Upgrading a Squire Strat

[Jivin]

Hi All,

I had a topic a little while ago, where I was asking about the quality of Squire Strats since I was looking at one second hand... well I did end up buying it, and I have to say for my first s/s/s strat guitar, i'm very happy! Thankfully, the body isn't plywood, and appears to be a 3-peice job; maybe agathis? Anyway, more importantly, i love the feel of it, and the oversized headstock is just plain cool i think

So anyway, as I said, im gonna upgrade some (read most, cause i love spending money ), of the hardware on it to get it looking and sounding a bit more like I want, but im not quite sure on a few things:

1. Compared to the usual squire 6 mounting screw trems, what is the quality of the traditional strat trems from Stewmac? ( http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Bridges,_tailp..._for_Strat.html )

Im asking because getting an authentic fender gold strat trem is $120US, as oposed to the 60 or so for the stewmac one. I know you probably get what you pay for, but is the fender one worth twice hte money?

2. Im gonna try out a set of Kent Armstrong Texas Vintage pickups from WD Music, and while im installing them I plan on neatning everything up and testing out a baseplate 'plug'n'play' system im working on, but im wondering if on these squires is it ideal to replace stuff like the input jack barrel? or if i just give the threads a drop of locktight and tighten it up should i be right? Same goes with the pots and pickup switch... are they alright on the squires usually after a clean?

3. Does anyone have any opinions on these guys - http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tuners/Guitar,...nob_Tuners.html? Ive generally been pretty satisfied with the quality of gotoh aftermarket stuff, but ive never used these.

Sorry for the long post!

Thanks in advance people,

- Dan

Edited September 1, 2004 by Jivin

[Lex Luthier]

1. Compared to the usual squire 6 mounting screw trems, what is the quality of the traditional strat trems from Stewmac? ( http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Bridges,_tailp..._for_Strat.html )

Im asking because getting an authentic fender gold strat trem is $120US, as oposed to the 60 or so for the stewmac one. I know you probably get what you pay for, but is the fender one worth twice hte money?

I doubt the Fender one is worth $120 - you probably pay the extra $60 for the saddles to say 'FENDER', I'm betting.

2. Im gonna try out a set of Kent Armstrong Texas Vintage pickups from WD Music, and while im installing them I plan on neatning everything up and testing out a baseplate 'plug'n'play' system im working on, but im wondering if on these squires is it ideal to replace stuff like the input jack barrel? or if i just give the threads a drop of locktight and tighten it up should i be right? Same goes with the pots and pickup switch... are they alright on the squires usually after a clean?

I don't know about the jack, but I bet the pots are the small kind, which don't last as long as the larger ones because they have a smaller sweeper.

3. Does anyone have any opinions on these guys - http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tuners/Guitar,...nob_Tuners.html? Ive generally been pretty satisfied with the quality of gotoh aftermarket stuff, but ive never used these.

I was gonna put those on my American Strat, but I don't care about upgrading it anymore, though I think those would be fine tuning machines.

[Devon Headen]

The Squier pots aren't good. I had 2 scratchy pots within a couple've months.