Guitar Nerds Anonymous

That's looking great - pretty much everything on that ticks a box on my 'best looking strat' list.

Heh thanks! Yeah, well great minds. It may be cheap-ish but that doesn’t mean I can’t make it look hawt. Can’t wait to play some Radio City tunes on it.

Is it the Squier CV pickups you’re going to be using in it?

Yeah that's a CV loaded pickguard I got from out dear departed @>>>>>.

Gonna give it a go and see if the platform deserves an electrical upgrade. It's been a long time since I owned a Strat. The last (and first) one I owned I bought on credit in 1995 when I was leaving school and heading off to who knows what. Turns out that was crappy bar jobs, a crappy degree from a crappy uni and most of a decade bumming round London doing bike-related odd jobs. It was one of the very first Mex ones and although bigged up in the gear press at the time, weighted a ton, had an inch thick poly finish and crappy ceramic pickups. It was my only guitar till I maxed out a credit card on a s/h USA tele in 2001 and joined a band. My cousin still has it. Toyed with the idea of buying it back. I may yet. Nostalgia and all that.

Also, I know this it totally perverse but I really want a three way switch in this thing. I've grown to loathe the in-betweeners.

bone apple tea

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9yswswxCuw

^there goes my afternoon.

Noooo!
2 and 4 are the best, just stay away from chorus and country.

Love these!

STOP THE TRAIN!

Ok, am filling time while the Crapocaster cures by cleaning up the dump-rescue Squier Showmaster. Electrics and mechanicals are all good. Frets are good to but will give them a polish. Fingerboard oil/stain arriving tomorrow. I'm going to remove the neck and middle PUs to turn it into a one-pickup widdle rawk blaster. I'm going to have a crack at making a custom pickguard to cover the cavities. I've narrowed it down to two colours from here: Yellow/Black Tiger or 4-Ply Pink. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/112608337918

General idea shown here with an old tele guard balanced over the offending apertures.

What do we reckon?

1 Attachment

Yellow/black tiger all day.

It would go better with the rug.

I'd totally watch Rug Rundown.

Ah cool. Nice one. I'll have a look now. Cheers.

Did you know that particular seller routs and bevels guards at really quite a nice price if you send him the old one as a template? You can easily ask him to leave out a couple of pickup holes. In my limited experience, trying for a properly neat job at home with fretsaw, files and sandpaper is low on fun.

I didn’t! The issue is that I don’t have an original pickguard. There isn’t one. Whatever I do will be custom. I was going to make a paper template using a tele guard (which works great for about half of what I need) plus some extra bits drawn with a french curve then have ago at cutting it out with a dremmel. Folly you reckon?

No no you'll be fine.

If it looks shit, you have my full permission to say you told me so.

In case anyone is interested - we (mostly @rodan :) ) have started to make the guitar that @Sheppz designed. There's a thread for it over here:

https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/378507/

Awesome. Subbed.

Ace.

I think as long as you can bevel the edge it'll be fine, if not get a single ply guard I think

In other news, a bit of detective work reveals the Strat I was sold as an early 80s USA by a scheister who took advantage of a naive 20-year-old is, in fact, an early 1983 JV '57 Squier Stratocaster. So I'm going to remove the now-obviously-dodgy headstock decals that pulled the wool over my eyes all those years ago and replace them with the right ones (as in the picture below).

The irony is, it's probably just as good as the ones Fender were putting out from the US at the time if not better. US-made alnico pickups, cloth covered pickup wires, 250k pots, green 0.1uF ceramic capcitor, Gotoh Kluson-style tuners, etc. The more I read about them, the less disappointed I am.

Awesome! Love the Squire love.