Camp Pendleton
Tijuana, Mexico
Border Security
South of Tijuana
South of Tijuana, on the way to Ensenada
Waterfront all-inclusive condos for $70k
Buildings like these are everywhere in Mexico.
Fishing boats in the bay
View from hotel
Coral Hotel Marina
The Town of Ensenada.
Sunrise on the Pacific
Fender Factory, main building
Breakfast!
Acoustic Guitar Production
Frames for Ensenada acoustics
Top and Back wheel
orbital sanders for contouring the sides
Ebony bridge blanks
Mexican Rosewood (Palo Escrito) for back and sides
Sitka spruce, stick stacked
Back blanks
Neck blanks, cut and seasoning in heated room
Mahogany boards, destined for necks
Side benders
Note the automated cutaway bender
Acoustic bodies, ready for assembly
Neck shaping and sanding
Jigs used to attach neck and tail blocks
More Side benders.
Note the Cocobolo body on the bottom shelf.
Our tour guide
Brace carving and scalloping.
Acoustic bodies
Top bracing for Ensenada series acoustics
Completed acoustics must wait a week before final inspection
Finish buffing and inspection
Quality control (QC) inspection and setup
In case you don't know what it is...
Smile bridge. This guitar is top secret.
Tim Shaw, Acoustic R&D
Prototype. This guitar is top secreter.
100% of the Fender amp cabinets are made in Ensenada, including the Custom Shop pieces.
Shaping the amp sides
Finger joint
65 Deluxe Reverb amp sides
SWR Cabinets
The CNC machine cuts the details
Black base coat for SWR cabinets
This CNC works on neck blanks
Neck production factory
Cutting of the Truss rod slot, fretboard dot holes, and tuner holes only.
Pre-finish QA
STD STRAT MN day!
drilling the truss rod access
dots installed, truss and tuners cut
Installation of skunk stripe after truss rod
Fret Robot
Frets are placed by hand, driven home with the robot.
This robot puts the radius on the neck.
This machine cuts the fret slots on the neck.
This machine puts the radius on the fingerboard
Assembled neck, ready for sanding.
This machine trims the fret edges
Completed necks are stamped and prepped for finishing.
Demonstration neck, sawn in half.
Sanding of the neck.
Hand sanding of the headstock.
Completed neck ready for assembly.
Completed necks, post QA.
That stuff you see on the neck are QA stamps and stickers.
Completed necks are individually wrapped and sent to assembly plant.
Finish sanding is done by hand.
The guys were in Fullerton and stopped in the shop for a visit.
Tower of tone
Jimmy Vaughn,
Final Assembly and setup.
Final setup and packaging.
Bodies ready for finishing
Note the multi part body. This is the only distinguishing characteristic between the construction methods of the US and Ensenada guitars.
72 Tele Thinline chambered body.
72 Tele Thinline
These multi-piece Alder bodies have been prepped with an alder veneer, destined for Standard Strat and Tele production. (Trans finishes). Before you start yelping about the multi piece body, just remember that this guitar is 25% the price of the USA equivilant.
Beveled edge being applied to Strat body.
Drilling the output jack wire hole.
Roughed body, no belly carve yet.
This machine does the belly carve (A.K.A. Gut Slice).
Ferrous paint is applied to the body cavity to shield the components.
Bodies ready for sanding and paint.
QC and sanding before paint.
Prepped bodies, ready for sealer coat.
Paint - Stage 1 - Sealer coat (polyester)
Jackson in Mexico?
The finished product, ready for shipment to Ontario, California.
Paint - Step 1 - A base coat of Polyester wood sealer.
The base coat is hand applied
The polyester base coat is allowed to dry for 24 hrs.
These bodies failed QC and have been sanded down for a second try.
Paint - Step 2 - Color is sprayed on, then sanded again.
Paint - Step 4 - Clear coat is applied, then buffed to a shine.
Color Sanding is the most difficult and skilled job in the factory. Big $$$
Final buffing is done on large wheels.
Using a Dremel, the neck pocket is cleaned out to assure a good fit.
Completed bodies ready for delivery to final assembly plant.
Final Assembly.
Mmm... Teles!
Final setup and QC.
Amplifier PC Boards.
Amplifier components being set by CNC Robot.
Humbuckers, hand made!
Winding machines.
Look at all that tone!!
Soldering machine for the PC boards.
Completed amp boards.
Final attachment of wires and connections done by hand.
QC of circuit boards. Notice that we're in Ensenada and the testing rig is calibrated for SUPER SONIC PCBs...
QC of pickguards is done by hand and ear.
It's interesting to note that pickups, pickguard assy's, and PCBs, and amp assembly are done in the same building. I think the criteria is anything soldered is done here.
Pickup potting is done by hand in batches of eight.
Amplifier cabinets meet components here.
Hot Rod amplifier chasis.
All Fender amps are tolex'ed in Ensenada.
The tolex pocess is truly impressive. It takes no more than 2 minutes to do this process when you have all the right tools and equipment at your disposal. There are about five different steps, each step is performed on an assembly line by teams.
SWR California Blonde amps.
More Tolex.
Back plate installation.
Audio QC is done in a sound proof room.
Attachment of hang tags before boxing.
That's right, footswitches are built by hand by this young lady.
Don't lift these buggers without help!
I couldn't believe the manpower needed to box up stuff. There must have been eight to ten guys folding, stuffing, packing, and forklifting this stuff. Why is it not automated?
Fender Strings: hand made! This machine installs bullet ends.
Bullet string ends.
bundles are hand checked by the hand checker lady.
Strng winders.
String QC manager. Each string is checked by hand (80,000 per day!!!)
String winder in action.
Bass Strings must be wound with more care.
Strings are individually packaged by hand.
