Fender Custom Shop Stratocaster 1962 Vintage Custom MPL TCP 3TSB

Lovingly recreated by the Fender Custom Shop, here is an interesting 62 Reissue for you! Not with the usual dark rosewood slab, but with a separate maple fingerboard glued flat to the neck blank. From around mid-1959, Fender exclusively produced necks with rosewood fingerboards; one-piece maple necks were a thing of the past. This was less for tone reasons than for aesthetic reasons, as the bright maple fingerboards looked worn quite quickly. Production techniques were changed, and the truss rods were no longer inserted from the back and covered with a dark walnut stripe, but from the front, which were then more easily sealed with the rosewood fingerboard. This saved time and money in production.

It took a good three years before models with maple fingerboards were available again on special order. Originals are extremely rare, especially with slab boards. In the following years, and especially with the round, glued-on fingerboards available from mid-1963, which were significantly thinner than the slab boards, a few more of these guitars were seen, although the production numbers remained very limited.
The two-piece body of the model shown here is made of alder and finished in a beautiful three-tone sunburst. Naturally, as with the originals, nitrocellulose lacquer was used, which guarantees true-to-original vibration characteristics. The appearance is in no way inferior to the specifications from 1962.
Fender calls the neck shape "63 Strat Style C" with a neck thickness of 0.83" at the first fret and 1.00" at the 12th fret. This precisely captures a neck profile that was actually only available briefly from Fender in late 1962 until March 1963. Stevie Ray Vaughan's No. 1 had this neck format and dated December 1962. After that, the necks were more contoured along the sides and felt somewhat narrower. The advantage of these necks is a powerful and balanced, round tone across the entire fingerboard. The higher maple content ensures that the tone is always present. Our model has a compound radius of 7.25" - 9.5" – a tribute to playability, as this allows for a flatter action in the higher registers.
The pickups are handwound '62/'63 models with slightly rounded pole pieces, just as Fender manufactured them until the mid-1960s. The electronics and appearance correspond to the originals. The pickups sound very balanced, throaty, and powerful, further reinforcing the impression that this is an excellent reissue that can compete with the best originals.
Additional notes: NOS flash coat lacquer no buff, CC pickups, NOS PG/knobs/covers, vintage wiring, cap wax paper .10MFD 150V, CC hardware