I bought this Fender in 2003/2004 as I wanted a guitar and a colleague had one collecting dust. As it was a Fender, I paid probably to much for it (€ 400), but I could spare it.
It had a not much better future here, as I stored it and totally forgot about it. I looked a tad closer to it today and I can't place a lot of parts. It has a pickup to many for a Musicmaster, for a Duosonic the layout (and parts) is incorrect, I'm missing screws, pitchguard is off (self made?), but the body, neck and headstock look correct. (tuning nobs and posts are ibanez)
Is it worth it to restore the guitar? Would it be better to keep this FrankenFender in this state,...
I'm currently working on my Ibanez EDB400 which I bought around the same time, setting it up with the help of Bassbuzz on youtube. (I now know why I didn't like playing it, the setup was way off... and it has a battery that was dead since '06)
I would think it depends on how you're defining "worth it." Is the goal to sell? O to keep and play?
At the moment, keep to play. I'll need to restring it anyway, as 1 is missing and I have no clue if everything works correctly. (Needs to be hooked-up and tested) I can't place the extra pick-up though. The neck one looks correct and the duosonic has 2 of those.
I think I need tontest it, take it apartbtonsee what Inhave what works and what not and then decide. When everything works, it could be a novilty, but when I have non working parts... Would restore to sell be an option, as Fender parts aren't cheap, or sell as is, or just restore (Fender or aftermarket) to get it playable.
Definitely worth trying it out as-is before ripping anything out.
Will do tomorrow, after dusting off the Squire SP10 amp that came with it.
Ok, tested it, loads of buzzing in the guitar until I touch something metal, I expect that's due to the non-grounded mains I used for the amp (need to test with a grounded socket). The switch has the usual 3 settings, top 2 give sound, bottom one just increases the buzzing. Tapping on the neck pick-up gets fed to the amp, tapping on the bridge pickup just decreases the buzzing (same as touching anything metal). I assume that pick-up is dead a door nail. I don't assume anybody would mix active with passive pickups, but it's a FrankenFender, who knows. The knob on the pitchguard doesn't do a thing...
I found some spare strings in the case, so that set is now complete, but the electronics need work, a lot.