New Fender Suire Bullet, modify???

[Dave N.]

Hey everyone,
I hope all of you are having a good thanksgiving.

On a side note I picked up a fender squire bullet strat at GC for $99.00
It has a basswood body and made in China.

I decided to make this a project guitar and give it to my daughter so she can play her own guitar.

Anyway the neck is maple/ rosewood with med jumbo frets and the paint job is a the cream white. Cool looking guitar, good paint job. After doing the fret leveling I found it played pretty fast, just had to seal the back of the neck with satin polyurathane and add a new logo as I hated that bullet logo.

The neck will get some new Gotoh sealed tuners and I recut the nut to fit better. The guitar needs some work but darn, for a $99.00 dollar guitar this thing plays darn good, with a good set of pups it maybe could be a good stage guitar. I have to say the cheapies are pretty good depending on where made.

heck, I might want to look at another squire just to fix up as a beeter geetar. LOL...

Now I know some of ya'll have done this before so lets hear some comments, good, bad or any...

Thanks

Dave

[Dave N.]

Well… I guess no one likes Fender squire strats...


Here is an update, finished t my daughters strat and it plays really well. I put 8 gauge on to get her to play and get used to it, super easy playing action. The single coil pups are not bad, may change them out later but they will do for now as she learns.

On a side note, I bought another squire strat after doing some testing and found one that plays really well. The MIM standard strats have taken a quality dive as I tried about 7 different ones and they all played pretty darn bad.

The squires strats are hit or miss and you have to try a few to find one that sounds good and feels good with minimal fret issues. I found one that has low action and doesn't fret out so I won't have to do a fret level on it. It’s made in Indonisia so not sure about the wood quality but the body is basswood which I favor in tone.

It has the rail pickups that sound pretty darn good too. gloss black with a almost white, slight green pickguard. Has that strat sound too at $250.00 its a good deal. The only squires I though were any good were the old ones from the mid 80's that were Japan made. After that they went down hill till now thanks to CNC machines. Best bang for the strat buck I could find. This one played as well as the American standard series so I'm happy.


Cheers

[spud1950]

Fender has revamped their Squier line over the last couple of years and come out with some really nice guiatars for the money.They've really upped the quality and features.The one you got with the rail pickups sounds like it's one of these, the Deluxe Hot Rails Strat.

http://www.squierguitars.com/product...tno=0300510506

The new Classic Vibe series is a big hit. Really nice.Going price from from places like Musicians Friend is $299.99.

Here's the '50s Strat. Alnico III pickups!

http://www.squierguitars.com/product...tno=0303000503

Here's the '60s Strat

http://www.squierguitars.com/product...tno=0303010500

The new Bullets are a real popular platform with modders.You can turn them into real nice playing and sounding guitars for little money.Also, check out the Vintage Modified series. Some interesting guitars.

[Dave N.]

Hey Spud,
Yep, that link you posted is the exact guitar I bought. The one thing though that I am unsure of is if the frets are hammered in correctly or if they will come loose and spring up. I found one fret that seems to be a slight bit loose and not sure how to fix it, maybe some super glue...I wonder if I could superglue all the frets, then do a good fret level and never have to worry about frets problems again on the squire neck due to it being made in Indonesia? The neck does suprisingly feel pretty well built. Tall frets too.

The sound of the guitar is really nice, I might want to put on a Warmoth strat conversion neck with jumbo frets to make it an even better guitar. I like the short scale conversion necks feel more like a Gibson but on a strat. I have a Charvel copy with a conversion neck and that guitar smokes...

The bullets are good mod guitars and my Daughter really likes hers after I fixed it up. They are fun to mod on...

Cheers