metale's red Squier strat - The Topic

[metale]

• Intro
• The Bad
• The Good
• Wiring Mod
• Pickups
• Aesthetics
• ???...

Intro

Hi everyone. I decided to open this topic for Red, to kind of use as a journal. It's in the process of being modded, and will have a couple of BKPs. Could use you guys' feedback on them, and also on the aesthetics department.

I bought this guitar on late '06 / early '07, after seeing Frusciante with a red strat on the SA Tour. It's a '96 which my luthier was selling used.



Mid '90s Squiers were very inconsistent. I have two, and their body routing is different, pickguards have different quantity of screws, tuners are different, electronics were nothing alike, necks aren't interchangeable, etc etc etc. I like to mod them though, and tend to get attached to guitars independently of their price range or quality if I mess with them long enough.


The Bad:

• It's not a pretty color
• Stock pickups are the worst pickups I ever played
• 'Modern C' necks aren't really my thing
• Overall build quality is meh...

The Good:

• Don't have to worry about keeping anything stock or vintage correct
• The trem has the best return to pitch of any trem I've played, locking and non-locking
• Natural sun-aged neck and plastics (it was displayed on the storefront for quite some time)

It was completely stock until now, apart from dunlop strap locks.

Looking inside:



Wiring mod:

As some have noticed, I'm a big Brian May fan, and wanted to get some BM combinations on this guitar. I toyed with the traditional 6-switch+2-pots idea for quite some time, but in addition of it being done now time and time again, I felt it toke away too much from the strat look.

So I planed the wiring to keep stock strat looks, with 9 switch combinations (7 BM settings and 2 stock strat settings). It now has a regular 3 way switch. Positions starting on neck side are:

• Neck + middle in series (humbucker tone)
• Neck + middle + bridge in series (more output, but muffled/muddy without a treble booster)
• Middle + bridge in series (humbucker tone)

The first knob is a master volume.

The second pot is a push-pull (does nothing when rotated). When pulled out, the middle pickup is taken out of the circuit, so we have:

• Neck only (stock strat tone)
• Neck + bridge in series (sounds a bit telecaster-ish, but with more power)
• Bridge only (stock strat tone)

The third pot is a master tone, and a push-pull which, when pulled out, inverts the phase of the neck pickup, so we have:

• Neck and middle in series out of phase (think Bohemian Rhapsody Solo
• Neck and bridge in series out of phase (haven't used this enough to form an sufficient opinion)
• Neck + middle + bridge in series, with the neck out phase (funky, Rickenbacker-ish)

No parallel options. It's great to have all this versatility from a single guitar. The stock ceramic single coils though, they are plain bad. Dry, hard-sounding, lifeless. I must address that next.


Pickups:

Neck - I'm not swimming in money right now, so my plan is to use a Kent Armstrong designed alnico single coil I have laying around. It is the bridge model that was on the black squier before giving place to the SSL-5. Sounds good enough, and clocking at 6,38K DC resistance it's in neck Irish Tour territory, so I'm dropping in on the neck position.

Bridge - Probably will get an Irish Tour bridge with baseplate.

Middle - Undecided, but either another Irish Tour or a Slowhand. What do you guys think? The middle pickup is never on by itself.


Aesthetics:

Undecided on one of the following routes.

• 3-ply mint green pickguard, cream plastics
• Either metal or gold pickguard, with cream plastics but replacing the strat knobs with Gibson-style speed knobs (after seeing the new Fender Nile Rodgers strat)

Option 1:


Option 2 (imagine a red guitar :? ):


Cheers

[Plenum n Heather]

A brass scratch plate would look quite cool on that guitar ...

[metale]

Yes, and that's what is on the Nile Rodgers strat, but I only found this one.

As for gold, Fender has this.

They are both a bit expensive for this guitar, but I have dropped alot of money on cheap guitars before: my black Squier strat has cost me 70€ and has almost 250€ in mods  :?

[Telerocker]

I like the mint threeply scratchplate on red. If you fancy a bit of relicing you could take the gloss off en sand the back of the neck. Maybe it's going a little bit in the direction of Fiesta Red, which I like on a reliced guitar.

[Philly Q]

You've probably already considered/rejected the idea, but a gold anodised aluminium scratchplate would be cheaper than those brass ones, not to mention much lighter in weight.

Edit:  Rockinger sell a chrome plate too, similar price to Thomann (and I would guess it's the same part, made by ABM):

http://www.rockinger.com/index.php?cat=WG141&lang=eng&product=1500C&sid3=708b7f8395915688bbc2e418953a27b7

[metale]

I like the mint threeply scratchplate on red. If you fancy a bit of relicing you could take the gloss off en sand the back of the neck. Maybe it's going a little bit in the direction of Fiesta Red, which I like on a reliced guitar.

The back of the neck still has aged color but feels bare wood. I sanded the back of the neck on both Squiers years ago using sandpaper by hand. It's very smooth.

You've probably already considered/rejected the idea, but a gold anodised aluminium scratchplate would be cheaper than those brass ones, not to mention much lighter in weight.

Would be a possibility if it isn't more shiny/reflective than the brass ones. Weight is not a concern, this guitar is A LOT lighter than my teles :D


I'm also considering a full size steel trem block for sustain. Any feedback for the pickup choice, mainly the middle? I should record a sound sample with all the positions.

[metale]

I installed the original pickguard from my black squier, which is 11 screws instead of 8, 3ply instead of 1ply and a naturally aged cream instead of the pink-ish cream.

Only have a cr@ppy phone pic of the guitar with one of my loves:



I hate squier's 90s inconsistency. The screw nearest the jack is a dummy, as it now screws to a nice chunk of... oxygen.