This is not made from padauk, it is a 'padauk stain' finish. So it's an undistinguished two-piece ash body with a veneer top and satin coloured finish to make it look vaguely like the padauk N4s. I'm assuming it's a maple neck and it looks like it's one piece. The fretboard is the usual rosewood unlike my other MG440.
This is the other of my 'bridge repair' Mercury IIs and perhaps the classier of the two because of that faux padauk finish. Also, the black scratchplate is slightly nicer than the slightly cheap looking white pearl one.
Otherwise they're identical. This one also had a bit of a crackle in the pots so I've just squirted some switchcleaner at them. In doing so I noticed that they have Ibanez-style 5-way switching with the humbuckers being coil tapped when used with the single coil. I'd not previously noticed this has I haven't played them much. It's a shame they didn't go the whole hog and make it noise-cancelling in both positions rather than just with the neck, but that would have needed a fancier switch.
So, another nicely made Korean superstrat that I don't really have a use for. I suspect I'll be selling this. The original plan was to steal the tremolos from both then sell the parts, but I can't bring myself to do so. Besides in the meantime I've picked up a couple of decent branded tremolos including a really nice Graphtec one.
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