Squier Vs. Fender Bodies

[weaponepsilon]

Hey all, I have an old Squier P bass body on hand and I am about to turn a project out of it. I was speaking with a fellow bassist (who got me a badass3 bridge) and he told me that Squier bodies were just muttwood or basswood. After a little research, the manufacturer claims they use Alder, which should be used as the same base model for Fender bodies. So, who am I to believe, the Fender purist or the Squier website?

[RGman]

Some are Alder, some are Agathis.

[crafty]

It really depends on when and where it was made and by which vendor.

[leeranya]

yeah. my brother's squier jazz bass is agathis, for example.

edit: changed from basswood to agathis. don't know what I was thinking

Edited March 17, 2007 by leeranya

[WezV]

there is a difference in the number of peices of wood used to make the body. American fenders tend to be 2-3 peice depending on finish. the mexicans are more like 3-5 and the squires are how ever many it takes

[Samba Pa Ti]

ive had a couple of squires and they are both different, i had a strat which was made of plywood glued together (horrid guitar) and a Fat tele that was a solid piece (maybe made of 2 pieces) i think it just comes down to price, the strat was only £50 whilst the tele was £140

[weaponepsilon]

This is an Affinity series P bass body, so who knows. I got it in a parts aquisition along with a bad neck, a good allparts neck, and an arbor bass body. I strung up the arbor bass and found that aside from the chipped body paint it just needed its frets leveled. I figured I could fit the allparts neck to the squier body since the body was still good. The body looks solid and there doesn't appear to be any of the telltale lines across the back to show it more than one piece.

[Odin]

is a two piece body better than a five piece? if so..maybe someone should tell Alembic and Carl Thompson

Edited March 18, 2007 by Odin

[WezV]

is a two piece body better than a five piece? if so..maybe someone should tell Alembic and Carl Thompson

Indeed - my current bass project is being made out of about 12 pieces of wood for the body and i have no qualms about it sounding bad. But then i am starting with the highest quality of wood i can find. Do you think squier, or even fender, are so picky?

Look at it from a fenders price point of view, to make 2 piece bodies you need larger body blanks which cost more. If you want to build a cheaper guitar you can use a lot of small pieces of wood glued together to make a body blank. Whether that sounds good or not is possibly not affected too much by the number of pieces but more by the quality of wood you started with. Personally i feel its a combination of all the factors which make a squier cheaper to produce. The few squiers i have stripped have had 4-7 piece bodies of low quality wood that could have been alder. the ones with fewer pieces of wood seem to be the older early 90's models.

The body looks solid and there doesn't appear to be any of the telltale lines across the back to show it more than one piece.

It will be more than one piece. the finishes on these things are so thick you wont see any tell-tale lines at all. not to mention the fact some companies are vennering the front and backs of there body blanks so they can use multi-piece bodies for sunburst finishes

[weaponepsilon]

" The few squiers i have stripped have had 4-7 piece bodies of low quality wood that could have been alder. the ones with fewer pieces of wood seem to be the older early 90's models."

The website (if you can believe them) state that the Affinities are solid alder. Not sure beyond that. I mean, I could buy a maple or ash repro/copy body off of ebay for $50, but why?

I was more just wonding if it was jsut a bad idea to use a perfectly good albeit Squier P body.

[Mickguard]

I was more just wonding if it was jsut a bad idea to use a perfectly good albeit Squier P body.

I think the real issue in the number of pieces of wood involved is in whether you want the finish to show the wood or not, and whether you like the look of multiple wood pieces or prefer a one-piece or at most two-piece look.

If you're planning on painting the guitar a solid color, then I find it hard to believe that whether it has two pieces or five pieces is going to change all that much in the grand scheme of things. But yeah, you'll at least want those pieces to be the species of wood that you want.

On the other hand, if you're looking to show the wood grain, then you're going to want to move up to higher-quality, higher-priced body wood. I do believe a lot of the price and grading of a body blank has to do with how good it looks. (I might be wrong about this)

It would seem to me though that it's a good thing to have your neck, bridge and pickups all attached to the same piece of wood --so it would make sense to have an odd number of pieces so that there's at least a central column. But that's just conjecture.

[DrummerDude]

I've heard that pretty often Squiers have a completely differnent routing for the pickups and the electronics than Fenders.

Some guy said that Squier pickguards do not match Fenders and that parts are often impossible to switch between the two due to the different body routing.

I don't know if this is true but you should consider thsese possibilities and do a research before buying parts for your project.

[marksound]

I've heard that pretty often Squiers have a completely differnent routing for the pickups and the electronics than Fenders.

Some guy said that Squier pickguards do not match Fenders and that parts are often impossible to switch between the two due to the different body routing.

I don't know if this is true but you should consider thsese possibilities and do a research before buying parts for your project.

I've heard a lot of those same things--from people who are afraid of anything sharper than a donut. If all the holes don't line up perfectly they can't be bothered. And forget handfitting anything.

Seriously, I've put together several guitars from mismatched parts that get played a lot more than any of my storebought ones. Ain't nothing but a thang.

[Jon]

Some guy said that Squier pickguards do not match Fenders and that parts are often impossible to switch between the two due to the different body routing.

Quite positive this is all true.

[Jon]

Seriously, I've put together several guitars from mismatched parts that get played a lot more than any of my storebought ones. Ain't nothing but a thang.

And I couldn't agree more. I need to get pictures of a guitar the guitarist in my band plays, the best of all worlds with a few cool touches to it. Sounds amazing as well.

