Part One | Part Two | Part Three
Here is the third and final post on this totally awesome MIJ Squier Silver Series Stratocaster. Happy owner Enche' Nodi dropped by after the photoshoot and entertained me with a bit of spanky cleaned-toned stratolicious noodling. I managed to shoot a short video of Enche Nodi's adventures in Stratland; which you may view HERE. Well, folks, that's about it for this post. Thanks for visiting. Stay home, stay safe; and God bless.
Part One | Part Two | Part Three
In Part One, we saw just how badly this MIJ Squier Silver Series Stratocaster was in need of an overhaul; so to speak. I started off by dismantling all hardware and electronic components. The neck and headstock were cleaned with naphtha, rosewood fretboard reconditioned; and frets polished. Then, as the pickup covers were being removed for cleaning; I noticed that the fragile coil windings were totally exposed. This simply would not do, and so they were gingerly wrapped with black cloth pickup tape.
The body cavities were shielded with conductive shielding paint; and the whole underside of the pickguard with aluminium foil. As for the electronics, everything was replaced save for the pickups. Among the new components were Alpha A250K pots and a Neutrik/Rean NYS229 output jack.
There was also a rather large teardrop-shaped patch of wood exposed just below the "football" output jack plate. The nice part about this "injury" was that the wood showed a distinctive grain pattern. So, it definitely was not basswood. I'm guessing it's either alder; or even Japanese Ash (Sen). This was indeed an exciting discovery (for me, at least). The exposed wood was stained with ColorTone #5030 Vintage Amber and sealed with several coats of super glue.
Perhaps the most challenging part of this job was restoring the vibrato bridge. The saddles were corroded right down to metal as most of the plating had gone the way of the dodo. It took me more than 8 hours to remove the frozen saddle-height adjustment screws and derust the saddles to where they looked presentable enough. As it turned out, the saddle-height adjustment screws, as well as intonation screws and springs; had to be replaced.
Once all that needed to be done had been taken care of, this MIJ Squier Silver Series Stratocaster was reassembled, polished; and strung with Ernie Ball 009-042s. In Part Three, we'll look at a mini photo shoot of sorts; where this lovely guitar was kind enough to pose for a few pictures :)
Part One | Part Two | Part Three
One fine day, legendary Kuantan muso Enche' Nodi came a calling, bringing along his latest acquisition; a fine-looking MIJ Squier Stratocaster. He wanted the Strat restored to gigging/recording condition; as he is a working guitar, bass, and oud (gambus) player.
According to Guitar Insite, this guitar was manufactured by FujiGen in either 1990 or 1991. I was also pleased to discover, thanks to Planet Botch and the Squier-Talk Forum; that this guitar was one of the early MIJ Squier Silver Series Strats that "did not have a 'Silver Series' identifier on the headstock." Besides this, I'd managed to determine a number of specs, as shown in the next paragraph.
Torino Red finish
Solid wood body
Zero shielding save for some foil under the pickguard
Individual cavities for each pickup
Gotoh tuning pegs
Vibrato bridge with no branding on the saddles
Ceramic single-coil pickups
Gotoh YM-50 five-way switch
Full-sized 250K pots
Plastic-bodied "Made in Japan" output jack
Truss rod adjustment on the headstock face
Maple neck with "skunk stripe"
7.25" radius rosewood fretboard
21 vintage-size frets
Time and tide had certainly taken their toll on this fine specimen of stratiness; and I knew that I had my job cut out for me. Grime, crud, rust and corrosion were the order of the day; as can be seen in the pics posted here. In Part Two; we'll take a look at what was done to get this Strat back into shape.
