Squier w/ Floyd Rose

[Razzle]

Hey I'd appreciate any info on this guitar from the experts here, especially if you know the kind of neck profile it has, but any info you can provide would be helpful! thanks in advance

Squier Floyd Rose Stratocaster 80s-90s Dark purple

 

[Ace38]

In the very late 80's/early 90's, Fender had a sub brand called Heartfield, that was sort of their outlet for those pointy, "super strat" guitars. Early Fender/Squier heavy metal (HM) strats were more traditionally strat looking and after a cool reception by the public, Heartfield was established to maintain market share but not have the Fender legacy over its head. Well, after maybe a year or so, Fender began folding Heartfield designs back into the Fender line...thats what this is. A Squier branded HM strat that was originally a Heartfield design.

Probably a C neck, 12" radius, probably satin finished neck. Never played one so can only go off a quickly fading memory.

 

[wickedtools]

I had the Fender model very cool guitar.

 

[65refinyellow]

Could you drop in an OFR version of that trem directly with no modification?

I sometimes see old, well worn versions of these strats for sale which are tempting and think the trem may need replacing with a drop in like these.

Floyd Rose Original | Sweetwater

www.sweetwater.com

 

[wickedtools]

Could you drop in an OFR version of that trem directly with no modification?

I sometimes see old, well worn versions of these strats for sale which are tempting and think the trem may need replacing with a drop in like these.

Floyd Rose Original | Sweetwater

www.sweetwater.com

As long as the spacing on the 2 posts match.

 

[65refinyellow]

As long as the spacing on the 2 posts match.

I thought every Floyd OFR and Floyd Special and Floyd 1000 shared the same spacing and routing universally, but not sure.

I am thinking Floyd Rose company is saying that if you are like Steve Vai and do huge pull up’s that maybe you may need to have a slight extra routing of the guitar routed on the back of body portion of the route on the spring route side.

But I am not sure.

Swapping Your Floyd Rose

For ease of swapping, the following Floyd Rose Tremolo Systems share the same dimensions and can be swapped with each other without the need for additional routing: 6 String Original Custom Shoppe 1984 Special*** 1000 Series Original Titanium 7 String Original 7 Custom Shoppe 7 Special 7***...

www.floydrose.com

 

[Guitarmageddon]

Hey I'd appreciate any info on this guitar from the experts here, especially if you know the kind of neck profile it has, but any info you can provide would be helpful! thanks in advance

Squier Floyd Rose Stratocaster 80s-90s Dark purple

That looks like a partscaster with a Squier HM neck, the bodies weren't that pointy and didn't come with a pickguard in that shape....the ones in that 'ballpark' of shape were rear routed without a pickguard....

@wickedtools guitar is more Strat shaped.......

EDIT - somebody put a Custom cut pickguard on one of these it looks like....wonder what kind of routing/hacking they did underneath.....

 

[fadetoz]

I want one.

 

[wickedtools]

I want one.

Wish I hadn’t sold mine.

 

[Razzle]

That looks like a partscaster with a Squier HM neck, the bodies weren't that pointy and didn't come with a pickguard in that shape....the ones in that 'ballpark' of shape were rear routed without a pickguard....

@wickedtools guitar is more Strat shaped.......

EDIT - somebody put a Custom cut pickguard on one of these it looks like....wonder what kind of routing/hacking they did underneath.....

View attachment 239315

But it's not like that one, right? You were saying the purple one had a pointy lower bout, yours does not. It's also a HSS and yours HSH. It almost looks like an Ibanez body.

 

[Ace38]

Here's a Heartfield as I referenced earlier.

Fender Heartfield 1990 Montego Black | Reverb

Plays and sounds excellent! Includes an unoriginal hard shell case. Thanks for looking!

reverb.com

 

[Guitarmageddon]

But it's not like that one, right? You were saying the purple one had a pointy lower bout, yours does not. It's also a HSS and yours HSH. It almost looks like an Ibanez body.

I'm saying the one you're asking about, and the blue-ish one I posted that was HSH with no pickguard...are the SAME GUITAR (same model and colour exactly)....and someone has put a very well cut and original creatively shaped pickguard and converted it to HSS.....so underneath that pickguard they might have routed from the front to make a control cavity.....

That one HAS the pointy lower bout, the example I showed.....

 

[Robb]

Whatever they did to that guitar it's still super sexy !!!

 

[Shaytan]

Either modded or not, that's one awesome looking guitar! I'd still have an hard time dropping the equivalent of 300 euros for one of those, though I reckon it should be a fair price, moreover in seemingly great condition.

