New Guitar From A Mess

[Jack Black]

First of all this is my first post, although I enjoy reading this forums for a while now, so Hi!

Well I finally got the nerve to do some diy on my own. I have laying around here my first guitar which is a Squier Stagemaster Deluxe HSH. The body seems quite solid and is in alder and is reasonably heavy, so I'd guess it's not as bad as one would suppose. It has a Floyd Rose trem though which I don't particularly use and don't like the cut in sustain, it has a single coil pickup between the two hambuckers which I actually don't use, the neck although not being totally bad could be better and I really dislike the headstock.

That being said, I had two options for this guitar, sell it for 100$ (not worth much more than that) or use the body to a science project...

What I have in mind, would be filling the trem cavity and single coil cavity, thus converting it to a fixed bridge (maybe string through) with two humbuckers. As to the neck I was considering buying a custom neck from Warmoth or something like that. Put in some EMG's (probably 81 bridge and 60 neck), some good locking tuners and I should get a mean machine.

Is this doable? Is the body even worth the trouble?

Thanks!

[Daniel Sorbera]

Basically your keeping the tuners and the body wood, both of which are rubbish on that guitar.

If you plan on doing that extensive of work I say build a new body as well. Now if you just wanted to put in some new pickups and maybe fill the single coil and call it a day that would be a different story.

[soapbarstrat]

I would hide in the bushes on ebay for a while, see if the kind of body I want shows up. Would be nice to be able to sell the body I didn't like without having to give a whole story like "well, I wanted to try to fill some places and it didn't go as planned, etc etc".

I think patching floyd bridge recess routs is just crossing the line a little too far. Can be done, but doesn't seem justified unless you've been catapulted to Mars or something. Same with plugging a pickup cavity right there where it will catch the eye right away if not done right, or becomes more obvious later from shrinking, etc.

Now, plugging a stock trem rectangle hole is not so bad, and I did just that on my favorite strat. Works especially well if a couple mounting screws on your hard-tail bridge are out of the plugged zone.

[avengers63]

Alder isn't a bad wood. It's very commonly used. Seeing that it's on a Squire, you can bet they weren't too picky with the quality of wood, though.

Not being mean here: Here's what a dude told me when I was wanting to "fix up" a cheap axe I had. "You can't polish a turd." You'll have poured a lot of time & money into a project and still have a poor quality item. The basic building blocks have to be there or the foundation will crumble.

[Daniel Sorbera]

Alder isn't a bad wood. It's very commonly used. Seeing that it's on a Squire, you can bet they weren't too picky with the quality of wood, though.

The problem is sometimes they are made out of ply, particle board, or many (12 or more) pieces of alder with poor glue joints.

So while it may actually be alder, I would still suggest building a new one if he is going through the trouble of changing everything else about the guitar.

[Jack Black]

Basically your keeping the tuners and the body wood, both of which are rubbish on that guitar.

If you plan on doing that extensive of work I say build a new body as well. Now if you just wanted to put in some new pickups and maybe fill the single coil and call it a day that would be a different story.

Thanks for the input guys. After reading some stuff and your replies I've done some thinking and maybe I'll fill the single coil cavity, refinish the guitar, put some EMGs on it and save my time and money to build a custom new guitar from scratch...

[father son]

i personaly would sell it for the $100 and then use that money to build the custom and be able to invest a little more into it.

That's just me.

[urbansmurf]

Since this is your first project, and your first guitar, I think you should go for whatever you want. 100$ isn't going to get you far enough into a full custom to justify selling your first guitar. My first is a Peavey Raptor, not a nice axe at all, but the sentimental value won't let me sell it.

Rather than spend hundreds on an entirely handmade guitar, I would just put a little money into your Squier and make it as nice as possible. That way you're starting small, project wise, and you'll get a good feel for how guitar-building is. It's easy to get in over your head by jumping into a big project. Plus, if you do end up jacking it up, it's just a 100$ Squier and not a custom that you spend weeks and hundreds of dollars on.

That's just my 2 cents though, do whatever you want, but it makes sense to me to work with the stuff you've got.

If you do end up taking my advice, I've filled Floyd cavities before and put string through T-o-M setups in, so I can give you a little advice on how to do it, and there is also a good tutorial on the Project Guitar Tutorials section on filling trem cavities.

[X1TX]

I'd say go for it and mod it the way you want. Better to learn on something that doesn't have a lot of value and make your mistakes with it. If you mess up, you've learned a lesson for only $100. If you start out right off the bat scratch building a custom, it could be a much more expensive lesson. I've puttered around with a few cheap guitars, made some mistakes, and will likely make a few more before I dive in and start cutting away at a truly beautiful (and expen$ive) piece of wood. Best to learn on something you don't mind messing up.

But that's just MO.

[urbansmurf]

My thoughts exactly.

[djhollowman]

Since this is your first project, and your first guitar, I think you should go for whatever you want. 100$ isn't going to get you far enough into a full custom to justify selling your first guitar. My first is a Peavey Raptor, not a nice axe at all, but the sentimental value won't let me sell it.