[DrummerDude]

So, it seems that people who buy Squiers are not getting the desired "Fender copy" but just a visual approximation.

I have also heard that unlike Squier (which are Fender's puppy), other cheap brands like Stagg (that are not associated with Fender) actually DO build exact Fender copies with matching pickguards, routing and all (that excludes the headstock, of course).

[Mickguard]

Some guy said that Squier pickguards do not match Fenders and that parts are often impossible to switch between the two due to the different body routing.

I don't believe there is any 'true' Fender routing --they've changed things around so much over the years, that there's no way you can say one way of routing or screwing in a pickguard is more 'right' than any other.

From what I've gathered, all of the various Fender types ---Squier, MIA, MIM, MIJ, Highway 1, not to mention the various reissue models--are subtly or overtly different from one another.

In the case of the Squiers and at least the MIM Standards, the guitars are slightly smaller than the MIA versions. The difference is pretty small, but if you've ever compared an MIM neck to the equivalent MIA neck, the difference is noticeable. I like the narrower, thinner MIM tele neck I have a lot. I recall reading that an MIM guitar will be 7/8ths the size of the equivalent MIA, but maybe they were talking about Squiers, or both.

As far as the actual pickup placement goes, well, I do believe that's pretty much standard, even if Fender has had different ways of routing for that over the years. But a pickguard is going to be different according to the slightly smaller Squier body and neck, or the slightly longer MIA neck, etc, or just because one Fender has an 8-screw design, another has 11 or 14 screws or whatever. Minor differences that anyway get hidden once the pickguard is on.

The biggest issue is fitting the neck to the pocket, so that it comes out at the proper saddle height and the saddles can be positioned so that the guitar intonates. And you also need to make sure the bridge matches the neck. It's really difficult to get an MIA spec bridge and its wider string spacing to work with the narrower MIM neck (experience speaking). Similarly, the poles on the MIA tele bridge pickup I have are spaced slightly wider than the MIM tele bridge pickup I have (but not so much that they're not interchangeable...it's barely noticeable).

You get the idea.

My tele, by the way, started out as a Stagg copy. It's three-piece alder, lightweight but not as lightweight as the other tele copy I bought. The grain's nice enough to show too.

[ryema22]

As far as Squier's having different routing or pickguard mounting holes, I just bought a used Squier Affinity P-Bass to mess around with (i hadn't played bass before) and replaced the scratched up single ply pickguard with a Fender w/b/w one. Everything lined up fine, the only problem was the Squier pickups were slightly larger than the hole in the fender pickguard. 2 minutes with a file and some sandpaper and it was fine.

As for the body woods and overall quality, i believe it ranges from bullet to affinity and then to standard/deluxe models (the latter being of highest quality). The standard models are closest in quality to actual fender, using ~3 piece bodies with nice grain and good hardware. The affinity models as far as I know only come in solid colors and I have to think that's probably because they used uglier pieces of wood. But as long as you want a solid finish I see no problem with mating the neck you have to the P-bass body

[weaponepsilon]

It is going to be a the aforementioned Squier Affinity P bass body in black (minor dings and chips) with an Allparts replacement neck, Ibanez lo-z Active p pickups, possibly an EMG gain equalizer, BadAss 3 bridge and 3 ply black pickguard. I am not overly concerned with pieces not fitting well (except the neck and body with do fit) since I paid more for the sum of the parts than the actual body. If the screw holes don't alighn, drill time. The only things so far that I've noticed is that sotck Fender pickguards have 13 holes and the Squiers have 14.

[marksound]

Wow.

This pickguard fits MIA, MIM Standard, MIJ, MIK, Squier Affinity (with standard bridge cutout), etc. Check screw hole location as that is the only difference.

Same goes for Mighty Mite and probably every other pickguard manufacturer. I've used Fender, MF, MM, and several no-name guards on Fenders, Squiers, and who-knows-what ebay bodies and I've only ever had to relocate a couple of holes. Otherwise, no problem. Seriously, if you just look at what you're buying before you buy it any differences should be painfully obvious. Exceptions include Bullet series without cutout for the bridge, Mini series, etc. Again, painfully obvious.

[crafty]

I've never had a problem switching pickguards between MIA, MIM, and CIJ Fenders.

There is also absolutely zero size difference between a MIM and MIA guitar. They're shaped and routed on the same machines in Corona. The Squier Affinity line guitars have a slightly thinner body, but the silhouette is the same dimension.

[marksound]

I've never had a problem switching pickguards between MIA, MIM, and CIJ Fenders.

There is also absolutely zero size difference between a MIM and MIA guitar. They're shaped and routed on the same machines in Corona. The Squier Affinity line guitars have a slightly thinner body, but the silhouette is the same dimension.

THANK YOU.

There is a lot of mis/disinformation in this thread about Fenders and their Squier cousins. There ain't that much difference.

[weaponepsilon]

I wish you could tag that on to those guys on ebay who scream "check out the number of holes on your guitar! This is only for RI '62's and FENDER. Genuine parts, $35."

I grabbed a check pickguard for under $20 s/h included and black/white/black 3 ply. I wasn't inclined to pay more than $20 for a pickguard.

[crafty]

Yeah, now, every pickguard IS going to need a little tweaking, whether it be drilling new hole locations or filing around the neck pocket, bridge or pickup holes to get a perfect fit, but for the most part they're all compatible.

[marksound]

Figures it'd take a couple of damn Okies to wade through the crap.