Rough pawn shop find :: 2002 American Fender Stratocaster [7.9 lbs]

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Here's the rough pawn shop Strat ready to head back out.  The major issues was that the posts holding the bridge were blown out and wrecking the action.  Once the bridge area was repaired (along with the neck pocket), I went through with the setup.  The bridge was fairly rusty, to the point I needed to use vise grips to remove the saddle height adjustment screws before replacing them with new ones.  A new output jack finished it off (check the video from the daily vlog below).

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Cracked up body :: 2002 Fender Strat

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Here is that banged up pawn shop American Strat with the leaning bridge post issue.  I ended up clamping the broken pieces around the stud insert back together.  With the insert removed, I flooded the area with thin superglue.  The breaks even extended into the spring claw cavity in the rear of the guitar.  Other weird breaks were found around the neck pocket.  The thin web between the end of the pocket and the neck pickup cavity was broken along with cracks in the neck mounting holes.  Yikes!

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Blown out tuner post :: 2002 Fender American Stratocaster

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Something was odd about this American Strat as it didn't feel quite right.  The action was super high action and looking a the bridge gave clues to it's cause.  The bridge was pitched towards the neck, yet the spring claw was tightened to the point that the front of the bridge block was touching the body (ie maxed out).

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Sighting across the front of the bridge shows that the treble bridge post is leaning and pulling the bridge forward into the pickup cavity.  My suspensions were confirmed when I pulled the bridge (pictured below).  The bridge insert had blown out the body and was not holding the bridge in place.  The damaged wood will have to be repaired in order to get the action low again.

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