Squier lil' Squirt

[cephus]

Squire mini strat:

I always see these in the GC/SA junkmail and played them a couple times. They always played like crap. I liked the novelty aspect since I am kind of a big dude and thought it'd be kinda cute to play out with on a song or 2.

Yesterday I was at SA and picked one up. It wouldn't stay in tune for shit. I was just trying to work the tuners back and forth since they were really sticky and realized that the tension was wrong when the guitar was tuned regular E tuning. I cranked up the tuners until the g string felt about right and tuned the rest to match it. It was close to G (1 1/2 steps higher).

The tuners work alot better when there is some tension on them and the thing plays pretty well. Before I could wrap the B string around the neck with a bend. It's still easier to bend than my regular guitars, but I think it's a good balance between playing tension and snapping the neck off of it.

On the way out the door, I saw a really cheap used black squire strat. I didn't need it, but I played it a little. Someone had obviously paid to have it set up and have a new nut cut. It was the full-thickness body (which weighs a ton - must be plywood) and a huge ball bat for a neck. The guitar has been played alot, obviously by someone who loved playing blues in E and A, but there's alot of life left in it. I played it for a while and just decided it needed a new home.

The last guitar I bought was in 1989 when I bought my strat. Wait. Maybe I bought that backpacker since then. Anyway, I broke my long embargo on six strings today and walked out with 2 junkie guitars for less than $200 bones. I love third-world sweatshop luthrie!

 

[true-eurt]

Are you going to share some of their sounds with us later?

The music shop has a squire...I think I will check it out. It does looks like a child size guitar.

 

[cephus]

To be honest, they had a few other little guitars that were as good or better, but they didn't have that forced perspective thing going on. They had a brownsville maybe that had a whammy and a really nice satiny neck with a wiggle stick for like 20 more, but it had humbuckers and was trying too hard, I think. I wanted a little toy guitar - a cool and sort of expensive one - but a toy to play with.

The guy went to the back to get the gigbag for the full size strat thing and I did a quick scan of the area to see what else that same money would buy. You can't really beat the giggle factor for the money.

Now I am going to start a new thread to ask where I can get a Fender decal to put on my squier strat after I replace the pickups, pickguard, bridge and tuners.

 

[true-eurt]

To be honest, they had a few other little guitars that were as good or better, but they didn't have that forced perspective thing going on. They had a brownsville maybe that had a whammy and a really nice satiny neck with a wiggle stick for like 20 more, but it had humbuckers and was trying too hard, I think. I wanted a little toy guitar - a cool and sort of expensive one - but a toy to play with.

The guy went to the back to get the gigbag for the full size strat thing and I did a quick scan of the area to see what else that same money would buy. You can't really beat the giggle factor for the money.

Now I am going to start a new thread to ask where I can get a Fender decal to put on my squier strat after I replace the pickups, pickguard, bridge and tuners.

Try e-bay...

 

[cephus]

I was trying to be cute. Seems like alot of people like to buy the cheapo almost a fender and turn it into a fender.

I just brought that squier POS into the office to look at it. It is horrific. The neck has an ELbow in it instead of bow and the action seems to have worked up to "cheese cutter" while sitting in the truck this afternoon. Let's just say it's gonna take alot of love just to make it good enough to lean against the wall in the basement. It weighs a ton, too. I'll find something to do with it.

 

[hixmix]

I'll find something to do with it.

Perhaps paddle a canoe up Shit's Creek with it?

 

[solo.guitar]

I bought a Fender Squire before when I didn't know what I was doing. $300.

It looked really nice though. All it really needed was the action adjusted and some new pickups, but it wasn't worth the time & money. I ended up selling it for $150 to my neighbour. I'm surprised he hasn't asked for his money back yet.

Lots of fret buzz too, on almost every fret. It was also heavy enough to work out with.

 

[cephus]

Hmm... This junky squier:

Doesn't look like plywood. Unlessthe plies are 1/2 thick. The wood is weird, too. Some of it almost looks greenish like pressure treated or something. I know it isn't but it kind of has that color. It is really heavy. It has the jacuzzi routing job for any pickup combination. No sheilding. There's no date in the neck pocket or anything. It has 22 frets, too. Which is probably cheaper for the mfg anyway. It covers up the kluged pickguar and kindergarten-eque glob of dried elmer's glue on the underside of the fingerboard where the "rosewood" meets the "not rosewood".

To put real tuners on this thing (I have some in the drawer) do I need to drill out these peghead holes to 7/16"? I have a junky caliper, but the light is burnt out on my desk and I can't read the GD thing. It looks like it's one little line about 3/8". Wait that is a 32nd over, not a 16th. What size drill bit do I have to look in my coffee can for?

The little squirt is a gas, too. I recall that the original chaquita guitars required a wound g string. I may go up to some retarded gauge string to get back to concert pitch, but for the moment, i can think of alot of songs I do in G that would be fun to play as if they were in E, ya know? It seems to have alot of gain. I plugged it into my little classic 20 that I've rehearsed with here a couple times in the last 2 weeks. It sounded markedly ornerier than my strat or my jambolin. It had a really nice snarl.