Hi all,
For those of you that are "dessert first" kind of people, here are pics.
Kind of lying, not really new gear per se, it's really old gear with new parts. I guess this write up is mostly for me to look back on, but you can also treat this as a "how to spend $800 on a Squier because your an idiot that likes the paint job" guide. Feel free to ask questions if you got 'em.
Here's the story:
In 2015, I acquired a Squier Stratocaster Deluxe with a unique paint job. It was otherwise stock, but I was obsessed with how it looked. I guess I chose a Strat because I always wanted a sound that was somewhere between the bright, fat sounds SRV had and the haunting texture of the wrapped strings from guitar lines found in Explosions in the Sky tracks. I had no idea what I was getting into.
Stage I (2015-2019): Don't look poor
I decided that I didn't like the Squier decal, but I didn't like the idea of simply putting a Fender decal in its place, essentially being a poseur.
I'm a branding whore, this theme continues, and arguably gets worse.
Well, let's just grab a new neck, right? I bought a $200 MiM neck off of Amazon, but it was a 21 fret neck, and the neck pocket was 22 frets. I also got some Fender tuners, Fender neck plate, etc. "maybe if I put enough Fender stuff on here it'll turn into a real Fender"
I rode that ugly gap in the neck pocket for four years, lol. To be clear, the Squier neck was perfectly fine, and the satin finish was far comfier to play. The frets were crowned and dressed better, too. But the headstock said the right thing... I would be rocking the Squier neck today if I hadn't sanded it down and tried to refinish it. Story for another day.
Then, I noticed the pickups said "Duncan Designed" and not "Seymour Duncan" like the hotbois have. "That makes me look like a poor", I thought, "those certainly have to go." So, after enlisting the help of my poor ex-girlfriend and using most of her nail polish, we dipped the pickups, knobs, etc. which made the guitar more... Unique. Looking back, it probably wasn't an improvement, but whatever. Arts and crafts are fun.
Stage II (March 2019 - August 2019): HECKIN' SOLDER
Now I have my very ... special Strat with a unique neck gap, nail polish pickups, and four years worth of college grime coating it. I resented it more and more by the day. Don't get me wrong, this guitar is one of the few things I own that I really care about, but the thing was ugly as sin.
One day, I guess I just said "fuck it" and bought all the electronics I needed to reload the pickguard. Ken Rose pickups, 5 way blade switch, an on/on DPDT switch, some 250K linear taper pots, and custom plastics from an artist on Reverb. Like, RIP me, $70 for plastic, whatever.
I got it all wired up and it sounded a lot better to my ears. The new electronics literally made it a new guitar. The plastics looked great, and it sounded awesome in my recordings. Except, I've always really missed that 22nd fret, and I couldn't get past how ugly it was.
The best change of this refresh was the Gilmore-style neck pickup switch, which gives me the extra option of neck/bridge and neck/middle/bridge pickup combos.
Stage III (August 2019 - ): Replacing weak links
So now, my guitar sounds a lot better and looks a bit better, but I was never in love with the MiM neck. I started diving into forums, looking for what other necks might make good replacements for the MiM. After searching, I found that I would probably be best served by a new MiA Fender Deluxe Strat neck, but my interest was also piqued by the MiJ E series Strat necks of the 80's.
To Reverb I went. I searched through the listings and both neck options were roughly the same cost. I was leaning towards MiJ necks because they are truly revered on the forums, they had more "mojo" (I've always been the guy that prefers beat up gear over new shiny stuff), and the neck profile seemed better for what I wanted.
Didn't take long for me to pull the trigger on a 22 fret rosewood fretboard E series neck, and I am not disappointed. The neck came to me in less than perfect shape; the first six or so frets were rough, nd the 7th one had a straight-up gouge in it. The plastic nut came out with some convincing but unfortunately took some fretboard with it. Nothing superglue didn't fix. A Tusq counterpart went in its place. The MiJ neck is a little rough, but it suits the guitar quite well.
While I was taking everything apart, I decided to shield the electronics cavity with copper tape, which basically did nothing. Better to have than not?
Another thing that always held the Strat back was the tremolo, which I barely used because it always caused tuning issues (despite many sessions of troubleshooting). Again, went to do some research and found the Babicz trem being mentioned quite a lot. I loved the design of the saddles and thought it was worth a shot, so I bought one. I chose gold to add some flash to the Strat, I'm not a fan of all gold hardware, but the tuners/string tree was black and everything else was silver/nickel/chrome, so I figured the "mutt" look would suit it. Probably isn't for some, but I like it.
After getting the neck and trem set up (was a breeze honestly) I'm really thrilled with the whole ensemble. The neck was a tight fit and required no sanding, shimming, or anything, there was no stripped holes on any of the new upgrades or any other major issues. The action is dumb low, the tremolo is super smooth and holds tune (new nut probably helps), and the pickups still sound great.
I mostly play math rock, post rock (eh), and jazz-inspired clean guitar instrumental stuff. Kind of hard to explain, but it works great for tapping stuff that I do, blouz licks, and fingerpicking stuff; it's an all-around stud. I really like it, and I'm glad I dumped all my money into this Squier instead of buying a plain MiA Strat like I probably should have from the jump.
Build pics through the years
Thanks for reading through if you did, and for those keeping track at home, literally the only thing left of the original Squier Strat Deluxe is the pickguard, pickguard screws, and obviously the body itself. This guitar is why I love and have owned so many Strats, they're just so modular and tweakable that there's really a custom Strat build out there for everyone. Cheers all, keep on playing.
Submitted August 12, 2019 at 05:59PM by LetsEatTrashAndDie https://ift.tt/2N10DcL
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