thedustroom's Squier Music Gear Setup

This is my first guitar, of my own at least.

It started life as a year 2000 Squier Affinity Stratocaster.

It was given to me by my brother well over ten years ago, probably about 15 years ago come to think of it. It’s been hardly used, by me at least and has moved in its gig bag from numerous houses, kept in attics and garages. All over the place, and certainly places you shouldn’t keep a guitar.

Having got back into playing guitar a few years ago with my acoustic, I decided to revive it. Surprisingly it was still in really good shape, albeit dirty and a bit rusty here and there.

The pots crackled and crunched even before plugging it in and the pickups looked very tired. Everything did really, it wasn’t a pretty sight.

I didn’t like the look of the plain white pick guard and white pickups against the Tobacco Burst so decided to give it a big overhaul.

I’ve never been a fan of the colour to be honest but I saw a picture of a vintage Fender Stratocaster in similar Tobacco Burst with black pick guard and hardware which looked really good so I decided to emulate this look, as well as hopefully the sound.

New three ply pick guard, genuine Fender knobs, new Fender saddles, classic Fender string trees and a Fender neck plate, genuine Fender 5 way switch, CTS pots, quality capacitor and new strings but the pickup choice was tough.

I wanted a nice looking, vintage style strat. One a bit more Fender quality than Squire Affinity Series.

I eventually settled on Ironstone Vintage Strat Pickups Hybrid Alnico V based on reviews and a few sound files I listened to. The price was also great.

The fingerboard was cleaned and oiled, the frets carefully sanded and filed where necessary and the whole guitar was given a good clean and polish.

Having shielded the cavity with copper tape, everything was fitted, rewired then with a new set of Ernie Ball Slinky strings on; the guitar was setup properly.

I’ve never been a fan of the tremolo to be honest so I hard tail modified the bridge by tightening the springs and wedging the block firmly with a choice piece of wood.

The guitar has been transformed, the tuning is stable and it sounds absolutely fabulous.

This is the first guitar I’ve ever taken apart and worked on; I’ve loved every minute of it and am really happy, and a little surprised to be honest with the result.

I have a vintage ashtray to fit at some point with a little modification. Just because.

I’ve gone from not really caring about this guitar to loving it.

So glad I still have it and that it’s has some love. I’ll never part with this guitar.