Squier Bullet Mustang

BillClay · Post by **BillClay** » Sun Mar 05, 2017 6:29 pm

If I get one of these I'm doing blue on blue w/ white bits and white racing stripes for ultimate, glorious tackiness

PV-1955 · Post by **PV-1955** » Mon Mar 06, 2017 12:06 am

BillClay wrote:If I get one of these I'm doing blue on blue w/ white bits and white racing stripes for ultimate, glorious tackiness

I think that Stripes would be right at home on one of these.

Here's how it looks today. I'm glad to finally have it put back together again.

Mattsican · Post by **Mattsican** » Mon Mar 06, 2017 2:56 am

That looks FANTASTIC. My black one is on the way. I ordered some black pearloid guard material for it. My buddy is gonna help me out and duplicate the stock guard onto the pearloid. I'm gonna stick to the HH pups but use some chrome covered PRS ones ive laying around. Gonna replace the electronics with a push/pull tone pot and got some new knobs for it.

PV-1955 · Post by **PV-1955** » Mon Mar 06, 2017 3:53 am

Mattsican wrote:That looks FANTASTIC. My black one is on the way. I ordered some black pearloid guard material for it. My buddy is gonna help me out and duplicate the stock guard onto the pearloid. I'm gonna stick to the HH pups but use some chrome covered PRS ones ive laying around. Gonna replace the electronics with a push/pull tone pot and got some new knobs for it.

Thanks! Yours is going to look excellent. I have a black pearl pg and I had mocked something similar up (as did someone else with a tortie pg).
My Black one is going to get a different treatment sometime in the future.
I wish I could find a supplier of blank Mustang pickguards. Making something like this would be real easy. Can't wait to see yours.

PV-1955 · Post by **PV-1955** » Mon Mar 06, 2017 3:57 am

An outdoor shot of Li'l Blue.

honeyiscool · Post by **honeyiscool** » Mon Mar 06, 2017 9:51 pm

Cymbaline wrote:Decided to sell this guitar to my buddy - sadly, I dont care for the fretboard radius.
Could I put a different mustang neck on this guitar? If so does anyone know which ones will and won't work?

I could try to see if one of my Fender Japan MG73 necks work on it, if you're willing to wait a few days for me to try it.

Cymbaline · Post by **Cymbaline** » Mon Mar 06, 2017 10:22 pm

honeyiscool wrote:I could try to see if one of my Fender Japan MG73 necks work on it, if you're willing to wait a few days for me to try it.

That'd be great thanks for your help as always.
If anyone else owns other Mustangs, would you try swapping out the neck and see if it works and report back please?

Mattsican · Post by **Mattsican** » Wed Mar 08, 2017 7:34 am

I got mine today....

THE GOOD: Fretwork is actually decent. Edges are nice and smooth, totally stoked on that. The rosewood looks pretty good also after some lemon oil. Action out of the box was good. Finish (black) looks good but its kinda hard to fuck that up.
THE BAD: The tuners are complete shit. I'm going to need to figure out something for those. The bridge saddles are complete shit also. Two of the screw holes for the bridge are already stripped. I usually go through and make sure everything is tight when i get a new guitar and 2 of the screws just spun.

The pickups are pretty meh. The neck is also blindingly white. The intonation was terrible out of box, but it wasnt a big deal to correct. All of this was to be expected though so im not too worried. I plan on completely gutting the electronics anyways. I'll probably will stain the neck (maybe paint a matching black headstock). Definitely going to have to get new tuners and new saddles. Maybe a new nut as well.

Excellent modding platform. Definitely not for someone who isnt willing to spend a little time replacing a few parts. Id say tuners and saddles bare minimum.

PV-1955 · Post by **PV-1955** » Wed Mar 08, 2017 6:26 pm

Mattsican wrote:I got mine today....

