My $20 Strat I seen this ION strat copy smiling at me across the room at a thrift shop. Looked
closer and it was marked $20.That peaked my intrest! It was pretty beat up, a couple
of strings were missing, it had a couple of cracks in the body, whammy was broke off in
the trem block but on the plus side---all the parts were intact. So I laid my $20
bill down and took it home. Hooked it up to an amp and it worked. I had to tighten
everything up on it, everything was loose.
Well I picked around on it around the house and begin to set it up. Got it playing
pretty decent. So after I had it about a year determined that it was worthy of upgrade.
From searching the net I found the body was Maple. So this is what I did"
1-Rewired it with some Telecaster CST pots, .047 Mallory tone cap and wire I had on hand
2-Removed the old ceramic pickups and installed some 2004 Fender USA Hwy 1 Alnico V
Strat pickups I had on hand
3-Couldn't get the broke of whammy bar piece out of the block, so I bought a new Affinity Squier
Whammy system and installed it
4-Drilled some pilot holes through the cracks in the body and installed some long wood screws
through the cracks., tightened them up and pulled the cracks up taught and then filled the pilot
holes with carpenters putty. Sanded off the patched holes and spot painted it where the holes were.
5-Installed to DynaGuide string trees from the Netherlands.
6-Tightened up the neck truss rod to get the neck completely straight and did my stat style set up on it with floating tremolo
The thing now plays and sounds good. Never thought the ION would pan out as good as it
did but turned out to be a nice project guitar and I wouldn't be ashamed to play it anywhere.
Platefire |