It's 90s, it's a Mexican Duo, of all the guitars I've ever owned, THIS is the MOST SHORTEST SCALE.
Previous owner had already given it a very nice new WD guard so I decided to finish the blackout look:
Tuners on these are TERRIBLE. I had some no-name but solid Kluson types and they fit the existing ferrules.
It sure plays well and sounds good, but the neck is such a twig I'm not sure ...
Before the relatively cheap mustang and duo sonic reissues appeared I had seen on some of the forums someone put a 24" warmoth duo sonic neck on one of these bodies and it looked killer. It was also when you could buy these 22.5" 90s duos on ebay much cheaper than they are now
I seem to recall these are conversion necks? (i.e. that a standard Strat neck would suit the location of the bridge). Maybe that's the way to go. It sounds good and the feel and quality of the body is really nice, I guess 24" is as short as I can go.
I was always curious about these and now I know.
Tbh, I'm not sure about these whether the neck on them is a conversion one or whether the bridge has enough intonation so you could swap the neck for a regular strat neck. Also I'm not sure whether that person was using a proper Mustang spec 24" neck only with a duo/strat headstock from Warmoth or it was a conversion 24" strat neck.
I have 2 90s MIM Duos. It was a long time ago and my memory is not so good, but I did a lot of mods on one so this may not all be correct, bit here goes.... It had been sprayed in blue/green/purple flip paint before I bought it. I modded it more. Bridge changed to a non-trem Strat type. Standard full scale fender style added. Conversion neck was not required. Bridge pickup changed to a single coil size HB. Extra switches added to split the HB, bass cut one side of the split HB, phase switches added - that meant about 35 different pickup combinations were available. I called it the switchcaster. I used it for a couple of years. It was great, but I stopped using it cos there were too many switches and pickup combinations available which meant I couldn't remember how to setup for each song.
johnniespring wrote: ↑Fri Oct 13, 2023 11:53 pm
I have 2 90s MIM Duos. It was a long time ago and my memory is not so good, but I did a lot of mods on one so this may not all be correct, bit here goes.... It had been sprayed in blue/green/purple flip paint before I bought it. I modded it more. Bridge changed to a non-trem Strat type. Standard full scale fender style added. Conversion neck was not required. Bridge pickup changed to a single coil size HB. Extra switches added to split the HB, bass cut one side of the split HB, phase switches added - that meant about 35 different pickup combinations were available. I called it the switchcaster. I used it for a couple of years. It was great, but I stopped using it cos there were too many switches and pickup combinations available which meant I couldn't remember how to setup for each song.
I've got one of those that needs a shitload of work. I'm not even sure what color it was originally. Now i'm much more interested in working on it, since reading the conversion neck theory...
aen wrote: ↑Sat Nov 04, 2023 1:01 am
I've got one of those that needs a shitload of work. I'm not even sure what color it was originally. Now i'm much more interested in working on it, since reading the conversion neck theory...
PROTIP
FUCK TUNING IT TO E. TUNE IT UP TO F.
it seriously solved every problem I had with mine.
plopswagon wrote: ↑Wed May 18, 2022 11:55 am
I laid a pallet of sod yesterday
This one has zero issues in E with a set of 12s and new tuners. I just dislike the neck shape. Weirdly I have a 90s Mustang with a tiny neck and I love it.
Here is a pic of the first MIM Duo I bought. I haven't played it for about ten years. It is very dusty as it has been sitting in my "sell it when I get round to it" pile. I changed the pickguard to a nice brown tort. I think the pickups are stock and electronics are stock, but I may have changed stuff. I tried 9s for stupid noise with crazy bends which was fun, but not really viable so I mostly used 13s. Stock tuners were fine for me. Just for fun I "aged" it before the first time I used it at a gig. My attempts at ageing it were crap. We had no bass player for that gig so I used a sub octave fuzz pedal and we had bass-like sounds from a tiny guitar on the quiet bits. It worked.
