From Fender-
 
Fender U.S. made American Vintage series instruments are finished with nitrocellulose lacquer (Exception: '75 Jazz Bass is finished with polyurethane).

American, Korean and Chinese made Fender guitars are finished with polyurethane.

Mexican and Japanese-made Fender instrument bodies are finished with polyester while the necks are finished with polyurethane.

Fender Custom Shop Relic, Closet Classic, and N. O. S. series guitars use "Thin-Skin" nitrocellulose lacquer finishes.

Most other Custom Shop models use urethane; however, on a "one-off" order they may accommodate most finishing material requests.

Is the '75 Jazz Bass supposed to be period correct or something like that?

  Spacey I was commenting on the article I read  on why  Eric Clapton liked his strat. FWIW I have never regularly played a white maple neck but I would love to give one a spin for awhile. I may have erred in taking Clapton's comments a little further in my saying that he liked the necks for bends because they were smooth with something like varnish or whatever Fender was using. I'm sure you know much more about that than I do. He did say he particularly liked the fingerboard for bends. As to why maybe I jumped ahead too far. In my own experiences I have played mostly with rosewood fingerboards and there seem to be good ones and not so good ones. Some of them are finished better than others. The grainy rosewood does tend to make me feel as if I'm fighting the grain. I don't push into the neck very hard either.Maybe my technique needs work lol. In bending either up or down I need to put some pressure on the board when I contact the strings.This friction seems to me to be reduced by a smoother surface.The frets are taking the most I would guess. Not sure if stainless steel helps or not. I am thinking a harder smoother metal would be more forgiving. Anything at all that helps that makes sense to me. I know several other players who prefer the white maple finished to a smooth sheen. Some of the guys I know of owning a variax  have ordered warmoth necks to put on their variax because they liked both the specs and the white maple. Could be one of those things where a person get comfortable with something and then it's hard to change. I don't really like the look of the white maple compared to ebony or rosewood but if it came down to looks .vs performance I would have to side with performance.
 
 Mike( Makeshift)- So Gibson has come out with an Eric Clapton version? Eric must be raking it in lol. Why do you prefer the white maple necks? Just curious. 
 
  Mike( Mccue)- From reading that gearheads thread I have come to the conclusion that there were people in different places at that time who seen a different reality. Referencing the one chap who worked in a music store and said the sales were dead and another who seen many people playing strats during the same time although no long list of names was ever given. The Brit and the American picture is also seems to be different. I think the most compelling thing is the sales figures. It seem as if in 1966 things were not very good for Fender. After Hendrix came around in 67-69 and onward sales went into the stratosphere( no pun intended). I'm sure that Hendrix probably did have influence from some of these other guys. Technically maybe they indirectly had a hand in the popularity. Yes Hendix was there before that but he wasn't very well known until a little later.
 
 The whole thing seems to have had a snowball effect which when all taken together adds up to a momentum. Like anything else a lot of people seen different things in different places and drew different conclusions.
 
 Now I'm not a big fan of Slash but I would guess that Les Paul sales might have gone up when he came on the scene, but who knows? If your 16-18 years old and you are following a band and you want to play guitar the chances are pretty good you will want the one your icon is playing.

one of my customs:
 
The Williams Special.
The Williams Special is a Les Paul-Strat-Mustang-Explorer hybrid, with hollow body cavities, Mustang scale length, built like a paul with mahagony and maple top, but with blueprint-accurate strat body, explorer headstock.
 



back of body/neck:




(semi-related: my first guitar was a '75 Fender Mustang.)
This guitar was commissioned in 1986.
It is a Gibson Les paul-Fender strat-Fender mustang-Gibson explorer HYBRID.
-built by Stan Williams, Rome Georgia.
-based on the Fender Mustang scale length....this design is also similar to brian may's red special.
-honduras mahogany body, with air cavities carved in the body below the maple top.
-flame maple top, 3/8" thick.
-blueprint-scaled strat body.
-2-piece flame maple neck, with ebony fingerboard.
-no truss rod! there are (2) rectangular pieces of aircraft aluminum running the length of the fretboard.
-flame maple veneer on headstock, front, sides, and back.
-24" scale length.
-jumbo frets.
-custom inlays: mother of pearl, diamond shape, with a split diamond around the center pickup.
-Kahler 2300 pro tremelo.
-(3) off/on switches
-master volume, master tone, 3rd switch now unwired-
it was originally equipped with a EMG SA assembly, and the 3rd knob was the presence control.
it now has (2) bill lawrence L-280's, and a duncan Little 59 humbucker in the bridge.
-explorer headstock shape, true to scale.
-long tenon set neck
-13 degree tilt back headstock
-graphtec nut, with locking kahler nut behind it.


the Flame maple used on the top and neck, and veneers, was from a large timber (136 years old as of 2011) salvaged from a barn in Illinois.
The honduras was acquired long before there were conservation laws on that particular wood (blank dates back to pre-1980).
___________________________________________________________
design criteria:
the les paul connection.
the basics of the les paul (the obvious basics) are:
slab mahogony body;
maple top;
strings on top of body;
2 piece maple neck;
glued in neck, long tenon;
tilt back headstock, no string trees required.

later, in 2008, they started weight relieving the standards, but remember, i built this in 1986.
so, the Gibson nod starts there.
mine has:
Honduras mahagony body -- maple top -- strings on top of body via the Kahler -- 2 piece maple neck -- a glued in neck with long tenon -- tilt back headstock.

