Squier Strat rebuild

[Railfanespee]

My 1st guitar was a Squier Affinity HSS strat

It means a lot to me, and I don't want to sell it. I really like strats, but my Affinity is nowhere near good enough to gig with. Puos sound like crap, pots are scratchy, and it makes a weird noise when you bend on the higher frets. It's kind of a buzzing noise, but it's not the normal buzzing that you get when your action is too low. So my plan is to tear it down, keep nothing but the body, and make it into a Partsocaster of MIJ or MIA quality. I am thinking GFS for a prewired pickguard & hardware, but I don't know what to do about the neck. Should I get a new neck or should I have some fretwork done on it? Would any of this work, or should I just save up for a MIM strat to mod?

[Noise...]

My 1st guitar was a Squier Affinity HSS strat It means a lot to me, and I don't want to sell it. I really like strats, but my Affinity is nowhere near good enough to gig with. Puos sound like crap, pots are scratchy, and it makes a weird noise when you bend on the higher frets. It's kind of a buzzing noise, but it's not the normal buzzing that you get when your action is too low. So my plan is to tear it down, keep nothing but the body, and make it into a Partsocaster of MIJ or MIA quality. I am thinking GFS for a prewired pickguard & hardware, but I don't know what to do about the neck. Should I get a new neck or should I have some fretwork done on it? Would any of this work, or should I just save up for a MIM strat to mod?

 

Instead of scrapping the neck as well, do some work on it and get it playing nicely. It probably just needs a fret level and some general fretwork to make it play nicely.

 

As for the body, from the visible wood, it actually looks like alder. It should be fine.

 

New pups would be a good idea, but getting a pickguard to fit may be a pain. Someone else here can probably shed some light and recommend a guard that will fit.

 

You could probably get some better tuners and hardware as well.

 

[crofty9]

I'd say give fretwork a go, since you planned on replacing the neck, why not try doing your own work to gain the experience. If you {censored} up, you learned and get a new neck. If you do it well, you learned and will probably have a very well playing neck.

 

The pups should definitely be replaced and if you're refinishing the body, any pickguard will work as you can fill and redrill. However if you want an exact fit w/o drilling you may have to look on Ebay/online for a Squier guard.

 

Hardware, Guitarfetish seems like a nice option depending on what you're looking for. I'd definitely replace the tuners and nut.

 

On my POS Ebay strat I'm going with Gold locking Wilkinson tuners, a graphtech nut, Gold vintage trem for imports from GF, Hot Liverpool bridge and a couple vintage SCs, and a gold rolling string tree. Replacing all the hardware and pups is only going to run me 120 or so shipped...so its certainly worth doing so especially if you keep the neck, as it suddenly becomes very reasonable to replace everything w/o the added neck cost.

 

Good luck, keep us posted.

[Burningleaves]

Not sure whats going on in with the neck "buzz". Hard to say without inspecting it in person. If it happens only when you bend then it could just be fretting out. A pro-set up from a good / honest tech might be something to consider.

 

With the pups.... you might consider what the stock pups are not doing for you and take it from there. For example maybe you want more "balls" out of the guitar but still have the single coil tone...or maybe the singles are fine and you want to upgrade just the humbucker.

 

Other electronics.....you mentioned that they are scratchy. Have you tried cleaning them? That might do the trick.

 

 

Question....how thick is the trem block on that guitar? I have seen some of those squires with very thin blocks. Changing it out to a "standard" size block (imo) would def' be a good mod.

 

 

 

If it were mine, I might do something like this...

 

1. Change out just the trem block (if needed) and keep the top half of the trem.

 

2. Throw in a DiMarzio Super distortion pup in the bridge. Lower the two stock single and use them for cleaner tones.

 

3. Clean and or replace the pots.

 

4. Give / get the guitar a pro set-up.

 

5. Change out the tuners (if needed) with some decent locking ones.

[Railfanespee]

Currently, the single coils are useless. The main reason I want a strat is to get some moderate-gain SRV or Clapton tone. I want the strat to be my main blues guitar, so I definitely want to replace the current pups.

Part of what I love about my strat is its beat-up look, so I don't plan on a refinish.

[Burningleaves]

 

Currently, the single coils are useless. The main reason I want a strat is to get some moderate-gain SRV or Clapton tone. I want the strat to be my main blues guitar, so I definitely want to replace the current pups. Part of what I love about my strat is its beat-up look, so I don't plan on a refinish.

 

 

 

 

You could get some of both tones "vibe" wise happening (imo). You could go with a decent bucker in the bridge. That would get you Some decent enough Cream era Clapton tones. It would even get some modern Clapton tones "vibe" wise as Clapton uses an active mid-boost which makes his strat sound anything but vintage strat sounding (imo). The neck and bridge could be used to cover your SRV "vibe tones.

[Railfanespee]

UPDATE-

New strings + a little tweaking the action got rid of the buzzing. (the old strings were between 6 months and a year old).

I can get nice cleans out of the stock pups if I roll the volume back to about halfway, but this kills the sustain when played through my Valvetronix. It also is terrible at holding tune.

My plan is-

*GFS Prewired hss pickguard

*Graphtech nut

*GFS tuners (not sure)

*New GFS bridge (also not sure)

Opinions & reccomendations?

[Artslinger]

 

UPDATE- New strings + a little tweaking the action got rid of the buzzing. (the old strings were between 6 months and a year old). I can get nice cleans out of the stock pups if I roll the volume back to about halfway, but this kills the sustain when played through my Valvetronix. It also is terrible at holding tune. My plan is- *GFS Prewired hss pickguard *Graphtech nut *GFS tuners (not sure) *New GFS bridge (also not sure) Opinions & reccomendations?

 

 

I have an old Lotus Strat clone I bought for 40 bucks about 6 years ago. I finally ordered some parts and they just came in today; GFS Prewired SSS, the Wilkinson Fender-Style Nickel Tuners were backordered so I got the a set of the Nickel vintage Fender copies. I also ordered a jackplate and butterfly trees for the heck of it.

 

I should be getting Lotus back from the Luther (he's just charging me for parts) who finished the frets and fretboard, he also is going to put on a new bridge to straighten everything out, that Lotus bridge is the biggest piece of crap.

 

If when done everything is working and sounding good I may upgrade to higher quality GFS pickups, but I'm not sure I want to put $70 set of pickups into a $40 guitar.