Fender Guitar Sales Figures 1966

Here are Fender sales figures from 1966 included in Tom Wheeler, The Fender Archives: A Scrapbook of Artifacts, Treasures, and Inside Information (Milwaukee: Hal Leonard, 2014), p. 69. If you are really into Fender history and memorabilia this is a great book. The sales figures for electric guitars and basses are really interesting considering the usual perception of what the most popular Fender models were and are today. Most striking is the number of Mustangs sold, but also that Jazzmaster and Jaguar sales were not too far behind Stratocasters and Telecasters. Although Wheeler doesn't indicate this, I assume that "Specials" include custom finishes, gold hardware, binding, etc.

	Quantity	Total Quantity	Amount	Total Amount
Jazzmaster	Regular 2254		380,241.23
	Specials 1125	3379	169,514.69	549,755.92
Jaguar	Regular 2680		494,921.80
	Specials 1416	4096	275,094.79	770,016.59
Stratocaster	Regular 3424		467,412.61
	Specials 1955	5379	276,539.65	743,952.26
Telecaster	Regular 3174		319,875.40
	Specials 1054	4228	107,163.46	425.038.86
Esquire	Regular 77		6,395.67
	Specials 39	116	3,480.86	9,876.53
Telecaster Custom		100		11,648.86
Esquire Custom		5		491.30
Jazz Bass	Regular 3226		428.492.56
	Specials 1522	4748	212,432.70	640,925.26
Precision Bass	Regular 4526		500,638.51
	Specials 1914	6440	220,831.08	721,469.59
Bass VI		41		6,596.80
Mustang Bass		657		61,321.71
5 String Bass		253		39,957.62
12 String Electric		2593		442,255.10
Mustang		17,788		1,630,380.09
Duo Sonic		2961		229,278.50
Musicmaster		4384		275,740.10
Mandolin		104		8,513.66

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Super Duper Wicked Awesome Strat Rewiring

Below is a diagram for the wiring I currently run in my Stratocaster which allows a lot of switching possibilities beyond the standard 5-way switch. The diagram is a further modification of a Strat wiring diagram I came up a few years ago which is in turn based on the Guitar Nuts' Strat-Lover's Strat diagram with the addition of a "Neck-On" switch also available from Guitar Nuts. The circuit also includes a phase switch for the middle pickup. My starting premise for wiring mods in all my guitars is that I want the guitars to look stock rather than to drill holes or rout for new or additional switches. This is best achieved by using either a Fender S-1 switch (which are expensive and the knobs don't look stock), or push-pull pots. All that is required to do this modification is the purchase of three 250K push-pull pots (Fender part 0992257000) available online from parts dealers for about $12 each, extra wire, and soldering equipment. With all switches down the circuit functions as a normal Strat with 5-way switching. Pulling up volume knob adds the bridge pickup in series to whatever pickups are selected via the 5-way switch. Pulling up the tone 1 knob puts the middle pickup out of phase. Pulling up the tone 2 knob adds the neck pickup in parallel to whatever pickups are selected via the 5-way switch. The switches do work in combination, but there are several combinations which are redundant. The new pickup combinations that this circuit allow are:

1. neck and bridge pickups in parallel (tone 2 switch on and 5-way switch in position 5).
2. neck, middle, and bridge pickups in parallel (tone 2 switch on and 5-way switch in position 4).
3. bridge and neck pickups in series (volume switch on and 5-way switch in position 1).
4. bridge and middle pickups in series (volume switch on and 5-way switch in position 3).
5. bridge pickup in series with neck and middle pickups (volume switch on and 5-way switch in position 2).

The middle pickup phase switch can be used at any time to add to the variety of tones selected above, or with standard 5-way switching (think Jimmy "Chicken Stratch" Nolen and the JBs). It would be relatively easy to modify this circuit by swapping wires so that the volume switch adds the middle pickup in series rather than the bridge pickup which would result in the combinations of bridge and middle pickups in series and neck and middle pickups in series. You could also swap wires to add the bridge pickup in parallel rather than the neck pickup. If your middle pickup is reverse wound reverse polarity then you will have humbucking in both series and parallel. I really like the sound of the neck and bridge in series and in parallel, however, and the diagram below allows both. The circuit may seem like overkill, and more importantly like bowl of spaghetti in your wiring cavity, but it's fun to try different wiring schemes. Leo Fender's original Strat wiring included only a three-way switch, selecting each single coil individually, but there are many more possibilities.