Whole lot of Celestions!
Super sweet limited edition Tele.
Great big ol' Mexican flag flies over Ensenada. Google Earth glossed it the largest flag in Mexico!
Carnival Cruise ships dock three times a week.
Headed back to Cali.
These impressive looking oceanside villas always have a big, tall fence and a gate with a guard. You get the feeling that it is not safe to be rich in this part of the world.
Fender Classroom.
Custom Shop Gretsch!!
Bins of pre-assembled pickguards.
Cases, ready for instruments.
USA Amplifier production.
Super Sonic amp chasis assembly.
Audio QC.
57 Twin point-to-point board being hand soldered.
Our fearless guide explains the old school point-to-point method. He made fun of it, actually, claiming that there is no sonic difference between PTP and PCB construction. He is a Vice-President, so I didn't argue.
A lot of love goes into shipping a guitar.
Relic'ed cases!!!
2 weeks of supplies are kept on hand.
Fender USA metal shop. The machines were bought by Leo.
Pickguard material is bought in large sheets and cut in the factory.
Truss rods are made in house.
Dies for the machine shop. They must be replaced every 6-9 months.
Brass neck plates.
EVH Charvel neck plate die.
Nearly every metal part for USA instruments is made in house.
Pickguards are hand beveled.
This machine bends the amp chasis.
Tremolo string blocks.
Bridge plates.
Rather than waste time changing drill bits, they just have six drills.
This machine looks like it eats fingers.
Bridge saddles are hand sanded.
Tele bridge plates, post serial number stamp.
The serial number machine is totally vintage and older than the tour guide.
Bridge assembly.
I was bent to see all the parts just laying there, I have some of these on order and it will be months before they arrive! Sheesh!
rejected wood.
Jackson/Charvel bodies.
Custom shop bodies in storage.
Jackson/Charvel cuts their own wood on site from boards.
Fingerboards.
All body wood comes from the vendor in this billet form (except Jackson)
Roughed out Charvel necks are seperated from Fender necks.
Jackson guitars are built by Jackon employees. They only share space with Fender.
More Jackson assembly.
Jackson tool shop. Note the route templates on the wall.
Jackson's neck-thru design.
Randy Rhodes guitars are built by the same luthier that made Randy's personal instrument!
Rough body shape (pre assembly)
The original Jackson templates are still used today.
Roughed out fender necks with dots applied.
Defective necks. There were no such piles in Ensenada, but they were everywhere here. I don't know if it was a cumulative thing or what...
Installation of truss rod (no stripe)
Master necks.
Master bass necks.
Necks, before and after back carve.
Jimmie Hendrix??
Standard Fender Mini necks are made in the Corona plant.
Neck carve CNC machine.
Custom shop necks
Neck QC.
Fingerboard surfacing.
Bad necks.
Fret slot cutting machine.
Fret placement.
body cavity routing is done by CNC machines. One of the few non-human actions.
body blanks prepped for CNC routing.
Bodies are weighed before CNC'ing, these are destined for the Custom Shop.
Ash body with cavity route and body contour completed.
J Basses roughed out.
Bass bodies are cut on this special CNC machine.
Master route template.
Master body templates
body dies.
Final sanding before paint.
final neck QC.
Once a neck passes sanding QC, a penciled code is added to the stamped QC from the milling shop.
Deluxe Telecaster bodies.
ALL sanding is done by hand to assure a quality finish.
More Custom Shop necks!!
Sawdust holding tanks.
Paint storage. Between the sawdust storage and paint storage, I got the impression the back of this building was pretty flammable.
Fender's six million dollar air scrubber means Lacquer can be applied in So-Cal.
There is no more effective air processing equipment available anywhere in the world.
Custom Shop bodies, post color sanding.
Stripes must be done by hand on each EVH. No, Eddie does not stripe them.
Jackson guitars, ready for final clear coat application.
Custom Shop Jacksons!!
$7k, please.
Clear coated bodies, waiting for final buffing.
John Mayer body.
Jackson guitar waiting for color sanding.
More Custom Shop Gretsch guitars
Jeff Krause of Fender Tech Support
Hand sanding
Where's my spandex and bronzer?
Bodies ready for assembly.
Eric Johnson necks, ready for assembly.
The color variation was logical, but suprising.
Fender has the ability to store 5,000 guitars in an elaborate track above the assembly area.
Notice the slight color variations, a product of handmade work.
String ferrule holes are hand drilled.
Completed EJ Strats
Final QC and play testing is done here.
Hand cut nut work.
Packing up the finished guitars
Don't tell anyone I took this picture!!
SWR demonstration.
New Guild folk size, a remake of an original Guild body that was ripped off by Taylor!!
Chris Flemming of the Custom Shop. Someone told him he looked like Steve McQueen and he stabbed the guy with his glasses. Just kidding.
Master Builder Chris Flemming
On the left, Chris' 1950s Esquire. On the right, his Masterbuilt interpretation of his guitar. Note the gig bag in which he carries his authentic, priceless 50s Esquire.
The Custom Shop Relic'ed Gretsch 6120 that has haunted me all day!!
We can't believe we're allowed to touch the thing!
Custom Shop, hand painted Jackson
One-of-a-kind special order.
The man.
Original lyrics to Folsom Prison Blues, signed by Cash
$1.50 admission.
Leo Fender's original neck templates and tools.
Jag Stang prototype.
Cobain's template made from cardboard.
Drawn by Cobain and Fender designer.
Steve Miller donated items.
MC Leo, working the wax.
Custom Shop MASTERBUILT Mini strats made for Music Education facilities.
Handmade by a Master Builder for the Education project.
Cash painting up for auction.
The Museum has provided free music lessons to over 6,000 students and is a non-for-profit.
