Is this body MIA??? plus a few other questions...

Bought two bodies from a guy claiming to sell rejects from the Fender factory. I described them in another thread and thought that they were probably made in mexico. Now I think one could possibly be made in America?

It has American Standard bridge patterns and also had that big stamp in the neck pickup cavity that said "NAT". This one also has UPC Barcode stickers in the cavities. I'd love to know what it was intended to be. I assumed "nat" meant that this was suitable for a natural finish of some sort.


Also, questions:

1) my lower horn has a dirty looking spot in the corner that would not clean up no matter how much I erased or sanded. It looks like someone rubbed pencil graphite up against it and it's somehow impregnated into the wood. I'm thinking I should maybe cover this with some natural colored paint before I do my butterscotch finish? Problem is I've already done about 4 layers of grain filler and it's not exposed anymore, I'd be painting over crystalac.


2) Why does my neck pocket not end flat up against the lining of the neck pickup cavity? Why does it have two dips in the edges? This seems like it would affect sustain/tone in a bad way.

3) how do you guys like the grain on this guy? think this is a good candidate for a butterscotch finish?

4) what's that lower hole in my neck pocket for?

I do believe that is indeed a US model. The hole you speak of is one of the main reasons I say this, it is for the microtilt neck adjustment found on the US standards. Also the circular hole below the neck pickup route, its something to do with the CNC process. The MIM bodies usually have 3 holes there and US models have the one like yours. The pickup cavities are just like my american deluxe so I'd say with the 4 bolt neckplate/microtilt/no binding or tummy cut it must be an american standard type tele. I'm not sure if the new ones have those pickup cavities or not but I bet they do, just like the deluxes.

The neck pocket is what some call the mickey mouse thing. It is to aid in an easier neck to body fitment. Like you said it may not be the best pocket for sustain and such but you probably won't hear a difference. The different radius on the corners of some necks/bodies and the finish buildup makes it difficult to fit the necks sometime in the corners so they came up with this to help.

The grain looks great, would look great in butterscotch I think, the dark spot doesn't look too bad to me and will likely become less and less obvious as you finish. If you bothers you too much though you should fix it. I'd sand very lightly until it came out as long as it isn't too deep. You will of course have to grain fill that area again though.

I have a MIM body and it only has 1 CNC hole, not 3.