Stratocaster Wilkinson Nut Replacement

About a year or so ago I came to the realization that my 1988 Strat Plus sounded like crap. Of course my playing sounds like crap, but so did the guitar. A friend who plays the bass and keyboards had been thinking about buying a guitar and I convinced him to buy a Fender Standard Stratocaster (made in Mexico). He picked one up for around $450 which seemed like a good deal, especially since he wasn't sure how much he was going to play it. I visited him later that summer and tried out the guitar and was shocked at how good it sounded, even unamplified. I told him that it sounded amazing, better than my American-made Strat. He didn't believe me. Over the next few months I tried to think about why his Strat sounded better than mine. One thing is that I firmly believe that manufacturing everywhere has gotten much, much better in recent years. Certainly his Mexican-made Stratocaster is high quality. I also tried to think about what seemed to sound the worst about my Strat and I realized that the low E and A strings had very little sustain. I began to wonder if this was the pickups, the refret I had done a few years ago, the neck, or the body. The Strat Plus also had a "swimming pool" rout which purist argue degrades "tone." I realized that the low strings had very little sustain amplified or not, so then I began to think it could be the nut or the trem. I never use the trem and have it setup with all five springs tightened down so this seemed not to be the problem. I then started to think that it was the Wilkinson roller nut that came standard on the Strat plus in the late 80s and into the 90s. It was part of the super-Strat approach that Fender was taking with the Plus to try to appeal to players who were buying Jacksons or an Ibanezes with a Floyd Rose and a locking nut. The Strat Plus had a rolling nut, a dual-pivot trem system and the noiseless Fender-Lace pickups.

After doing a little internet research, it seems that the Wilkinson roller nuts tended to corrode and stop working well, as any mechanical part would after more than 20 years, creating problems with friction, sustain and tuning. This seemed like the answer. Unfortunately these nuts are not made anymore so you cannot just buy a new OEM replacement as with just about every other part for Stratocasters from any era. The solution is to replace the Wilkinson nut with a Fender LSR nut, a more recent and efficient design that uses ball bearings rather than needle bearings. The LSR nut has the added advantage of allowing you to use a wider range of string gauges, which you could not do with the Wilkinson nut (.010-.046 gauge strings were about the limit). The LSR accepts strings from .008-.056.

There's one problem, however, which is that installing the LSR nut requires plugging the old screw holes for the Wilkinson nut and drilling new holes for the LSR nut. If you are like me, I don't really relish the thought of drilling holes in my beloved guitar. The LSR nuts that Fender sells through various retailers comes with instructions for installing the nut as a replacement for the Wilkinson nut. This site steps you through the process and has good pictures as well. Note that the LSR nuts that are sold now include the plastic adapter. The essential tool that you will need to drill the new holes is a #51 .067" drill bit, which most hardware stores and even Home Depot do not carry. I ordered one from Amazon. In the end the installation was really easy, once I got over drilling into the neck. After I installed the nut and adapter and restrung the guitar, it sounded amazing again, especially the low E and A strings. The tuning has improved as well. This is a pretty easy fix for those who want to improve their old Stratocasters equipped with Wilkinson nuts. Bear in mind that some drilling is necessary and that you aren't going to have a pristine guitar after you are done.

The Problem

The Solution

Fender Stratocaster Rewiring

Here's the wiring I'm currently running in my Stratocaster. It is based almost entirely on the Strat Lover's Strat wiring available at GuitarNuts here. The basic premise is to use a push-pull pot on the volume knob which adds the bridge pickup in series to whatever you have selected via the 5-way switch. It only works for the first three positions, neck, neck and middle, and middle. Positions 4 and 5 just select the bridge pup by itself. This creates some really interesting humbucker-like sounds. I especially like the combination of the neck and bridge pickups in series. Not a sound that you can usually get out of a Strat. The other change is to use a push-pull pot on the tone knob to allow switching the middle pickup out of phase, which works both in positions 2 and 4 in normal switching and when the bridge pup is added in series. I always like the out-of-phase sound and this offers, in my opinion, the most flexibility. The only other major wrinkle is that I have used the Fender Samarium Cobalt noiseless pups and there is an extra ground wire coming out of each. Purists might balk at these pickups, but I love the lack of noise and they sound a lot warmer that the Fender-Lace pups which were standard on the Strat Plus in the late 80s and early 90s.