The Relic Guitar Studio

• Style: Transition 1965 CBS (worm route) Body for Fender Stratocaster
• Wood: Two-piece Swamp Ash (American) or Two-piece Alder (Japanese).
  Light-weight One-piece American Swamp Ash also available at £345 on request.
• Finish: Fiesta Red with custom Jimi Hendrix design (white with vines, hearts and floral design)
• Routing: 3 Single Coil (other options on request)
• Weight: approx. 4lbs (1.8kg)
• Price: £440.00 (alder body); £535.00 (body, pickguard, backplate and sticker)

On the third and final day of the third and final day of the Monterey International Pop Festival (Sunday, June 18, 1967: The Summer of Love), the bill that night included: the Who, Buffalo Springfield, the Grateful Dead, and Janis Joplin. But before the Who took the stage, a (then) relatively unknown 24-year-old guitarist delivered a feast of sight and sound which in an industry whose marketing departments today churn out "legends" monthly, is nothing short of mythical.

The Stratocaster Jimi Hendrix was playing that day (which he smashed into the stage and amps before setting alight at the end of the set - see here for the video on YouTube) was a "transition" 1965 Fender Stratocaster - built under CBS control and with the larger, bolder headstock decal but still using predominantly pre-CBS stock parts, and with the smaller headstock.

The guitar was originally Fiesta Red which Jimi Hendrix had personally painted, with the top half over-painted in white spray-can aerosol and with intricate drawings of vines, roses and love hearts adorning the scratchplate, upper horn area, and lower curve around the jack cup.

The Fender Custom Shop released their own limited edition (210 guitars were produced) version of this guitar in 1997 - the thirty year anniversary of the Summer of Love (and the Monterey Festival). Pamelina H who had been at the festival (although seven years old at the time) was tasked with reproducing Jimi's artwork from the guitar, but later changed it under pressure from Fender to smooth out the graphics and including the "backstage pass" sticker featuring a photograph by Ed Caraeff of Hendrix burning the guitar - certainly not part of the original guitar.

Designed from Hendrix's hand-painted Stratocaster from the Monterey Pop Festival, and built to be as close to the original as possible, we are proud to be able to offer this body and guitar parts to the UK. The guitar was less than two years old when it was destroyed but had been played heavily during that period and then repainted by hand. The relicing of the body and parts that make up this kit reproduces the very light level of aging the original guitar displayed at the time: not pristine, but not heavily worn nor battered either.

We offer either the body alone, or as part of a kit which includes the body, scratchplate, back plate and the Monterey Pop Festival "backstage pass" sticker, all you then need is a '64 (before the introduction of big headstocks) CBS neck, suitable aged plastics and your choice of electronics! Since each one of our Jimi Hendrix Monterey Pop Stratocaster bodies is created by hand, each and every one is slightly different and unique.

We also offer a complete Tribute Monterey Pop Stratocaster, and all the parts you need to build this guitar as a separates kit so that you can mix and match to your heart's content.

Our bodies are built to a very high standard and are specifically intended for vintage guitar restoration or relic cloning. Our bodies are finished in genuine nitrocellulose (without any polyurethane or plastic-based undercoats or Fullerplast), and using original paints and mixing formulas where possible to ensure boutique-quality and a 'road worn' feel. They are built and worn using careful study and comparison with original worn vintage guitar. This means that their contours, shape, colour tones, and markings (both in construction and relicing) are as close as possible to original vintage parts, and as authentic as (if not more so) any other vintage reissue or relic replica guitar on the market today.

Pre-CBS Fender guitars only had clear top coats applied to custom colours, metallic and sunburst finishes. Others were left without a top coat unless specifically requested when the guitar was ordered from the factory, this is often sighted as the cause of the extreme fading (or tinting in the case of the lighter Olympic White bodies) of colour in vintage guitars that still retain their original lacquer. In this respect our products deviate slightly from authenticity for the sake of modern reliability, with a very thin layer of clear nitrocellulose applied to all of out bodies (and more to those which would have had these clear coats in the first place). The majority of this is removed again during the aging process, and all of our bodies can be specified without any at all, but it does add just a touch more protection from sun and heat damage to the colour finish.

All of our guitar bodies, necks, accessories, parts, and hardware are aged to customer specification, so if you want a very heavy relicing effect akin to something that's spent its life being dragged behind a truck, we can do that! Equally if you only want a very light almost-NOS effect, that's just as possible. Just let us know and we'll make sure we meet your requirements. The only exceptions are extra-heavy (Gallagher-style) relics, or exact-match relics, where there's a lot more work involved. We are also able to offer a customisation service so if you don't see the finish you want, or the routing you want, just drop us a line to let us know your requirements and we will be happy to discuss the options available to meet your particular project guitar needs. We can also provide all of the hardware, parts and plastics you need to complete your custom relic guitar, either as separate items or in kit form, just ask.

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