"If I only had time, I'd build guitars all day long."
— Les Paul
A few years back, I placed a backorder with Sweetwater for a Fender Custom Shop Robin Trower Stratocaster in Midnight Wine Burst—it took a full year to arrive. Not long after I finally got it, the case lid slipped from my hand while I was removing the guitar, and it dropped right onto the body. I was crushed. I set that damaged body aside, thinking I might refinish it someday, and in the meantime, picked up a U.S. Performer Stratocaster body in Satin Lake Placid Blue. The color was close to another Trower model, so it made a suitable temporary replacement.
I contacted the Fender Custom Shop to see if they'd sell me just a Trower body, but they said they don't do that. Their advice was to keep an eye on Reverb and eBay in case one popped up. About a year later, sure enough, a near-mint Custom Shop body in Midnight Wine Burst showed up on The STRATosphere—I jumped on it. The Trower Strat is now back to its original spec.
As for the Lake Placid Blue body, I paired it with a CBS-style neck I had left over from a previous MOD Shop build that originally featured an Inca Silver body and Texas Special pickups. I reused what I could from that setup, ordered a Custom Shop '54 6-point bridge and tremolo kit, and completed the build over the weekend. To help fund both projects, I sold off the Inca Silver body and a few other spare guitar parts.
All images © 2025 Mike McDowell