Review - Fender American Professional II Strat Sienna Burst

a mexican-made player series Fender Strater is a pretty good guitar for the money of course you can always buy the americanmade Strat but you're going to have to pay a little bit more almost double so is it worth paying the extra money for the American Strat well let's find out there's an old Chinese proverb that says buy a American which also pertains to guitars now speaking of buying guitars people often ask me what kind of guitars I like to buy what brands American brands I'm a meet and potatoes kind of guy when it comes to guitars to be honest with you I like Legacy Brands high quality Brands such as this one or uh another high quality brand f which is the brand we're going to talk about today oh we're not going to talk about acoustic guitars today we're going to talk about an electric guitar the Fender Stratocaster made in the USA so welcome back to guitar quackery where we take guitar reviews to the next level it's called the Sienna Sunburst American made um American professional to Stratocaster how do we know it's uh American professional well we can uh we're going to look at the specs but uh let's look at the tuners first so um that's a giveaway staggered tuners so these two are a little bit taller than the rest of them um so yeah that's it now the fretboard first uh we're just going to look at the relief I'm not concerned if it's uh set up correctly because you can change the setup I want to know if uh the eighth fret is uh even because we're going to use it as a reference so yes so the Fret rocker doesn't show any rocking now let's place the neck rest here and I'm going to take a set of fer gauges uh we're going to take uh these two 6 1000 and 8 1000s to check the relief on the eth Fret using a straight edge so first on the base side the first fer gauge is going to be 6 1000 it's this one it passes through the next one is 8 1000 I know the camera doesn't want to focus always but uh yeah it does not pass through however I already measured the treble side and I can uh show you that 8 1,000 does pass all right but then the next one does not okay so this means that we have um slightly uneven relief slightly asymmetrical fretboard with 6 1000's relief on this side and 8 1000's relief on the other side this is not a defect this is perfectly acceptable it's fine all right so now we want to look at the nut the nut slots or if you want to call them the string slots need to be cut as low as possible but not below the Fret level right so here we have the nut um we can check it in a number of different ways uh basically by uh pushing the strings down onto the second fret and checking the gap between the string and the first fret the Gap that remains okay so I like to use this dial indicator um there doesn't have to be a gap it could be absolute zero but when I file the N I'm really happy when I get uh two check marks which uh measures to be two 100s of a millimeter that's a metric uh dial indicator so let's place it on top of the uh first string first and let's push down the string to uh touch the second fret and now let me turn the dial indicator a little bit let's push it down so so this Gap is uh you know I would say significantly higher than I would really want it to be uh the B string shows a gap that's really high the G it's also really high the D strength see the D string is pretty much perfect the a acceptable a little too high and the E too high for my taste all right so now what we want to do next is um inspect the nut through the microscope uh here we are going to look at U the string slots from above and we want to make sure that the strings are well seated inside of the string slots so let's do that we're looking at the low E string uh let's try to move the string a little bit so this is well seated I don't have any issues with that there's a little clearance on the backand the string moves a little bit uh let's just remove the string and examine the string slot well okay uh we can see here that um the string made an impression at the front end here so it was pushing down here then there was no pressure here and then it was pushing down there and that's simply probably because um The Brak angle towards the tuning post was too severe like I said it had too many wraps around so let's put the string back now just to remind you I just want to uh show you that uh tuning post again here it is um too many wraps and a Severe break angle which is why uh we could see that the string damaged the back of the string slot uh here a little bit uh because there was too much pressure we don't need a severe Breck angle like this okay all right so now I'm going to move um the guitar so that we can see uh the a string the a string is uh pretty tight here on the front end and let's see let's see if it's got a little clearance to the back end yeah I don't have any issues with that let's remove the string okay and let's zoom in a little bit uh yeah I'm not sure what I'm seeing uh maybe maybe we can see that there was a little bit of of pressure here at the backand so we can improve this if we file the back end of the string slot okay okay so let's move on to the D string so I'm not sure what I'm seeing here let me Focus so it seems like the string was a little bit damaged somehow um