I modded my Squier 51

[elavd]

Today I modded my Squier 51!!

I bought some stuff from GuitarFetish and I did the following mods:

1) Changed the white pickguard to a tortoise shell one:





2) I put the Dream 90 bridge pickup and the Fatbody Oversized Polepiece Tele Neck Pickup:

3) I've changed the tuners with the Wilkinson Vintage style ones:






(I had replaced the decal to a "Fender Fiftyone" some time ago...)

4) I put a concentric pot. Now I have have both volume and tone controls


5) I replaced the rotary switch to a cheap 3-way switch. In a few days I will put a Les Paul type one because this one is very bad...


My first impressions from the Pickups are VERY GOOD. I liked very much the neck pickup because it sounds like a tele but with its own personality (it has also some strat-ish sound in it). The Dream 90 sounds like a dark single coil pup, or a bright humbucker one (I have no experience up to now with p90s, but I guess that's how they are supposed to sound...)

The tone control is very useful! You can achieve a very good jazzy tone from both pups, by cutting it.
I experimented with the capacitor value and found that a .033 one was the best for my taste...

The volume pot works now much better than the cheap stock one and has a longer usefull range.

The tuners feel more stable, but I was dissapointed by the fact that although they are vintage styled, the strings is not coming in the tuner from above, but from the side...

The pickguard is not 100% the same as the stock one is shape, but it fits the body perfectly. 3 of the pickguard holes didn't line up with the ones on the body, so I had to make 3 new holes (very easy...I didn't have to drill the body, as the basswood is very soft wood).

One of these days I'll record some clips to hear my modded beauty