Squier Project

[happydude]

Further to this thread;
http://www.guitarscanada.com/Board/showthread.php?t=14424
I'm going to post pictures of my progress, a sort of start to finish affair. The pictures are taken with my Macbook Pro's integral camera, thus everything is backwards. Pretend you're a lefty for a moment and it will all become clear. Well, not exactly clear but at least you get the gist of it all.

Stage 1:
Finish was stripped with a disc sander and about $10 worth of sanding discs from Canadian Tire. That finish was quite thick and required a lot of work to get off. The trickiest areas were the cut away areas, which were scraped clean with a ka-bar (I kid you not) and then sanded smooth. There's a few blemishes on the wood, not really noticeably in my crummy pictures, but nothing I'm going to lose sleep over. At the moment, the body has three coats of Minwax Satin Honey Pine polyurethane stain. I'm going to follow up with additional coats of clear polyurethane for durability and shine.

The distance between the bridge posts measures out at roughly 2 1/2" from center to center (of the holes) *note larger than standard American bridge. Note the brass bridge retaining posts are still in there, they will probably be removed. Bridge cavity itself is about 3" x 3/4". String spacing on the bridge saddles measures about 2 1/16", nut is about 42mm across the fretboard, 35mm from string hole to string hole.

At the moment, the hardware is taped on just so I could get an idea of the color scheme I want. Right now, I'm thinking;
1- black knobs/ pu covers, black pickguard, chrome tuners, chrome bridge
2- white knobs/pu covers, black pickguard, black body/white knob 'tuxedo' gotoh style tuners, black bridge
3- black knobs/ pu covers, black pickguard, gold tuners, gold bridge

I'm leaning towards scheme 2 right now, but it's hard to visualize the final product.

For the bridge, I'm probably going to pull the two brass bridge posts and fill the two large holes with a dowel/glue combo. Then I'll re-drill holes for the bridge. I need a 10.5mm string spacing, which indicates to one of the bridges that Guitarfetish has specifically for the Mexican/Asian Strats. Probably not the high quality (looks to be rough cast zinc bridge block) I was looking for, but it's a start.

These two pics are a little too 'creamy' for my liking, looking for more colour contrast.

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g123/happydude20/Photo7.jpg

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g123/happydude20/Photo9.jpg

Show the three piece basswood body, when strung up seemed to have decent sustain for my newbie needs.

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g123/happydude20/Photo14.jpg

[fraser]

hey thats not bad-
the 3 piece body looks similar to the cij basswood strats-
what finish was on it originally? it is usually assumed that the squiers with solid colours are made up of many peices.
im just wrapping up a project that i did with one of the new $100 squier bullets- its basswood too, but who knows what it looks like, so i left the body finish alone.looks and plays nice tho-
ill be posting some pics too when ive decided its done.
i like yours-:food-smiley-004:

[happydude]

The stock finish was "Pearl White Metallic", a sort of off-white tone that was layered on pretty thick. It didn't look all that bad but I wanted to do a refinishing project and I have stain on hand. Had the wood looked worse I would have painted it. Once the hardware is back on it should clean up well.

[Robert1950]

Looking good so far,... except your pictures are backwards (:wink:)

[1PUTTS]

At the moment, the hardware is taped on just so I could get an idea of the color scheme I want. Right now, I'm thinking;
1- black knobs/ pu covers, black pickguard, chrome tuners, chrome bridge
2- white knobs/pu covers, black pickguard, black body/white knob 'tuxedo' gotoh style tuners, black bridge
3- black knobs/ pu covers, black pickguard, gold tuners, gold bridge

I'm leaning towards scheme 2 right now, but it's hard to visualize the final product.


Just in case you didn't know about the "virtual guitar builder", here it is:
http://www.usacustomguitars.com/virtualguitar.html

It's pretty cool for mixing and matching various configurations just to get an idea on what something would look like. Give it a shot!

[kous]

How about a Wilkinson bridge? They are great. That way, you don't have to do extra work for the bridge.

I also thought you were a lefty too :tongue:

[happydude]

How about a Wilkinson bridge? They are great. That way, you don't have to do extra work for the bridge.

I also thought you were a lefty too :tongue:

Nope, not a lefty. If anyone knows how to get Photobooth or IPhoto to reverse the images that would be handy.

I'm starting to get cold feet about the bridge though. It's hard to find something with 2 1/16" string spacing and as much as I want to experiment, I don't want to ruin the guitar by screwing up a new bridge installation. The tuners are definitely going though. I'm also going to opt for wiring the pickguard myself, I need to learn eventually. Also thinking of spray painting the pickguard so as to keep the original spacing as well and then I can get a completely custom colour and look.

That virtual strat builder is really handy, thanks.

Edit, after going through the virtual builder I've decided on black pickguard, white control knobs, chrome hardware.