NGD: Fender FM 212R plus Fender strat clone

[laurie]

Picked these up over the weekend.

Amp was advertised as not working. Tested the speakers before I bought it and they were "blown". Got it home and found one of the wires from the terminal to the speaker cone was damaged on both drivers. No idea how that could happen. It is physical trauma for sure, probably something shoved in the back of the amp. Fixed that, needed a few more parts and a few hours work. Perfect now.

The FM 212R takes a lot of heat because it is solid state, and the distortion sucks. But it is pretty much the Fender equivalent of a JC-120 (without the on-board chorus). Clean it sounds VERY good, particularly for the price Add a CE-5 and it sounds nearly as good as JC-120. Plus it takes distortion pedals really well - an ML-2 gives a credible heavy tone.

Guitar is a "Fleetwood". Picked up from a local thrift store. Never heard of the brand and not much on the WWW. Spent a few hours setting it up. Plays well... not as good as a Mexi strat, but not bad at all. Certainly better than most of the cheap crap guitars I've seen in thrift stores.

Total cost for both ............ CAD$80.
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Wire break in driver.
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[Old_Iron]

Nice score Laurie!

People like to put stuff like pedals, straps and cables inside a combo amplifier, ends up damaging the speakers.

The guitar is ready to be upgraded, came to my mind to turn it into a Gilmour's black strat (Seymour Duncan SSL5 + Fender CS69 + Fender FAT50) or a Dave Murray's 57 (2x Dimarzio super distortion).

The amp can be turned into a Fender tube clone, and the original solid state circuitry can be accommodated in a case for rack mounting, I did that with a cheap combo amp, turned it into a Fender Champ clone.

The original amp was like this one, but very beaten up:


The original amp circuitry in a rack case:


PCB:


Chassi in and outside:



End result:

[laurie]

Nice job with the rehouse on the amp!

I'm happy with the FM 212R as it is. I only have one other amp and that's a Dr Z Maz 18 (very different).

[Pepe]

We sold quite a few of the Fender FM 212R amps in our small shop. It has an enormous amount of power. The only bad thing is the main level potentiometer of the clean channel. "1" is off, "2" is already too much for bedroom levels. We sold it to lots of local bands for their practice rooms. The dirt channel is indeed not that good, so a lot of people came back to purchase a BOSS DS-1 or a Marshall Jackhammer or Guv'nor Plus.

[Old_Iron]

Nice job with the rehouse on the amp!

I'm happy with the FM 212R as it is. I only have one other amp and that's a Dr Z Maz 18 (very different).

Thanks Laurie, It was just a suggestion, if you are happy, that's what matters.

I love the Dr Z amps, the Carmen Ghia is in my DIY list.

[laurie]

It was just a suggestion

All good!

These two I'm going to leave standard. They are-what-they-are with honesty.

[laurie]

An update on the guitar.

• The acoustic (unplugged) resonance is excellent. Don't know what the body wood is, but the tone is good.

• After a few days of incremental tweaking the truss-rod nut, the neck is now almost flat - just the right amount of relief. It is clear that this guitar was made somewhere in Asia - the truss-rod nut is metric.

• Intonation done.

• After adjusting the saddle height the action is really nice.

• The machine heads feel good and work well.

• The pickups are OK after adjusting the height... a tiny bit microphonic. Easily changed, but I will leave them.

• Pots are all smooth after cleaning and lubrication.

• The bridge is now balanced - someone had screwed the trem spring adjustment plate all the way in so that the bridge was jammed against the body, rather than floating - the trem arm released tension, but could not add tension.

• One of the screws on the trem cover plate had stripped out of the wood. Doweled it.

• Frets are good. Gave them a quick polish with 600 grit sandpaper. Bends are very smooth.

• Cleaned and polished. Finish has only a couple of tiny scuffs and marks.

• The fretboard is unmarked and came up perfectly after cleaning with lemon oil.

I am really impressed. This guitar is at least as good as a Mexican strat, and is approaching the quality of my (regretfully long gone) Japanese Aerodyne strat. An absolute bargain for CAD$60. I'll be keeping it. If you see a "Fleetwood" strat for cheap, grab it.

[laurie]

We sold quite a few of the Fender FM 212R amps in our small shop. It has an enormous amount of power. The only bad thing is the main level potentiometer of the clean channel. "1" is off, "2" is already too much for bedroom levels. We sold it to lots of local bands for their practice rooms. The dirt channel is indeed not that good, so a lot of people came back to purchase a BOSS DS-1 or a Marshall Jackhammer or Guv'nor Plus.

Yeah. The volume pot is linear. It should be logarithmic. I'll change it next time I have the amp apart.

[Sinom]

I have the FM100H - it can get loud.

I changed out all the pots as the MIC ones were badly oxidised, got a Fender set from StewMac. I also put a new Reverb Tank in it. I usually play clean/ reverb through an FM412 cab, which is good floaty reverb, surf music etc. with a Strat or Tele.

I enjoy it, but the two stage drive channels can get loud and dirty

Cheers

Sinom

[Pepe]

Yeah. The volume pot is linear. It should be logarithmic. I'll change it next time I have the amp apart.

I always supposed that! That's a quite dumb design, isn't it? A lot of people didn't like that behaviour and chose another amp for bedroom levels.