Fender System One Tremolo....

The Fender Contemporary Strats and Teles were the first Fender Japan models to be exported as Fender models. The previous Fender Japan models exported from Japan were all Fender Squier's. The Fender Contemporary models were manufactured from 1984 to 1987 by FujiGen Gakki and these guitars were designed to be Super Strats with humbucking pickups and Floyd Rose like tremolos made by Schaller. There was a lower priced Fender Contemporary Squier model produced as well. The Fender Contemporary Stratocaster and Telecaster models were part of the Fender Japan E series model range.

My favorite guitar for 25 years

My very first guitar, bought used in 1988

When CBS sold Fender to its current owners in 1984 minus the Fullerton California plant, there was a transitional period from 1985 to 1987 where a new factory was being built in Corona, California. During that time, parts and bodies were shipped to Japan for assembly. USA production was limited for 3 years.

The Project

Finally Fender started to realize in the late 80's that these guitars and basses were the same if not better than the US guitars and basses made in California, they were discontinued and manufacturing stopped all together in the early 90's.  These Made in Japan guitars really do play better and sweeter and are just as good if not better than the USA models of the same era....FACT.

My Fender System One Stratocaster Project....I had bought the red sparkle Strat a while back from ebay and had just not got round to starting it....It was in very good condition for it's age with the System One tremolo made by "Schaller of Germany" showing hardly any signs of ware....

It had a few parts missing....The guy I got it off wanted £900 for it when he first put it on ebay...."pissed"....I think I paid £170 including postage in the end with amazing sniping skills...."he was not happy"....took him ages to post it and I think he was hopping I would accept a refund...."remember kids....making a winning bid on ebay is a legally binding agreement for both parties"....suck it up bitches....

The original tremolo arm was missing....two intonation screws and two of the three steel string pads in the string lock were also missing. All the parts are readily available from ebay but you can obtain genuine parts from Kahler Parts or Wammi World....both run by John Cecchini....always a pleasure to deal with and when on the one time he did send the wrong part....the replacement turned up in less than a week and considering it was coming from the US of A, was amazing...."Big, BIG Thank You John....

The Schaller System One tremolo, like a Floyd Rose just will not work without the stringlock....

The tremolo was stripped down to bits, cleaned and put back together with beeswax cream....

considering its age the tremolo look barely used

The site that has the most information on the System One Tremolo and Fender in general is StratConnection....PapaTom knows his stuff when it comes to Fender Made in Japan....His site is full of useful information and he sell's some truly wonderful vintage guitars....his used System One Tremolos and Parts are also first class and compared to ebay show hardly any signs of use considering the age of the System One stuff....Then again if you have a System One Fender you will probably already know about StratConnection....PapaTom pretty much has the whole internet to himself with the hard to find new and used parts....

Tele fitted with Bare Knuckle VHII

This Made in Japan Strat dates from 1985/86....The Tele is one of the first Made in Japan Fenders in 1984.... The body of the Strat is going to be filled, re-routed "H/S/H" and re-finished in reliced "off white"....but that could change to "surf green"....k.j.


http://www.wammiworld.com/
"the first place to look for help and parts"

http://www.stratconnection.com/
"never found Papa Tom be of any help what-so-ever....and his prices are ridiculous....lol" 

http://schaller-electronic.com/hp121090/Startseite.htm

https://www.kahlerusa.com/

Evil Robot....100% functioning....and back on line....

The rather cheap looking footswitch that comes with the EVR-C30 is actually on the inside very well put together....

All the solder joints were perfectly done....

I contacted John Kasha who gave me a few things to look for, everything checked out OK and the problem with my footswitch was a bad switch....

I just replaced the bad switch with one that I pulled out of a old Marshall footswitch I had and the Evil Robot is back up and working perfectly....no point in sending it back to Andertons....cheaper and faster to sort it out myself....funny thing is that I will probably stop using the footswitch altogether....or maybe mod another one up to work a little better...?....WTF....k.j.

NASA....We Have a Problem....

The footswitch has stopped working....it's stuck on channel A....so the cheapness is more than skin deep....I think Andertons are going to love me....

The other thing is when they say it gets hot....they mean HOT....but the little fan in this Class A amp is doing nothing....time for a mod I think....

I have turned the fan round, so instead of sucking air out of the combo....it's blowing air in.....

I have made up a temporary air duct out of card to channel the flow of air up and over the tubes to  remove the heat better....it has worked really well....I had the amp on full blast today for about 6 hours and the amp chassis got nothing worse than warm....yesterday the chassis was alarmingly hot only after a couple of hours of being on....

Just as soon I get the air duct design right I'll make one out of wood, paint it matt black and post up the plans for it here if anybody wants it....

So far the Evil Robot sounds great....the Vibrato is really sweet sounding....and in 30watt mode with 4 6V6 tubes installed, this amp is loud....real F**king LOUD....more to come....k.j.

2nd Coming....

Evil Robot number 2 is here....BIG Thank You to Karis Chandler from Andertons for looking after me....

no holes in this box....always a good sign....

and it works....thank god for that....here at Bollocks Towers, we very nearly gave up on this amp, got a refund and put a deposit on a GigRig G2....we like GigRig stuff....

who else thinks that this has to be the cheapest looking footswitch in the world....ever....but throwing caution to the wind we asked for a replacement amp and put a deposit down on a G2 as well....

 

the G2 should be with us sometime in August....we will be putting the Evil Robot under the microscope, posting some vids and posting what we all think of it over the next couple of weeks....k.j.