Squier Upgrade at DIY Fever

Squier Upgrade

Background

This is my first guitar ever – still remember butterflies in my stomach the day I got it . At the beginning it was fine because I didn’t know better. After I got my second guitar (and then third) I never really got to play it because it was just much worse than the others. I wouldn’t get much money for it even if I sold it, but it’s hard to part with the first guitar anyways.

The most annoying thing about stock Squier are it’s pickups – low output, very muddy, without any definition and clarity and also very noisy. Potentiometers turned scratchy after a while and switch was probably not the best there is. Like many other Strats, this one developed twisted neck after few years. Nothing serious, but enough to make it less comfortable to play. Also, standard 6 screw tremolo is not usable at all. One sligh touch of the tremolo bar makes it go out of tune. Since I already have two guitars with Floyd Rose and I don’t really like Strat trems (or compatible aftermarket upgrade tremolos) I decided to tighten tremolo springs and use it as a fixed bridge. For any tremolo work I still have my other guitars.

I got a really good deal on two Kinman pickups: AVn-62 for bridge and AVn-59 for neck, got new alpha pots and OAK three-position switch. Also, auto-locking Grover Mini Rotomatic tuners were a bargain, so whole upgrade cost me less than 50€ including shipping! Those auto-locking tuners are interesting little buggers. When installing new string first few turns of tuner peg will lock string in place and only after that tuner actually starts to rotate.

Few words on wiring: it features three position switch, one volume and two tone pots. I left old middle pickup in just for cosmetic purposes but it’s not connected at all. First switch position selects first pickup, third position is neck pickup and middle position turns both pickups on. There are separate tone controls for bridge and neck pickups (something like Les Paul without separate volume pots).