Fender... oops?

Just hours ago, my friend, Rosli, was at my residence. He was here for me to try & figure out why his high E string kept popping out of the retainer every time he whammies his bridge. This happened even after the nut of his Floyd Rose equipped Fender Highway 1 Showmaster Strat, was locked tight. He is also baffled by the fact the bridge itself suffers from over-projection every time he tried to tune his guitar.

After a closer look, the string-popping mystery was an easy problem to deal with; Fender actually equipped the guitar with a retainer of the wrong length as depicted above (A). I compared it to the spare I bought for my Ibanez RG guitar (B) & the difference was rather obvious. Easy solution for an easy problem.

Moving on to the bridge over-projection issue, I tuned the guitar accordingly & indeed saw the anomaly myself. So I thought a quick tightening of the whammy spring screws at the rear body cavity would do the trick but even after doing so, the problem persisted. This was when I decided to feel the strings & that's the cause of it all- the strings in there were a set of .010s. So the quick string replacement (the guitar now has a set of Fender .009s in it) & corrective tuning took place. Rosli wanted a slightly higher action to rid the guitar of that shred-action buzzing & he got his wish. But while at it, the rosewood fretboard got re-moisturized as well; the upper fret vicinity was rather dry. I expected it to be so because this guitar could be in storage for years; the reason it looks untouched & in splendid physical condition. 

I simply like how the guitar's default humbuckers reacted to high distortion settings; it's rather obvious they were conceived to rock. The instrument's build is also solid & blemish-free; how that wrong retainer bar got through was quite a mystery.