Pirk's guitars and amps !

You’re looking at Fender Deluxe Players Stratocaster – 2005 MIM – Sapphire Blue Transparent / Maple neck – Swamp ash body. It is really great guitar, built like a tank! I love the lightweight Swamp Ash body for the transparent Sapphire blue. What a great job how they got 4 pieces of ash bookmatched so good it looks like one solid piece of ash. A very well matched ash, difficult to see any joints. It's lightweight guitar but sustains like a lunatic, the grain pattern visible through the trans coats is downright beautiful! There is one issue with this body. While dressing seat of neck pocket a piece of the finish shelled from wood. This was clean break and I glued it back in place and it is sound. This apart the the body is in mint condition, no other scratches or dings.

When I took it apart the very first time I took off the tortoishell pickguard to replace it with 1 ply white. I also changed all the electronics and replaced the trem with an American vintage style 56mm spacing in Chrome. It fit perfectly and was so easy to install it didnt even take me 5 minutes. Now, the hardware in Chrome and electronics are all what you‘d find on many American made strats. The trem is American made and would fit on most American strats that have a 6 point trem.

Great improvement is that I’ve replaced the stock 12" radius neck with a 9.5" radius Fender maple neck. I really like it.  One piece maple neck has 21 vintage frets on 9,5“ radius with C shape and there are Fender American Deluxe Schaller tuners in Chrome on the peghead.

Complete specification of my Fender Deluxe Players Stratocaster: weights 3,1kg / 6.8 lbs - lightweight Swamp ash body – Sapphire Blue Transparent – Vintage style ’57 synchronized tremolo 56 mm spacing in Chrome - 1 ply parchment SSS pickguard (11 holes) – 2x Fender Hot Alnico III USA pickups (neck / middle) – Seymour Duncan SHR-1b humbucker pickup (bridge) - Controls: 1x Volume / 2x Tone (neck / bridge pickup) – 5-way switch. The Fender Hot Alnico III are loud and proud and offer tons of versatility.

So as of now my opinion is actually still very high for the Deluxe Players. I can recommend them highly enought. They’re worth every penny.