Fender Performer (1985)

Never thought I'd actually see one of these up close, let alone restore one! For those that don't know what this is, it's a fairly rare foray by Fender into the shredder market. They hit the nail on the head by making a solid, well rounded, fast neck, easy playing guitar that sounds like a TON of bricks. Too bad they never caught on. What a journey and a pleasure this guitar was to work on.

First, the customer came to me with the idea of getting a matching bass and guitar and doing any necessary repairs or restoration needed to make the guitar as close to original as possible. The guitar came first and there wasn't much to do with it. The body and neck were in great shape. There were a couple of minor things to work out and the whole guitar, mostly the hardware, needed a generous cleaning. Electrically, the coil split switch was shot so that needed to be replaced with a new DPDT switch and a couple of small things needed resoldering. The bridge was missing a fine tune adjustment knob and the trem bar, and the nut lock was missing one of the bolts and lock plates. Apparently those parts aren't cheap! I won't go into too much detail but those parts alone were 1/5 the value of the price paid for the guitar. Kind of nutty!

So, the switch was replaced and then the whole guitar was stripped of its hardware for a full cleaning and detailing. The hardware was pretty grimy, the bridge being particularly gross. Everything got broken down into basic parts and cleaned then reassembled and lubricated (where needed). Once back together, it was restrung with medium Elixir strings and given a full setup.

What a beast! This thing does everything from classic Strat tones to fat, almost Les Paul tones. The coil splitting option is its secret weapon; the options with it make the guitar incredibly versatile and usable in a huge amount of settings. Plays like a dream too. The tremolo system was pretty well thought out too. I can't see why this guitar didn't take off in the 80's when it was made...