THE GOOD: Fretwork is actually decent. Edges are nice and smooth, totally stoked on that. The rosewood looks pretty good also after some lemon oil. Action out of the box was good. Finish (black) looks good but its kinda hard to fuck that up.
THE BAD: The tuners are complete shit. I'm going to need to figure out something for those. The bridge saddles are complete shit also. Two of the screw holes for the bridge are already stripped. I usually go through and make sure everything is tight when i get a new guitar and 2 of the screws just spun.

The pickups are pretty meh. The neck is also blindingly white. The intonation was terrible out of box, but it wasnt a big deal to correct. All of this was to be expected though so im not too worried. I plan on completely gutting the electronics anyways. I'll probably will stain the neck (maybe paint a matching black headstock). Definitely going to have to get new tuners and new saddles. Maybe a new nut as well.

Excellent modding platform. Definitely not for someone who isn't willing to spend a little time replacing a few parts. Id say tuners and saddles bare minimum.

I've changed the tuners on both of mine to Klusons because I prefer them but I wouldn't write the stock tuners off until a fresh set of strings and some nut lube. Straight out of the box, the guitar didn't hold tune that well which I attributed to the tuners and nut but after a fresh set of strings and a minuscule amount of Big Bends nut lube, the stock machines hold tune exceptionally well and that was before changing the string trees. Pickup performance varies wildly by adjusting and fine tuning the pickup height. I rewired one of mine but the stock Alpha pots are quite fine....just the smaller dime sized versions. My biggest gripe would be that the the fret surfaces are rough and need a good polishing (a simple, fast and cheap task). The fret ends on my two are excellent though. I look forward to seeing your mods on yours!

PV-1955 · Post by **PV-1955** » Wed Mar 08, 2017 6:29 pm

Mattsican wrote:That looks FANTASTIC.

Thanks!

Concretebadger · Post by **Concretebadger** » Wed Mar 08, 2017 6:42 pm

The blue-on-blue looks bloody amazing.

You say the blue tort scratchplate was off the 'bay, and you had to re-drill the screw holes in the body? Definitely worth it though!

NickS · Post by **NickS** » Wed Mar 08, 2017 7:54 pm

Mattsican wrote:That looks FANTASTIC.

+1!

NickS · Post by **NickS** » Wed Mar 08, 2017 8:02 pm

What, this Yibuy thing at Â£3.63 + Â£0.80 postage?

► Show Spoiler

PV-1955 · Post by **PV-1955** » Wed Mar 08, 2017 10:06 pm

Concretebadger wrote:The blue-on-blue looks bloody amazing. You say the blue tort scratchplate was off the 'bay, and you had to re-drill the screw holes in the body? Definitely worth it though!

That looks like it. There are a few suppliers on Ebay with the same pickguard.

To make the PG fit you have to remove a very small amount of material from the bridge-side edge of the pickguard and an even smaller amount from the neck area (see the orange area on the attached image)
You also have to fill & drill the body holes.

To add slider switches some routing is required.

Fakir Mustache · Post by **Fakir Mustache** » Thu Mar 09, 2017 8:20 am

PV-1955 wrote:An outdoor shot of Li'l Blue.

That's pretty, I would have put cream covers, switches and knobs on it though.

PV-1955 · Post by **PV-1955** » Thu Mar 09, 2017 7:27 pm

Fakir Mustache wrote: That's pretty, I would have put cream covers, switches and knobs on it though.

Thanks. That would look nice as well!

Mattsican · Post by **Mattsican** » Fri Mar 10, 2017 4:40 am

I got the electronics all squared away in mine. I couldn't do the push/pull tone pot though because the cavity wasn't deep enough for it. I still got some time to wait on the guard though so it's still the white one. Put some different knobs on it as well.

