This was my first big mod project, and figured I would share it with anyone interested...

To start off, I wanted a new guitar with a good single-coil sound, but at the same time, I had the bug to do some modding with coil-splitting-series/parallel. So I visited a Guitar Center, then eventually decided on getting the Squier Telecaster Custom. Let me say, that when I initially got this guitar I was blown away at the quality for $199. After having read the reviews of many of the guys on here, I realized a lot of the squiers are being made pretty well now.

Unmodded review: For the money, this guitar was fantastic with a little setup. The neck is definitely its best point. Very smooth, and very fast. The frets were a tad bit sharp, but after hours of playing they smoothed out enough. The tuners are not the best, and I found that it went a little out of tune after sitting for a while, but expected at the price point. The witchhat knobs seemed a tad bit chinsey, and could come off if u gave them a slight tug. Other than that, everything on the body was great. The pots and switch were solid, the string-thru bridge is excellent, and best of all the pickups sounded great. The sound of this guitar is hard to pin down, because it has a humbucker sound, but at the same time, they are not very warm and retain some of that tele twang (Although not as twangy as a tele standard). Overall, I highly recommend the guitar if you are looking in the $200 range.

The modding: Ok, here is where it gets interested. I realized that with a few upgrades, this guitar could go from "good for the price" to "great all around". So I started with the tuners. I swapped them out for mini Grovers. Went smooth, worked GREAT. The nut was made of a piece of plastic, so I decided that had to go. I bought a Tusq replacement nut made by Graphtech. The nut replacement went pretty smoothly, and was a lot easier than I thought. The new nut fit almost perfectly. Just needed some slight sanding on the sides, and it was smooth with the neck. Next I decided to gut the electronics, and replace everything with american made parts. So I put in 4 CTS pots, switchcraft input and 3-way, orange drop caps, and new wiring. Well let me say, this was a LOT of soldering. And really, it probably wasn't necessary, but I had a lot of time on my hands. Next, I decided that I was going to get new pickups which could be split. I decided on a pair of GFS pickups (FAT PAF's - $60-pair). Let me say, for the money these pickups are GREAT. One word of caution: If you plan to do coil-splitting with them, good luck with the wire colors (the color scheme they give you is all wrong, and required some desoldering and resoldering to get the switches right). I then installed two 3-way mini switches, 1 per pup. I wired them so that the three positions were "Series/Split/Parallel", which I got the schematics for from Seymour Duncan's site. Finally, I put new knobs on the 4 pots, deciding to go with the chrome dome-heads of traditional tele's. I left the original bridge/saddles because they are sturdy. Working on this guitar was a dream, because all of the guts are attached to the pickguard. Just take the pickguard off, and you have a wide-open space to work on whatever you want.

The finished product: After all this work, she needed a setup, really bad. Finally it was finished. Was it worth all the work? ABSOLUTELLY! Not only did I have fun working on it, it sounds fantastic, and is extremely versatile. Played with single coil, it sounds pretty close to a tele standard. Played with full humbuckers, it gets a unique sound. Combine the two? even more unique, and very full sounding. Plugging it into my Vox it can do anything, from clean twang to bluesy single coil sound, to dirty full-out classic rock and beyond. And the quality of it now is superb. Stays in tune for days, and everything is solid. Squier guitars definitely are a great place to start for modding projects.

Well, back to playing...

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