it's really not hard to see the connection.
but my design tried to improve on all of this, because it also was capturing the best ideas of other guitar designs.

for example:
the volute on the explorer headstock is inherently stronger than the les paul (commonly known over time for breaks at the neck), plus i liked the headstock shape;

the weight relief is secondary-- the sound cavities i had routed strictly for that semi-acoustic property, making the guitar, at stage volume, extremely lively - this followed the basics of the Brian May Red Special, which was my starting point. his guitar is designed more like a 335 than mine, but i went there as much as i could without floating the top over a central beam;
the ebony fretboard brings out more les paul-style tonal characteristics than, say, a rosewood fretboard would have;
the glue in neck was a must, and unlike the les paul, which has that awkward heel, mine is smoothed out right into the back of the body, without so much as a line. the tonal effect with the glued in neck, and the long tenon is an obvious connection to the les paul lineage;
the tilt back headstock was unnecessary with the kahler locking nut, but i added it anyway, feeling that the downward pressure of the strings still helps to maintain a strong connection to the neck, vibration wise, and this is very much in les paul territory;
the strings on top, versus thru the body, is a very important link to the overall sound, and the use of the kahler is a great way to bridge the gap between a stop tailpiece and a floating trem.
tho they didn't have them then, now kahler has a 'hybrid' tailpiece, that can lock as a hard tail, or float as a trem.
best of both.
 

my current 'favorite' 'custom' build:
 
my USACG strat project
 
USACG custom strat #2 (i have two bodies, the first was cream, the second was vintage white)


Original version:

tall version:

 
 
guitar shielding:


USACG body and neck.
body: lightweight Alder 2-piece, with a contoured heel, side jack, tummy route, fall-away cut out on the back side of the bottom bout for upper fret access.
neck: hardrock maple neck, with a pau ferro fingerboard. 6150 frets, 1-5/8" nut width. small fender-style headstock.
--Gibson scale length neck, 22 frets, fingerboard radius, of 12". the shape of the neck is a thin "C" shape, with a .78" neck thickness at the 1st fret, up to .85 at the 13th, mother of pearl dot inlays.
vintage truss with access at face of headstock.
headstock: tiltback design, 13 degrees, graphtech nut.
Bridge:Hipshot 6 String US Contour Tremolo Chrome with stainless tone bar.
pickups: humbucker-single-single, Bill Lawrence L-500L and L-280s (n & m)
Q filter for master tone, and a master volume. (500k pots)
Scratchplate: done by Warmoth, it's a slightly custom shape, with the 1st volume knob hole removed, and my luthier cut the hole for the Lawrence pickup (not a standard size) to match.
Paint: originally done by a local luthier. later slightly damaged in a flood.
the lighter version, done by USACG custom guitars, it's all NITRO, and very very thin. I instructed them to make it as thin as possible, wear is not a concern to me.
cost breakdown:
neck-$246
body-$170
pickups-2x40 + 1x50=$130
Q filter- $20
bridge w/steel sustain block-$120 (luthier's price)
custom warmoth scratchplate-$35
odd hardware- $40
custom finish-$300
Sperzel tuners-$65
sheilding - $20
__________________
$1146
 
 

The shielding job looks really nice.

it makes a difference, that's for sure.

Hi Starise,
 
The time period that you describe, which I take to mean that short period before Jimi Hendrix broke out happens to be the end of the great electric guitar boom and every one had a huge slump in sales.
 
Gibson did not even make a Les Paul at the that time.
 
Jimi blew up in 1967 and Gibson didn't make a Les Paul between 1961 and 1967. They reintroduced it in 1968 because of Eric Clapton making the old ones popular. Old timers immediately pointed out that they weren't made the same as the old ones... but people made do.
 
Guys that played 335s probably didn't think about Strats much.
 
I don't know... what other professional grade guitars compare in popularity that might have out sold a Strat on occasions?
 
I've never seen actual sales figures... just serial numbers. Are sales figures by model public?
 
 
All in good fun!
 
best regards,
mike
 
 

 Sweet Bat sweet...and I'm surprised at how little it cost to construct the second one. First I have ever heard of no truss rod, but I guess the aircraft aluminum covers that. The body of the first reminds me of some of the  Schecter bodies, Neck through and mahogany but more of a Strat shape. Although none of those has a cavity. A real good collection of the best in one guitar!

"Blueprint scaled" - Bat don't you think that should be defined?
It could be very misleading to some.
 
The finishes Fender used and uses can be misleading too because of peoples opinion.
 
I'll try to help muddy the water...
 
"Blueprint scale" means close to body size. It in no way reflects the contours.
Two reasons. When they were making them by hand..self explanatory. When CNC started they
changed it everytime you turned around.
 
Nitro - Hogwash with any sound improving claims. Spray it on and tell yourself the sound improved.
Nitro was used to seal the pores as protection. It isn't as good as the polys at that because it gets hard, turns yellow and brittle. (unless you like that)
What's good? It is thin. It doesn't get in the way of a guitars tonal characteristics.
 
Poly is good but they sprayed it on so damn thick it turned a lot of players off. Also help kill the guitars tonal characteristics. Done right it actually protects better and is safer than Nitro. They started spraying it on thinner now...that's a good thing...they realized players weren't happy with that thick coat.