This project is the first project where I bought a broken guitar on Ebay looking to fix it up. I call it the frankensquier as it’s not really a single broken guitar with a few problems but instead is some guitar parts which haven’t necessarily come from the same guitar and which has missing parts.
So this was pretty much the Ebay parts. The only additional part not photographed here was the neck plate (with Squier logo) and four screws for it.
Once unpacked I started to take a close look at what I had bought. The neck is a 21 fret and is a little chunkier than the neck on my Squier and Strat but the neck nut and the frets look ok and it has a nice feel when you slide your hand up and down the back of the neck. So though I might swap the neck in future, I decided to see what the FrankenSquier will be like with the neck that came with it.
Examining the tuning machine heads that they were held in by screwed nuts from the front rather than by screws like I am used to.
I also found that the 1E head was loose. Unfortunately it wouldn’t tighten up. The thread is probably worn. I tried to use Teflon plumbers tape around the male bolt to make up for the thread wear. I learned this trick watching a video on how to tighten a loose whammy bar. This didn’t help. Even with a little Teflon tape, the screw part would not tighten which left the machine head loose. So I decided to replace the machine heads.
Replacement machine heads from Ebay
Next I took a look at the pickguard and pickups. These kind of don’t match to my eye. There are two double coil humbucker pickups and a single coil pickup. I didn’t have details of what these were. The double coil pickups were marked MMH-F and MMH-R on the back.
This configuration doesn’t seem to match the pickguard as the plate has a slot for a single coil. I might do something with this plate and pickups but for now I thought I would try one of those cheap loaded pickguards as I’m missing pots, volume and tone knobs and the 5-way selector switch so I ordered one of those.
Prewired loaded pickguard from Amazon
I also ordered black screws for the pickguard, a black backplate, a tremolo whammy bar, a tremolo whammy bar spring.
I had a couple of lockable strap locks handy so swapped those onto the guitar.
The pickguard arrived! General opinion in the family is that I should have gone with a plain black pickguard but for now this is the pickguard that goes in.
The only catch is that the bolts on the humbucker pickup are long so they don’t fit into the cavity. After a bit of a debate about whether to try to cut the bolts or drill holes for the bolts in the body I decide it’s easier to make a few extra holes in the body so do that.
After a little straight forward soldering of the two ground wires and the one power wire covering the joints with some shrink fit tubing the plate is in. My black screws haven’t arrived but I use plain screws to hold the plate for now. The next day the screws arrive but they aren’t black so might have to go to a shop to get the right colour.
Next the machine heads arrive so I can install those and string the guitar.
And now it’s tunable and playable even if we are still waiting for the back plate. I got a snakeskin effect strap for this one since I thought that sort of went with the colours.
So we’re nearly there. Yes I could have probably got a working Squier for maybe £50-60 instead of paying too much for the basics then adding all the parts to it. But hey I now have a humbucker – single coil – single coil guitar to play with, learned a bit more about guitars and feel a little more confident for the next project!
The final parts arrived! So the replacement back plate went on.
I stuck a frankenstein see through sticker on the neck head.
And fitted a new whammy bar with a tension spring underneath it to help it be nice, tight and upright
And so that’s the FrankenSquier!
Unfortunately I am noticing some hum when the Frankensquier is plugged into an amp. So I may have a missing or bad connection as it sounds like something might not be properly grounded. I’ll progress the other projects then come back to diagnose this. Going over the wiring with a multimeter and checking for continuity everything seems correct. I’m suspicious that it’s to do with the volume pot so have bought a replacement pot that I will swap in to see if we can address the hum. I can’t really complain since it was a £17 pickguard.
Swapped the much chunkier Fender volume pot but it didn’t help. Also I swapped the neck and mid pickups for some Wilkinson Black Lic Vintage Voice Ceramic single coil pickups. I even copper taped the body cavity and output jack cavity to shield them. Still couldn’t get rid of the hum. After much continuity checking with a multi meter I figured out the problem was with the output jack wiring. I resoldered the output jack and yay the hum was gone.
As a final touch I got some neat Grover strap pins with skull patterns and a halloweeny guitar strap.
I was thinking of swapping the bridge humbucker once I swapped in my new Duncan Seymour humbucker into the Washburn but since I don’t know where that Washburn humbucker came from, and since it looks fairly similar to the existing bottom end humbucker already in there I will leave the humbucker swap for another day.
While it would have been a lot easier just to buy a new Squier, I have enjoyed this as a project and learned a few things. I’ve also got a guitar which I enjoy playing and that is, I think, a little different.
I found a fun frankenstein head pickguard holder so added that.
The body has quite a few chips and dings so I am going to see if I can repair those.
The first step is to fill the holes with super glue. I saw a video where a guy used an accellerant but I’m just going to be patient and let it dry naturally. It takes more than one layer to build up the glue enough to fill the holes in the body.
So I lost patience with the superglue method and was also worried about whether the glue was causing some cracking in other parts of the coat so reverted to old fashioned filler. Then sprayed with a black gloss car spray paint. Finally I used some scratch remover and buffed up the areas to deal with any imperfections. The final result isn’t perfect but is a lot better than all the starting dings.
Project Cost:
“Fender Squier parts” £65.00
Postage £13.00
Anmoon 3 ply loaded SSH pickguard £16.85
D Dolity whammy bar £2.99
6 RH tuning pegs £12.99
Kaish strat back plate £4.79
3 x tremolo arm spring £1.84
Frankenstein square sticker £4.50
Wilkinson black lic vintage voice pickups £22.50
Grover artist skull strap pins & postage £22.02
Happy halloween guitar strap £2.99
Fender original pot 250 split shaft £8.95
Project cost £178.42
Robbie's Guitar Projects 