let's see how tight it is at the front end it's pretty good and at the back end there's a little clearance now let's uh just remove the string not sure what happened there okay so uh well it seems like we have some string binding uh well I want to show you um from this angle I'm trying to pull on the string and it's not coming up did you hear that so we heard a little click and now let's see through the microscope okay so that's not good okay if we uh look from this angle again I'm not really sure what is happening uh I'd like to have a closer look through the lens of this camera this I've never seen before okay so let's have a look at the string so here I'm trying to lift the string and clearly it gets caught very interesting so uh we have some kind of issue that uh I guess we can fix but as you recall the D string slot was already filed low so we need to be careful now let's move over to the G string so here we're looking at the G string we're zoomed in uh it's nice and tight at the front end there is just the right amount of clearance at the back end let's remove the string and look at the string slot okay it's easily removable uh it comes out easily but um it seems like this string slot was cut with a vshape file okay so we have uh two Impressions on the two sides of the string slot um yeah we see the metal residue on both sides but no metal residue at the very bottom so here we have a situation um that that um the string is the round string is seated in a vshape string slot I don't know why um I don't know what kind of file was used but this is what we see okay let's move to the B string let me zoom out a little bit so it's uh okay it's nice and and tight and it's got a little clearance let me remove it from the string tree and okay so it seems like a similar situation so the string slot looks like uh it's probably V shaped it's got the right amount of clearance at the back so it's sloped downwards but I can see two Impressions on the on on the two sides okay and now the E string well uh here we actually see some some damage at the back end of the knut it's uh chipped off okay this uh is not uh great uh yeah there's a h i don't know what to make of it but it seems like the nut has been damaged let's uh remove the string from the string tree there and okay so we know the string slot is too high we want to file it down all the way across and we want to slope it at the back um yeah but we're going to have to have a closer look at this um damage okay um we might as well do it now let's uh use this camera because I'll be able to rotate and look at an angle so here we can see um that it is in fact damaged this is what it looks like and it is fixable we can uh build up the material a little bit using perhaps Dental composits now since we're here I'd like to uh inspect this a little bit closer this is a the G string um so as it's uh rotating we can see in fact that it is cut more like a v as opposed to the letter U okay v as in Victory or Victoria and let's examine this as you recall we have some string binding on the string so let's see how it snaps okay let's look at it again okay not ideal now um we have u a situation so this guitar has never been played uh the customer brought it in for a setup um we're going to have to figure out if he wants to return it or exchange it or if he perhaps just wants me to fix it um I'd like to show you the guitar from above there are a few uh other appointments I want to discuss once again it's a maple fret board SSS that means single single single pickup or maybe it's SSS this way I don't know volume tone and push push here for tone okay five way switch output Jack two Point bridge plate okay on this side skunk stripe well that's because um it's a it's a maple fretboard so this is not a fretboard that's been glued onto uh the neck it is part of the neck and of course we have a truss rod so the only way to install it is to Route out a channel and install it from this side and then plug it that's a walnut yeah uh here we have a relief cut and here we have an adjustment for micro tilt that is going to be uh 1/8 of an inch wrench which is for the Fender guitar so it fits inside and we can turn it so that we can tilt the neck why do we want to tilt the neck well um on on the Saddles when we do a setup let me show you we want to make sure that um the height adjustment screws don't stick up out you know because then when we when we play it would scratch the hand so we achieve that by raising the Saddles but we don't want the Saddles to be too high because we don't want the strings to be too high so uh in that case we can tilt the neck or we can tilt the neck first which is how it's done and then adjust the Saddles um we want to look at the truss rod it is the fender by Flex truss rod I haven't looked at it yet it uses the same wrench which is uh 1/8 of an inch it goes inside like this so it's it's a fender specific wrench okay this is longer at a Hardway store you can buy 1/8 of an inch uh Allen key but it's not going to fit all the way inside so what I'm curious to know is with the correct relief which we measured is it tight okay it's it's somewhat tight yeah okay good right so this is good very good all right no issues with the trust Rod I'm going to remove the strengths we're going to look uh under the pick