Recently I acquired yet another Strat; not through purchase however, but a gifting from a total stranger! At the end of the night at Maggie’s Place in Doylestown, PA, I was selling a few last cds when a gentleman I had never met before, presented me with a brand new Strat that he had just built for me dubbing it the “Debcaster". Having observed my tendency to mess with the pick-ups in my strats, ie. Pearl and Baby Blue, he was inspired to create a customized strat for me. Oh yes, his name is Craig Roeder of Sellersville, PA and Craig, ya blew my mind that night.
Craig has supplied me with all of the details about the Debcaster along with some photos of her, so let me share just a little with my fellow guitar freaks:
The body is a lightweight swamp ash by Warmouth, with a Mary Kay Burst finish. The neck is a new Fender Deluxe Fat Strat with a large “70s” headstock. For pick-ups he chose a Kent Armstrong P-90 in the neck, a custom wound strat pick-up by Pete Bilthoft in the middle position, and a PAF style Humbucker by Gotoh in the bridge. Those of you who know my guitars will know that I favor the P-90s in the bridge position, so after playing the guitar at one show, I knew I would be swapping the positions of the P-90 and the Humbucker.
Craig also shared his excitement with me about the Gotoh locking style tuners that he put on the guitar. So I tried for about a month to get used to them, but they just drove me crazy! I guess ya can’t teach an old dog new tricks, cuz I can change a string lickity-split with my old vintage tuners, so being slowed down by these locking tuners that require using a screw-driver was just too frustrating for me. So I decided to switch these out for vintage style tuners.
Did I mention that the pick guard is violet? Also made by Warmouth, this color looks stunning against the white body, and I have never seen anything like it! So with her very “dressed up” looks, I have named her Jewel, The Debcaster. Look for Jewel at one of our future shows!

UPDATE: Since this letter was written, sadly, Maggie’s Place has closed its doors, and Jewel is having her neck shaved to the specs of my ’62 re-issue necks.