Robben Ford Discussion

[enrico]

I'm the owner of a japanese contemporary strat, made in mid 80s. I think the model is 27-5700, with 2 single coils and 1 humbucker @ bridge.
From Fender website I cannot find out what sort of pups the guitar has. Any idea?
Also, where can I get the wiring diagram for this guitar, again not available on Fender website.

Btw it's a nice sounding guitar!

Many thanks

[telefunk1]

Hi Enrico:

For all thing Fender, check out the Fender Discussion Page - you can ask questions, and even search old discussion threads. There are individual threads for strats, tele, amps, pickups, etc. Lots of info and very nice people that will always have opinions and suggestions. Enjoy.

http://www.fenderforum.com/

[StratCat]

I actually have the promo advertising poster for this series of guitars which for some reason I've kept for the last 20 years and is sitting under my desk at work. I'll check in the morning for you - I know it has details on things like the trem systems on each guitar and the TBX control (which was new at the time); not sure if it had details on the pickups though...



Chris
_________________
because I rock, and that's important.

[StratCat]

No luck I'm afraid from this end - poster just mentions them as single coils against the model details. Some general commentary on the pickups too, but other than mentioning them as a "new design" single coil it doesn't give specifics.

Glad to know it's a nice guitar - the poster I have is of the 27-5700 model itself in "Burgundy Mist" with black pickguard and looks very, very cool. Smaller pictures of all the other models and the tele models from that year across the bottom. As a teenager I had the poster on my wall for years and spent a LOT of time looking at it, so immediately got my interest when I saw your post and the mention of the model number.

(If yours is in "Burgundy Mist" I'll be jealous!)

I've also checked through some Fender books last night and mentions of this series of guitars are very hard to come by. The 1985 guitars seem to have been built only (or mostly) in Japan just after Fender was bought back from CBS and the US production facility didn't come with the deal. The timelines I have in some of my books go up to 1984 and then resume in 1986 and no mention at all of the 1985 series. From memory they were nice guitars though; the Japanese models always had a good reputation - generally regarded as better than some of the CBS models in some cases - and my first strat was a later 1989 Japanese model.



Chris
_________________
because I rock, and that's important.

[enrico]

many thanks for the effort, Chris!

My 27-5700 is all black, looks pretty cool too.

I've also posted a help note on the fenderforum, but no luck as yet, and no threads on this topic.

I know the American Contemporary have 2 Texas Special SCs and SD JB bucker @ bridge. I don't expect the japanese counterparts to have same pups, but the 2 SCs on my guitar sound pretty hot, so must be some sort of Texas Special clones, and the h'bucker @ bridge sounds very similar to the SD JB I've got on another guitar.

[Ron S]

Coincidence!
A friend who regularly sees me play live finally got around to bringing his strat to a gig. He's often mentioned it as being a purple strat he bought in the mid 80's with a HB and 2 SCs.
Sorry to make you jealous Stratcat but it was a Burgundy Mist/Black scratchplate/RW neck, beautiful!

This one has a small hole near the rear strap pin to adjust the trem, I've never seen this before? It also had the lever type locking nut and two point trem (no fine tuners). Sounded good but had a strange buzz and didn't cut it in comparison with my JV tele. May have had a wiring issue though as in addition to the buzz the tone knob was barely working.

Can't help you with the pickups though, I can only assume they are generic Japanese models maybe?