I gotta wonder, though, how come fender always missed the mark when it came to superstrats, though: regardless how cool any given model is, there's always that feature that makes you go "oh, so that's why it flopped" - either it has one of their System 1 trems, a neck too chunky for the preferences of their target audience, the traditional, cumbersome neck heel or, as it's the case with this otherwise sweet metal axe, "only" 21 frets. Now that's fine in my books, but how come they expected to compete with the likes of Ibanez or Jackson? It's just as if their design board only focused on looks and forgot to actually look into what features made a suprstrat unique!

 

[cool gouhl]

Fender/Squiers answer to Ibanez. Ibanez was growing in leaps and bounds at that time so they made these to compete. Nice guitars, and that seems like the average price I see them go for. I say if you like it go for it.

 

[Razzle]

Thanks to everyone for their inputs, and to @Ace38 who helped me pin it down.

It's a Heartfield Talon. It came in a HSS configuration (although routed for HSH), and the pickguard of the one @Aces116 provided is exactly the same and is stock for the guitar. It has a FRII with a Heartfield humbucker (bridge position), two Fender single coil pickups, the color is Midnight Blue (that looks purple in some lighting). I'd put it at either 1990 or 1991.

This guitar seems a bit odd in that it was made during a transition year and seems to have a Squier Heavy Metal HMI neck (since it has the string bar), which I've had a hard time finding info on but seems valid, although the HM1 did not have a locking nut and this one does have one. I do not believe this neck was added (thus not a partscaster). This is a bit of a bummer in that not only were the Talon necks supposedly nice and thin, but the HM necks have jumbo frets (which aren't my fav). And it's better that the Talons had a basswood body vs the HM1s which were plywood.

Overall I think the guitar is in really good shape. I am getting a few more pics (like of the headstock tip which he doesn't show, these pointy guitars often has damage to those beautiful pointy tips-hahahha)

 

[Guitarmageddon]

Thanks to everyone for their inputs, and to @Ace38 who helped me pin it down.

It's a Heartfield Talon. It came in a HSS configuration (although routed for HSH), and the pickguard of the one @Aces116 provided is exactly the same and is stock for the guitar. It has a FRII with a Heartfield humbucker (bridge position), two Fender single coil pickups, the color is Midnight Blue (that looks purple in some lighting). I'd put it at either 1990 or 1991.

This guitar seems a bit odd in that it was made during a transition year and seems to have a Squier Heavy Metal HMI neck (since it has the string bar), which I've had a hard time finding info on but seems valid, although the HM1 did not have a locking nut and this one does have one. I do not believe this neck was added (thus not a partscaster). This is a bit of a bummer in that not only were the Talon necks supposedly nice and thin, but the HM necks have jumbo frets (which aren't my fav). And it's better that the Talons had a basswood body vs the HM1s which were plywood.

Overall I think the guitar is in really good shape. I am getting a few more pics (like of the headstock tip which he doesn't show, these pointy guitars often has damage to those beautiful pointy tips-hahahha)

Look VERY VERY closely, the 2 pickguards and the 2 bodies are not the same.....on the Heartfield, it's more of a curve below the high E / trem arm side of the tremolo......going upward slightly....on the one you asked about, it's dead straight then curves downward....they might have been trying to EMULATE a Heartfield, but I was right the two times I told you last......

You need to have a super high attention to detail to spot the differences, the cut is also slightly different and more angular/pointy on the Heartfield at the neck pocket than it is on the one you asked about.....the body of the one you're first asking about 100% matches the last HSH rear-routed example I showed....

 

[Guitarmageddon]

These 2 body shapes and pickguard shapes are not the same @Razzle

Also ONE less screw hole in the blue custom pickguard job covering up the old front routed part......different knob positioning too.....

 

[Razzle]

Look VERY VERY closely, the 2 pickguards and the 2 bodies are not the same.....on the Heartfield, it's more of a curve below the high E / trem arm side of the tremolo......going upward slightly....on the one you asked about, it's dead straight then curves downward....they might have been trying to EMULATE a Heartfield, but I was right the two times I told you last......

You need to have a super high attention to detail to spot the differences, the cut is also slightly different and more angular/pointy on the Heartfield at the neck pocket than it is on the one you asked about.....the body of the one you're first asking about 100% matches the last HSH rear-routed example I showed....

Good take! And if I look at the pickguards really close I do see a number of differences as you point out, like the screw positions. That pickguard is sooooo close I have a hard time believing someone would have had it made. Isn't it possible that when Fender transitioned from Hartfield to Squier branding they changed slightly the pickguard?

I probably should have said this guitar is CLOSE to a Hartfield Talon but is slightly different, so it's not one, but close enough that through those years of varying product offerings by Fender this one I'm asking about is original, just not a Talon, no?

I think a pic of the PU route would reveal if it's original or not.

 

[Razzle]

Got a few more pics...