early strats as well as the extremlly rare sunbusrt telecaster  pre 56 like this one are sprayed basically like a "Gibson classic sunburst" : Spray the yellow color, then a very dark brown / black over the sides and then a clear coating. Note that on the very early strat 54 (march to may 1954) there was NO yellow sprayed at all, wich makes em look slightly different. After 56, alder became the main wood used by fender for their bodies and the "yellow" color isn t sprayed anymore but is simply dyed, dipping the alder bodies in some yellow stain liquid. Using alder instead of Ash considerably reduced the production work and thus the production costs. See the back of the 58 for more details and check link  this if you want to learn more about the detailed steps of Fender painting process over the years.