Fernandes Stone Logo 70s Strat Copy

Today, for your viewing pleasure is a Fernandes Stone Logo 70s Strat Copy from the very early 80s. For those of you who don’t know, Fernandes is a Japanese company who originally manufactured flamenco guitars and has been around since 1969. The Fernandes parent company (Saito Musical Instruments) also make Gibson copies under the Burny brand name.

For more information about Fernandes, there is a really useful article on the www.music-trade.co.jp website…

Okay, so this particular Strat copy is one of the Stone Logo series, which were produced between 1980 and 81, according to the article linked to above.

The guitar we are looking at is vintage white with a Rosewood fretboard on a Maple neck. I purchased this guitar from Andrew, aka Stratominor and later sold it back to him… He really is as bad as he says when it comes to buying and selling gear, he is a shocker!!!

The quality of the Fernandes guitars are superb in my opinion. I have owned both Tokai and Greco and Fernandes are every bit as good as either of those, but for some reason they don’t seem to have the reputation or status that the others enjoy.

Seeing how this guitar is now closing in on 35 years old, it has some very nice looking patina on the chrome hardware, not to mention the aging of the plastic parts ie; pick up covers and knobs…

The chrome bridge and saddles are solid, I’m not sure how much of the sound would be improved by the solid bridge saddles but I kinda like em any way. They just feel and look strong and I think they would give the strings a harder surface to bend over rather than the bent steel saddles, which I also like…

The body has a typical Strat weight and feel. This one felt very comfortable and was not overly heavy and definitely not too light.

The pick guard has remained very white without too much discoloring, while the knobs, pick up covers and screws have all aged quite a lot.

There are quite a lot of pick marks and scratches on the pick guard, so I would assume this was owned by someone who played a lot of fast and heavy rhythm guitar.

Unfortunately the neck pocket has the typical surface cracks coming out of the corners, which is not uncommon for a Strat or Tele, but a little unsightly in my opinion. I guess it’s just one of those design flaws that we have to live with, and lets face it, the Stratocaster shape doesn’t really have too much wrong with it!

I am not 100% sure if the Alnico pickups are the originals, I kinda thought that a lot of these Japanese guitars came with ceramic magnet pickups, so please correct me if I am wrong, but they sure sound sweet. Very close to the Fender Custom shop 69s that I have in my MIM Fender Classic Series ’70s Stratocaster.

Judging by the wear on the Rosewood fretboard and the vintage spec fret wire, it’s pretty obvious that this guitar has been played… A LOT.

The headstock sporting the Stone Logo is the larger Stratocaster shape, typical of the CBS era 70s Strats. However, the bullet truss rod nut is a lot smaller than any I have seen on a Fender.

The tuners have been replaced at some stage by Fernandes branded tuners, as you can see from the extra screw holes in this next pic, they all felt solid, worked well and kept the guitar in tune.

The neck profile wasn’t something I had seen before, it was like a 50s style profile with quite a big taper from end to end. At the headstock the neck was really quite thin, not in thickness but in width, which I kinda found hard to get used to at first, but once I got used to it, I found it to be a really comfortable neck. This guitar would be perfect for someone with small hands.

Being a copy of a CBS era 70s Stratocaster, it had the typical three bolt neck. It felt really solid and the guitar stayed in tune so I doubt there would of been enough movement to cause the cracks in the finish around neck pocket.

The solid steel blocks used in the bridges in a lot of these older Jap copies are so heavy and seem to be a much better block than the cast alloy ones that you find on the current or later model Fenders. I can’t comment on what the blocks were like on a real vintage Fender as I have never owned one, every Fender guitar I have owned or seen has had a cast alloy block.

Unlike a lot of Fender guitars with a poly coat, these early 80s Jap copies seem to have a very thin poly coating, and although it doesn’t wear like a nitro finish you can see in this next pic that the finish is definitely wearing around the edge of the bodies contour.

So there you have it folks, a wonderful example of Japanese craftsmanship in the form of a Fernandes Stone Logo 70s Strat Copy.