Squier '51 roll-call

Hey, put a capo on the 5th fret and let her have a go at it :lol:

Just got back in town and mine are here: One black and one in 'burst. They look very good and play nicely. I may start by converting one to string-thru-body. Since I have two, I can do a comparo to see if anything changes.

If I didn't have more than enough guitars, I'd lay my money down too.

... (13 hours passing)

I didn't walk out of there empty handed though. Picked up an ESP LTD M-252 with a Floyd Rose and Duncan Designed pickups for about $150 used.

That's the attitude! LOL!

Congrats on new guitar then!!

lars

Yeah, I'm a model of self control. :oops:

I drove over the the local GC today to see what all the hub-bub was about. They had already sold out. I had planned on trading in my starter guitar with a faulty switch and plug-in towards it. Oh well.

I didn't walk out of there empty handed though. Picked up an ESP LTD M-252 with a Floyd Rose and Duncan Designed pickups for about $150 used. I guess my 12-string purchase will have to wait....

Park, you can't drop a bombshell like that and not supply a picture!

I installed my upgrades last night. I ordered all of the parts form Guitar Fetish.com: GFS bridge, GFS Fat PAF humbucker, GFS 5.25K strat single coil and Wilkinson EZ-Lok tuners. I was going to install a cream pickup cover on the single coil, but the black looked better (IMO).

After I installed the new hardware, I gave it a complete set-up and installed 10 gauge strings. I set the intonation and lowered the action. I cleaned up the nut slots too. It plays smooth (the action is nice and low) stays in tune and sounds great..

I made one mistake on my wiring job. I soldered the wires for the humbucker to the wrong spot (hey, it was late at night - LOL). Therefore, I don't have coil splitting. I'm going to re-wire it later today (it should be a quick fix). I also plan to experiment with the pickup height.

I also had a string mishap. I broke my new A string tuning it up. It was 1:00 AM and I didn't have another set of 10's laying around. I installed an A string from a set of 9's (.032 vs. .036). I honestly can't tell the difference when I play.

Here's the pictures (I'm not a photographer, sorry about the poor picure quality):

Baldwin, your daughter is a real cutie. Maybe the next Joan Jett. :D

I've been playing mine for hours several days now. I really like it too, and mine is starting to stay in tune very well. I think the strings just had to stretch out.

With a tuner I found the intonation off, had to move each saddle back about 1/8 to 3/16". I also lowered the action. Now it plays super fast with dead low action and no fret buzz anywhere. It sounds great in tune up and down the neck.

Lowering the action brings a little more out of the pickups. The neck pickup is still weaker than the bridge, but not quite as noticeable now.

This guitar has a lot of Tele tone. Since you can't adjust the tone I used an EQ pedal, slightly boosted the lows and cut the highs some. You can get some pretty heavy distortion with the bridge pickup through a pedal, nice and tight sounding too. I like the neck pickup as well, not so good with distortion, but very nice for clean guitar, warm and acoustic like.

This is a great Blues guitar played clean, but it can Rock too. 8)

Oh yeah, man does the fretboard stain easy. Mine already looks like it is several years old. The strings must have been pretty old on mine, all my fingertips turned black playing it and rubbed off on the fretboard. But I like this look.

Hudman, good job on the upgrades. I really like the look of the cream/black bridge pickup. 8)

Dan

Hudman, good job on the upgrades. I really like the look of the cream/black bridge pickup. 8)

Dan

Thanks!

I fixed my wiring mistake. The coil tapping is working.

I can't say enough good stuff about the pickups. Guitar Fetish makes some really nice pickups for the money. The single coil gets a great traditional strat tone while the PAF humbucker gets the big classic rock / metal tone (sounds great on Van Halen tunes).

Hey Hudman,

That 51 looks great. How is the quality on the GFS bridge, did you notice any difference between it and the stock bridge? DO you like the WIlkenson Tuners??

Your upgrades looked almost exactly like what I was gonna get. Although I proabably wont get new tuners just yet, I have a spare set of MIMs.

Hey Hudman,

That 51 looks great. How is the quality on the GFS bridge, did you notice any difference between it and the stock bridge? DO you like the WIlkenson Tuners??

Your upgrades looked almost exactly like what I was gonna get. Although I proabably wont get new tuners just yet, I have a spare set of MIMs.

Thanks!

The GFS bridge is a lot easier to change strings on. It's a better design. The adjustment screws on the saddles are higher quality too.

The Wilkinson tuners are better than the stock tuners. The Wilkinsons are not in the same class as Sperzels or Schaller locking tuners. But hey, the Wilkinsons only cost $26.00 vs. the apprx. $60.00 + the Sperzels or Schallers would cost.

Your MIM tuners are probably a nice upgrade over the stock tuners and are most likely equal to the Wilkinson tuners I bought. I wouldn't bother buying locking tuners unless you are willing to buy premium tuners.

I'm loving the GFS pickups.

I really shouldn't have read this thread, because now I want one preeetty badly.

I may get this for a new guitar, seeing as I've had the same one for two years...

I was planning on getting something a little more expensive but this seems to hit all the buttons, so I'll look into them :)

I want one so bad! All the money I get goes towards getting an Epi LP Jr. 57 reissue though.

ive been saving up my pocket change for sometime now and think this is gonna be the thing i blow it on
how hard would it be to put a tremolo bridge on it?

probably hard...you'll have to route it for a trem and basically put a big hole in it

Couple of people have used Bigsby-style trems, but it's not an easy mod. Search the '51 Modders forum for some advice.
http://www.instituteofnoise.com/squier51/forum/default.asp