The pleasures of running your own guitar shop are many, so a visit from the Fender Custom Shop product specialists allows us a chance to hand pick a few pleasant guitars to enrich our existing stock - We always have an open mind as to the actual model, colour and spec that we may buy, just as long as the instrument has a certain vibe and mojo about it, that screams yes at you, when you pick it up and play a few tasty chords and licks - So this is how we acquired a '56' Heavy Relic Strat to add to our growing selection of Custom Shop Strats

Highly spec'd and upgraded with features from the Custom Shop ala carte menu - This is as good as it gets without investing in a Master Built model
Light weight ash body (struggles to hit 8lbs) with a seriously relic'd 2 tone sunburst thin skin nitro finish
all vintage spec'd hardware
10/56 neck with a comfortable amount of meat on it and a very soft V profile
9.5" fingerboard radius
Dunlop medium jumbo frets
one piece quarter sawn maple neck
bone nut
Fat 50's Fender Custom Shop pick-ups
5 way switch with the bridge pick-up also wired to the bottom tone pot
Tweed vintage case

Like Marmite, the thoughts and opinions with regard to a distressed finish, is very much a love or hate affair, so let's take that out of the equation for now, and look at the key performance issues, regarding playability and tonal character and this is where Fender have now got it sewn up - Have you noticed how many of todays leading Strat players now use Custom Shop guitars, as against original 50's or 60's models and this is largely down to the performance of the guitar

The combination of the medium jumbo frets and 9.5" fingerboard radius allows for a more fluid playing action - A set of 10's still feels slinky, coupled with effortless string bending, plus no choking out, when you pull of those big blues bends - The 'worn' rubbed down neck feels nice and natural, reflecting the played in vibe of a good old 'un

Tone is soft warm and vintage, through and through, with clear lows and sparkling shimmering highs - Many players tend to leave the controls on '10' on their existing guitars, as that is the only useful setting - Not so on this guitar - Set up your amp with a nice sensible level of overdrive, then roll down the volume pot on the guitar until you reach that magical sweet spot where by the tone cleans up for those chilled out jazz/blues passages yet still retaining the guitars full tonal character - Same applies to the tone pot, just roll it off a touch to obtain a 'softer' voice - This guitar is all about tone and emotion with incredible dynamics - The selection of quality swamp ash for the body and quarter sawn maple for the neck, certainly assists in bringing out the best of the tone, so much so that even played acoustically, you can hear this puppy ring - Custom spec'd models are always a cut above a 'regular Custom Shop model' and this guitar is no exception, so why accept a regular Custom Shop model, when you can enjoy a hand picked guitar that is highly spec'd with a playing performance to match, along with that certain mojo that makes the whole package so desirable