Road Worn, eh?

If you haven't already noticed, I really dig John Mayer's guitar playing. I also think his olympic white signature strat looks pretty sweet.

For a long time, I really wanted to buy that strat. I thought that if it was built to Mayer's specs, it'd probably play and sound great. Unfortunately, it's pretty rare to see signature strats at my local music shops, so I could never really test it out. The idea crossed my mind to just order it online (as I did with my red strat), but not at that price point.

Since I got my koa strat set up by my local guitar guru a couple of months ago, my red strat didn't get much play. Something about the maple fingerboard, and the finish on the back of the neck slowed down my playing. The koa strat's satin finish neck was faster to move around on, and the "C shape" versus the "modern C shape" was more comfortable in my hands—the "modern C" felt too thin, and it seemed to get thinner as you moved to higher numbered frets. Since it's a shame to let a guitar sit unplayed, off for sale it went.

In early 2009, Fender introduced the Road Worn series. Back in February, while waiting for my red strat to ship, I got to play one in my local shop for about 10 minutes before my lesson started. I thought this thing was remarkable—a totally beat-up guitar that felt so comfortable in my hands! How on earth!?

I played the sunburst model, and it was especially worn. It had terribly rusted out saddles, extremely browned fret markers, etc.—not particularly attractive. Also, a grand for a beat-up guitar—and "Made in Mexico"?! Yikes.

Well, that experience stuck with me, and with the idea of replacing the red strat in my mind, I passively started checking out guitars again (since lessons had me in the music store weekly). I played another sunburst Road Worn Strat at my regular music shop, but again was turned off by the over-rusted saddles (seems more likely I'd break a string), and the setup was pretty bad on it. However, the neck was still very fast, and it felt great in my hands.

I went to my other local shop (yeah, there are only really two here in town) to drop off the red strat for sale on consignment. While there, I found an olympic white Road Worn 60s Strat, and I was instantly taken by its appearance. I plugged it into a Hot Rod Deluxe, played a few of my favorite tunes, and was really digging it. It played very well, had only a few small setup issues that I could correct myself, and the relic job was perfect—the fret markers looked old yet still white, and the saddles were not at all rusty where it mattered most.

However, there was a small wrinkle. On the same wall of guitars hung another olympic white strat—the John Mayer signature model.

Crap.

"I'm going to pull this thing down, play it, and fall in love," I thought. "I have to sell off some serious gear to make up the money that it'll take to get this home." I was GASsing pretty hard.

Thoughts of purchasing this strat swirled through my head as I "asked for assistance" and got someone to carefully retrieve the guitar off the wall for me. After months of searching—even going as far as visiting some guitar stores while visiting family in Colorado—I finally got to lay my hands on the guitar I was sure I wanted.

At least, until I played it.

The neck was too thick (Mayer's strat has a "thick C shape"), the finish on the neck was just as 'sticky' in my hands as the red strat was and, in terms of all the strats I've played, it was really nothing special. When I played it plugged-in, I used the words of Mayer himself—"it sounds like a strat."

I was stunned. And relieved.

It wasn't all bad, though. I genuinely enjoyed the Dunlop 6105 "tall jumbo" frets, the combo of olympic white with the mint green pickguard, and I really liked the vintage look of the neck (truss rod adjustment at the body end), vintage tuners, etc. But all this stuff was on the Road Worn Strat, too! Of course, there are some notable exceptions—it's beat to hell (read: extremely comfortable), has tex-mex pickups rather than big dippers (big whoop), a 7.5" fingerboard radius, and it's Made in Mexico. Oh yeah, it also costs less than half of what the signature series sells for.

I got the Road Worn Strat back into my hands again, just to make sure something hadn't happened to me—extra sweaty palms, nervous playing, a change in the atmosphere. Nope, I simply didn't like my "dream guitar" after all. I'd play a few licks on the Mayer strat, then change back to the Road Worn—no matter what I'd play, I preferred playing it on the Road Worn strat.

This all went down about 3 weeks ago, when I started the process of selling my red strat. Just this week I finally sold it (on my own, which worked out better in the end), and I grabbed the olympic white Road Worn 60s Strat that the store held for me (for much longer than they said they would). I also got it for a decent price (about $200 off the lowest price on the tag, and $100 less than what the other shop sold them for), and I ended up with the exact one I played and liked. Score!

I hope to get some videos up with the new strat after I get over this cold I'm fighting. It's a real joy to play, especially since I threw some new strings on it, and polished up the frets with some 0000 steel wool.