Tonefiend Forum

Here's a 2004 Squier '51 that's been sitting in my closet for years. Decided to bring it to life with some new components. Still not completely happy with it. Here's the report.

Changed the pickups: GFS Lil Killer at neck, Harmonic Design Z-90 at bridge. Price range: dirt cheap to respectably spendy.

New bridge: another Guitar Fetish product, their Top Mount Hardtail bridge with the appropriately narrow string spacing.

New electronics: 500k vol pot, and a blend pot w/center detent in place of a pickup selector. Full clockwise is all rails, full counter is all Z-90.

Positives: Light weight body (basswood, I believe). Unvarnished one-piece neck. Nice range of tones using the blend knob. Really like the Z-90 full on.

Not-so-positives: The new bridge. During hard playing at rehearsal last night, one of the height adjustment screws on the low E bridge saddle de-torqued nearly all the way out and into my palm. Hopefully, some Lok-Tite will solve the problem.

Also: the bass-side of the GFS pickup tended to catch my low E string during vigorous strumming. (I know, easy solution: Jim, don't play like that!)

So I might be looking for a new neck pickup -- maybe a lipstick tube? Something with a lower, less string-catchy profile. Any suggestions?

As for the name, a former bandmate commented on the color scheme: "Looks like banana pudding!"

Drop the pickup height slightly so the magnets don;t catch the string so easily. A turn of the height screw will not likely screw up the balance. If it does, you could tweak the height of the bridge pickup slightly too.

Personally, I'd route the body and pickguard for a humbucker. You can get templates from Stewmac for both routes.

I would put that neck pickup all the way up and add a third pickup and 5 way switch