Squier California Series SSS Strat Upgrade

Rust never sleeps. Grime and gunk spread like Covid-19. Two things to remember if you love your guitar. The current owner of this Squier Strat bought it used for MYR200 (USD47). Quite a good deal, I must say. It was grimy, rusty and caked in various evolutionary stages of gunk; testament to years of neglect.

On the plus side, this Strat had been recently refretted (there was hardly any fret wear). Someone had also upgraded the stock ceramic pickups to Alnicos (probably Alnico 5s, as printed on the pickup covers). Popping the neck revealed a seller's note on the heel, indicating that it had once been up for sale in 2007 for MYR960 (USD223). Now I knew that this Squier was at least 13 years old. Nice :)

Poor guy -- he could not even plug it in coz the output jack was broken. Now, I could have just replaced the broken jack, serviced the electronics; and called it good. However, as the owner intended to keep this Strat; he requested that it be upgraded to gig-worthy specs.

The first thing I did was degrime/derust the whole guitar as best I could, and recondition the fretboard. A full shielding job ensued, followed by an electronics upgrade. This upgrade included Alpha A250K pots, generic PCB selector switch, Neutrik/Rean NYS229 output jack and full rewire.

As per the owner's request, the bridge was to be set flat. However, even with three springs and the trem claw screws screwed in to the max; the bridge was still lifting slightly from the body. I'm glad to say that adding an additional spring solved the problem.

Well, that's about it for this write-up. Now, boys and girls; burn this into memory:
(i) Rust never sleeps
(ii) Grime and gunk spread like Covid-19

Yamaha SG-2000

First introduced in July 1976, the Yamaha SG-2000 represents, in my humble opinion; the epitome of Japanese solidbody guitar craftsmanship. It's no wonder then, that in its 1978 catalog, Yamaha describes the SG-2000 as being targeted towards "those who demand the very finest in both feel and sound." That being said, let's take a look at some of this guitar's distinguishing features.

Body

• Five-ply binding
• Carved, "mildly figured" three-piece maple top
• "T-Cross maple and mahogany construction:" laminated maple and mahogany body, with the grain of the center section "set perpendicular" to the sides
• Contoured back, top waist "scoop"
• Deep double cutaways 

Neck
Three-piece mahogany/maple/mahogany laminated neck-through design

Fretboard
Bound black mahogany (not ebony), 22 frets, 24.75" scale length, 13" radius, mother-of-pearl "split-wing" inlays

Headstock
Five-ply binding, "double-dipped shape," block lettering logo, three-piece floral inlay.

Hardware

• Gold-plated 
• Fully adjustable bridge rests on two thumbwheels that screw into a recessed solid brass sustain block/plate
• Tailpiece features a "harp and scroll" motif
• "Precise torque" tuning machines (15:1 ratio) with "kidney shaped" knobs 

Electronics

• Two volume pots, two tone pots (no push-pull coil split function), 3-way toggle switch
• Pickup, switch and control cavities fully shielded with shielding paint
• Two "powerful open-type" Alnico V humbuckers with "individually adjustable polepieces." Three machine screws allow for pickup height and alignment adjustments ("tri-mounting")  

The tobacco brown SG-2000 featured today was in particularly bad shape when sent to me; most probably due to prolonged neglect and (I suspect) abuse. Grime, rust, crud, tarnish, dings and dents was the order of the day here. On the plus side, I noted that the guitar had been recently been refretted and fitted with a bone nut. The electronics were a tad noisy, but this was soon cured with a few squirts of electrical contact cleaner.

Perhaps the toughest task I had to deal with was removing as much rust, crud and grime from the gold-plated hardware without taking off too much metal. Thankfully, I managed to accomplish this via electrolysis. Then there was the black mahogany fretboard, suffering from years of solidified sweat and grime caking the wood in between the badly tarnished frets. It took lots of careful scraping, lighter fluid, lemon oil, 0000 steel wool and Autosol to get the job done; but the results were worth it.

After reinstalling the hardware, this baby was given an all-round wax and polish, strung up with 10s, and plugged into an amp for a final check. Boy, did it sing!

References
Premier Guitar
Yamaha Musicians Forum
Vintage Yamaha Guitars
Vintage Guitar Magazine