1960 Fender Stratocaster — Slab Board — Fiesta Red Restoration

This 1960 slab-board Stratocaster is a beautifully executed restoration project.

The finish work and final assembly were done by the incomparable Joe Riggio in Tacoma, Washington. The guitar has just been professionally set up by Joe and sounds and plays superbly.

The body, neck, tuners, pickguard, pickups, neck plate, and tremolo unit are all original 1960s Fender parts. The shielding, pots, switch, jack, knobs, tremolo claw and springs, and finish are newer.

If you want a dead-on accurate shade of vintage Fiesta Red, you can do no better than Joe’s work. He follows the original lacquer-mix recipe and has given the guitar light, tasteful aging. The neck has been completely refretted with slightly taller fret wire for excellent playability and fitted with a bone nut.

A few details about the restoration:

The neck is an original 1960s Fender Jazzmaster neck that has been converted to Stratocaster specifications. Stratocaster and Jazzmaster necks from this era were essentially the same apart from the headstock profile. The Stratocaster headstock shape can therefore be cut from the larger Jazzmaster profile without altering the functional dimensions of the neck. The conversion is exceptionally well done; cosmetically, there is no indication that this began as a Jazzmaster neck unless you know its history. The neck has a 3/60 pencil date and has all the appropriate factor markings for the year. The tuner holes were slightly widened on the back side, but the front retains the original diameter for vintage sized bushings.

The body is an original 1960s Fender Stratocaster body, although it has no visible date and had been refinished several times before Joe restored it in Fiesta Red. There is no original finish remaining anywhere, but it has the proper router marks and dowels for the era. The original factory routing shapes remain intact and none of the routes have been widened. However, two routes were slightly deepened at some point to accommodate pickups requiring additional clearance. There are also a few small areas of oversanding, but the body largely retains its original contours and the neck plate is not hanging over the edge of the neck pocket area.

The original tremolo unit remains with its PAT. PEND. saddles. The tremolo claw and springs are reproductions. The guard has some cracking and shrinkage but does the job, looks great, and is an original 1960 guard. The neck plate has some oxidization, as do the tuners. The serial is 87687.

The pickups are original vintage Fender units that have been rewound. The bridge pickup’s mounting holes had previously been stripped and would no longer accept vintage-spec mounting screws; this has been properly repaired and is now fully functional. The bridge pickup also has some white marker on it, presumably added at some point to indicate the rewind and/or repair.

Overall, this is an outstanding restoration built around a substantial collection of genuine early-1960s Fender components. It has the look and feel of a vintage slab-board Stratocaster while benefiting from Joe Riggio’s excellent restoration, fretwork, assembly, and setup.

It comes with a Fender reissue brown case.