Rather than spend hundreds on an entirely handmade guitar, I would just put a little money into your Squier and make it as nice as possible. That way you're starting small, project wise, and you'll get a good feel for how guitar-building is. It's easy to get in over your head by jumping into a big project. Plus, if you do end up jacking it up, it's just a 100$ Squier and not a custom that you spend weeks and hundreds of dollars on.

That's just my 2 cents though, do whatever you want, but it makes sense to me to work with the stuff you've got.

If you do end up taking my advice, I've filled Floyd cavities before and put string through T-o-M setups in, so I can give you a little advice on how to do it, and there is also a good tutorial on the Project Guitar Tutorials section on filling trem cavities.

I'd say go for it and mod it the way you want. Better to learn on something that doesn't have a lot of value and make your mistakes with it. If you mess up, you've learned a lesson for only $100. If you start out right off the bat scratch building a custom, it could be a much more expensive lesson. I've puttered around with a few cheap guitars, made some mistakes, and will likely make a few more before I dive in and start cutting away at a truly beautiful (and expen$ive) piece of wood. Best to learn on something you don't mind messing up.

But that's just MO.

+1 to these thoughts.

Sensible advice I'd say!

"Doable"?: Definately!

"Worth the trouble"?: Well, that's the BIG question here!

IHMO: yes! (but, in purely financial terms, no!) OK you could just go out and buy something close to what you're trying to make, it would certainly be easier! But, ask yourself, "Why am I posting questions on Project Guitar then?". I reckon the answer is because you've already been bitten by the bug!! Can you put a price on the satisfaction you get from knowing that you did the work yourself?

I started the same way (don't we all??); tinkering around here'n'there with setups and truss rod adjustment etc; gradually working up to swapping and upgrading components, replacing pickups, sockets, tuners etc; then I decided to tackle trying to retrofit a Floyd into a body which used to have a Strat-style fulcrum trem (which went really well!); now I'm almost done with my first ground-up build! I'm always on a budget, so anything I can learn from working on a cheap instrument is good. And, importantly, I've learned a MASSIVE amount from my first build - in fact, I (only semi)joke that the most valuable notes I've written during my first build is the page entitled "Lessons Learned/Mistake Made" I kid you not! I reckon I've saved myself a bundle of cash doing things this way as well. It's also made me much more confident about what kinds of tasks I can accomplish!!

Also, bear in mind that you sometimes need to handle cheap stuff to be able to then appreciate better quality!!

The main thing is to enjoy yourself, and that's what I'm doing!

Just my "2 cents" as they say!

DJ

Edited April 19, 2008 by djhollowman

[Malakai]

First map out how much you want to spend on upgrading it. (New neck? Min $100-200, Tuners? $26-100, Pickups? $150, Refinishing supplies? $100-200, Consider a new Nut since the squier is plastic, $10-50)

At this point we're looking at putting $400+ on a Squier. No one recommends this. But I say go for it if you have it.

www.guitarfetish.com is the best place for cheap but quality upgrades.

For the price you could get a much better made guitar used. Then plan on upgrading that instead. Course theres a big difference between buying parts slowly and buying something all at once. As for selling and building a custom for $100ish... Not going to happen unless you go Saga kit. And it would probably compare alot to the Squier.

My tips :

1: Don't throw away any parts, even if they're rubbish. Just because you put in new expensive pickups doesn't mean that they have to live in that guitar forever. What if you get a better axe down the road and want to move the pickups over? You could de-mod the squier and upgrade the new axe for no extra money. I know alot of people that put emg's on everything, they have 15 yr old guitars that they never play anymore but sure enough it has EMG's on it. Each time they get a new guitar they buy a new set of EMG's. Talk about wastefull

2: Buy from Guitarfetish to save cash. Don't go for the top of the line stuff. You don't need 200 dollar tuners on a $100 dollar guitar. It's just silly.

3: Start off slow. If you get frustrated doing something, put it down and walk away. Come back to it later. Trying to finish it quickly will cause more harm than good.

4: Read, read, read, read, Take notes. Then when you get to work understand that all the reading in the world doesn't compare to actual hands on practice.

5: Don't be afraid to fail. You only truly fail when you give up and never go back to it.

6: Don't let other people talk you into more expensive routes. Wan't to upgrade your Squier? Go ahead. It'll never be a True Fender but who cares. When it comes down to it theres not much difference. If you were to upgrade all electronics and hardware on a Squier, and on a Fender. Then cut the headstock to be the same and re decal the squier. No one will be able to tell the difference. Hell upgrade the Squier to Fender parts and cut the headstock. Some can tell by playing on the neck. But the difference in the body will be minimal. Better wood grade(Which doesn't matter if it's a solid color) and tighter tolerances in routing. I actually like my Squier's neck more than any fender I've picked up.

7: Have fun.

Here's my modded Squier. It originally had a cream pickguard/tone knobs/pickups. All upgrades are from GuitarFetish. I've added roller saddles. Black Pickguard, 17 combonation switch setup. killswitch, GFS Lil killer Rail pickups, Dunlop Straplock, and a Tremol-no.

My next mods for it are locking tuners($28), wilkonson Tremolo($50), Black hardware, Roller Trees, Graphtech nut, Push\Pull Tone knobs, Overdrive Circuitry. And i'm going to convert it into a fat strat.

Edited April 19, 2008 by Malakai