How Fender Guitars Are Made, Then (1959) and Nowadays (2012)

When you think rock ’n’ roll, you think elec­tric gui­tars. And when you think elec­tric gui­tars, you think about Fend­ers and all of those Tele­cast­ers and Stra­to­cast­ers played by leg­endary musi­cians, from Jimi Hen­drix, George Har­ri­son, and Kei­th Richards, to Bruce Spring­steen, Eric Clap­ton, Mark Knopfler, and Ste­vie Ray Vaugh­an. The Fend­er Elec­tric Instru­ment Man­u­fac­tur­ing Com­pa­ny first start­ed oper­a­tions in Fuller­ton, Cal­i­for­nia in 1946, but did­n’t start mak­ing Teles (orig­i­nal­ly called Broad­cast­ers) until 1950, and Stra­to­cast­ers until 1954. And they’re still mak­ing them today.

The first video above, “A Strat is Born,” takes you through the mak­ing of a con­tem­po­rary Stra­to­cast­er in four time­lapse min­utes. The action all takes place at Fend­er’s fac­to­ry in Coro­na, Cal­i­for­nia. The sec­ond video below offers a vin­tage 1959 tour of the Fend­er fac­to­ry in Fuller­ton, CA. Put the two videos side by side, and you can see how much times have … or haven’t … changed.

Epi­logue: Jim Mar­shall, a pio­neer ampli­fi­er mak­er, died yes­ter­day at 88. May he rest in peace.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jim­my Page Tells the Sto­ry of “Kash­mir”

Here Comes The Sun: The Lost Gui­tar Solo by George Har­ri­son

A Young Eric Clap­ton Demon­strates the Ele­ments of His Sound