guard and perhaps we can look at other thing oh yeah we want to look at the Frets with the strings off that's next we're not done yet uh but before we continue I'd like to point out the obvious if you ever want to buy a guitar uh just make sure you check the uh guitar query YouTube channel to see if there's a review of it uh for guitar reviews such as the review you watching as we 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will be exclusive content for some patreon supporters on patreon um such as perhaps this video there might be a follow-up video to this one with a happy ending uh no I I didn't mean it that way I meant you know well I think you know what I meant uh all right so let's now have a closer look at that guitar the strings are now completely loose I have not looked at the electronics I just loosened the strings and I removed all the screws I'm going to look at this for the first time now let's have a look at uh the Frets first so uh this is a music Nomad neck rest as you can see it's very practical for uh this work because I don't need to remove the strings and I have full access to the fretboard I have not uh checked the Frets yet uh I I only checked the second fret and the eighth fret I forgot to show you this in the previous uh recording but uh it is not um higher than the two adjacent Frets uh which is important when we use it as a reference point to measure uh the string slots right so here no rocking perfect that's all perfect okay so I am not detecting any uneven threets okay so the entire fretboard is um true there are no uneven Frets on this fretboard so this is very good okay so now we want to remove uh the pick guard so now we put the strings back here and perhaps I can show you from uh above I'm simply going to pull the pick guard out from underneath the strings okay sometimes you need to remove the neck if it has more of an overhang over the uh pick card on you know some strats usually with uh the Rosewood uh fretboard so here we go well uh very clean uh wiring Okay so I really have no uh objections here okay let's have a a closer look uh from uh from this angle okay so we we have a neatly wired uh pickups neat solder joints uh this is called a treble bleed circuit and here is that push push part that we talked about so basically that's a switch on the in inside here and yeah and we have um uh what are those parts are they CTS what are they I don't know so uh what else can I tell you it's got this shielding uh this is all very neat okay so now let me put it back there is is one more uh detail that I uh I need to show you um the Frets are a little bit stubby but let me let me just put this back first so the strings are getting caught on the pole pieces okay okay and we can just put uh maybe two screws to hold this down and then we'll be able to turn the guitar around so here we go two screws so I want to show you um as much as I can show you that uh the Frets are a little bit a little bit stubby on the sides so what do I mean when I uh when I go like this um I can I can feel the the Frets on the side now they're not sharp they just don't really feel very comfortable and here we'll look through the microscope because I already examined the guitar and we are going to see why we're looking at the second fret and as you can see um when they uh filed the Fret ends uh they also filed the wood a little bit okay and that's uh well not exactly the best job okay it's same thing on the third fret and same thing on the fourth fret in fact it's the same throughout the entire fret board uh I can show you also on the other side you can see how it's it's rolled off some of the wood um is filed down at an angle actually it's sloping down let's go over to the second fret first fret same thing so any Frets I'm just going to randomly uh examine another fret you can see here very clearly that um it's been filed the wood right and perhaps on this one we can see if I focus okay same thing on this one so it is throughout the entire fretboard we found imperfections the guitar will be playable I want to fix the nut there's nothing I can do about the Fret ends because there's missing material on the actual fretboard but you know I already talked to the customer and he says he can live with that um he going to have to make a decision about the nut this was just a random guitar straight out of the box it's never been played a customer just bought a guitar brought it to me for a setup and um as a rule before I do any work on any guitars I first look at everything so I do a full assessment of the guitar just to make sure that the customer is not sinking any money into a guitar that uh might have other issues like this one did so uh obviously every fender Caster is not going to have these issues it really depends who worked on it at the factory so in this case you know it wasn't good uh but I recommended to the customer to Simply do an exchange and then we'll do a setup on the new guitar and uh if that happens I hope uh then we might make a follow-up video okay so uh uh thank you for watching and I hope to see your son

Channel: Guitar Quackery

Views: 6,302

Keywords: guitar review, Fender American Professional Strat, US Fender

Id: H8dIK0FNFEo

Length: 31min 1sec (1861 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 13 2024