New Strat body spec issue...am I missing something here?

I've had it happen several times, but never with American or Mexican Fenders (Squiers are another matter) and never had it happen with major brand replacement bodies (on a variety of off brands, it is rampant).

I just checked a 2000s-ish Mexican body because it was the one closest to me (I can check an American one too if you like, though it involves me *gasp* opening a case!) and I get 1.575 in the trem cavity (varies a fair amount depending where I measure, probably because of finish)... since you're going metric, that works out to about 40mm. The upper horn is 1.815" (the bodies are nominally 1 3/4" (44.45mm), and the MIMs always have such a thick finish) and that works out to 46.101mm.

Is it definitely a Strat body, or maybe what they call a "soloist" or something? That is too much be standard variation. The only way to get that by accident would be if they ran it through a thickness sander way more than needed... maybe stripping and refinishing or chasing after some obnoxious scratches or grain weirdness. You'd probably see clues by looking at the round overs, though.

Are you saying the variance in the thickness of the body at the horns is ~3mm difference? That is weewee poor!

Contact USACG and let them know about all this weirdness, and see what they offer as a remedy.

If the body looks fine otherwise, and they offered me a 15-20 percent refund if I kept the body, I'd use a chop saw with a carbide blade to lop off about 1/4" from the bottom of the vibrato block. Re-drill the little spring hook holes if they're not deep enough, file the cut corners smooth, assemble the thing, and play the heck out of it.

No trem cover is bad when you have an outtie.

Would the springs ride any lower if you reversed them, so they hook at the bottom?

I have no clue, never had a guitar with springs.

I’ve only seen this on import Strat bodies.

CNCs likely don't do any thicknessing. Can't say 100% sure, but usually it goes thus: After the glue up, the blocks are run through a planer, and possibly a thickness sander, taken to the CNC which cuts out the shape, the bevels and the cavities, then goes to the "body department" which will do clean up of tooling marks, blending tool transitions on edges, drilling feed holes, and so on. There will be some thickness sanding, but really only whatever they need to clean up sanding scratches.

If the merger happened by the new company buying the equipment from the old company and appropriating it, it is possible they aren't monitoring the process and whoever was in the woodshop doing the planing wasn't paying attention. I'd think it would throw off the CNCs, but maybe they zero off of the tops of the bodies anyway. Normally the best workers are at the beginning because they need to know the tools the best, and maybe it got switched around and had someone new back there. That person normally would have to be constantly checking with calipers.

Since the MJT+USACG thing happened recently, it makes me wonder if they also appropriated existing inventory of bodies from the failing regime. This may also explain why my trem was so far off when reinstalled on the new body (had to raise the action significantly).  I know there are always adjustments that need to be made, but this was pretty big.

I hate the notion of a body like this being orphaned or worse yet, scrapped due to a spec issue.  I might be inclined to find a local machine shop to chop my trem block.  

Now that you mention it, if it was spec'ed initially to have a veneer top, that would account for the variation in size. Not sure why that made me think of it. Nor am I sure why I'm trying to figure out what went wrong... I don't work there!



If it makes you feel any better, most of the $$$ in a neck or body is labor, so if they messed it up, adding labor into it to get it right (like grinding down a back block) makes less sense. Realistically most necks and bodies are under $10 for raw material cost to the manufacturer.

Glad your able to get it corrected. Like the he crappy speaker cab I sent back for speaker mounting holes Being off, I could have corrected by re-drilling and Installing the Steel T-mounts but I should not have to do that. I shows crappy craftsmanship

Great news!