Nick · Post by **Nick** » Fri Mar 10, 2017 4:43 am

These look like nifty little platforms. Probably already said that in this thread but yeah some of the builds in here since then confirm.

honeyiscool · Post by **honeyiscool** » Sat Mar 11, 2017 12:43 am

PV-1955 wrote:I've changed the tuners on both of mine to Klusons because I prefer them but I wouldn't write the stock tuners off until a fresh set of strings and some nut lube. Straight out of the box, the guitar didn't hold tune that well which I attributed to the tuners and nut but after a fresh set of strings and a minuscule amount of Big Bends nut lube, the stock machines hold tune exceptionally well and that was before changing the string trees. Pickup performance varies wildly by adjusting and fine tuning the pickup height. I rewired one of mine but the stock Alpha pots are quite fine....just the smaller dime sized versions. My biggest gripe would be that the the fret surfaces are rough and need a good polishing (a simple, fast and cheap task). The fret ends on my two are excellent though. I look forward to seeing your mods on yours!

I'm using stock tuners, it holds tuning very well. When I did the first string change a few days ago, I applied some lemon oil to the board, let it sit, and then I lightly wiped all the frets with some 10000 grit polishing pads for no more than 2-3 minutes total, that removed the scratchy feel of the frets. The back of the neck, I really like the bare feel, and it just keeps getting better. The nuts were the main culprit for tuning instability. I did the ghetto thing where you just take some old strings and pass it back and forth on the nut a few times until there's less resistance, and then I used a drop of Planet Waves nut/bridge lubricant (which I swear is just Vaseline) and then put new strings on. One of the nuts were good, the other was really bad. Now they both hold tuning like a champ.

I also have a huge pile of unused CTS 500k audio pots and a few Switchcraft jacks and switches, so I used the parts to my advantage. Then, I used some AllParts Mustang knobs with set screws. Once again, had no problem at all. Also, I couldn't really see how the shielding paint in the cavity was actually making contact with string grounds (I didn't see the overlapped paint that usually makes contact with control plate), so I screwed in one of those grounding tabs to make sure that was happening. The stock pickups were a bit dark with the stock wiring and I was afraid of getting harsh garbage by going from 250k to 500k, but it turned out fine. I still like the stock pickups a lot. I do hate audio pots on the volume, though. I will replace them with linear pots at some point for familiarity's sake, but I used what I had. I figure I'll eventually try other pickups, I'll probably make one be hot and one be vintage, but I'm planning on keeping it HH.

About those bridge saddles, I'm not necessarily sure I'd call them garbage. However, could they be improved? Of course. They're undersized cheap cast pot metal. I replaced them with GFS steel block saddles. I don't like bent saddles, but with the recent trend where block saddles are considered passÃ©, it's often hard to find good options for block saddles, luckily GFS still has them. These are drop in replacements:

http://www.guitarfetish.com/Upgrade-Sta ... p_773.html

When I say drop in, I mean, you can use the existing intonation screws and springs. In fact, I suggest this, so that you get shorter screws on the E and A strings. The saddle replacement was a simple way to make the guitar feel a lot more high end, and considering how cheap it is, I think it should be one of the first mods for someone who doesn't plan on doing a lot to the guitar.

Lastly, I was really afraid that stringing this guitar would be really difficult with the sharp angles you have to make pulling the string through the back of the bridge and through the saddle, but I found it's not that hard at all. You just take the non-ball straight end of the string and you make sort of a U shape so that when the string goes through the bridge, it naturally wants to come out the saddle. It's really easy. I don't find it any harder than poking a string through the body and hoping it finds the bridge hole on the other side. It's certainly easier than a Bigsby.

honeyiscool · Post by **honeyiscool** » Sat Mar 11, 2017 12:58 am

Mattsican wrote:I got the electronics all squared away in mine. I couldn't do the push/pull tone pot though because the cavity wasn't deep enough for it. I still got some time to wait on the guard though so it's still the white one. Put some different knobs on it as well.

CTS Push/Pull pots are usually about a fair bit shorter than most other Push/Pull pots.

http://www.stewmac.com/Pickups_and_Elec ... _DPDT.html

These would probably fit, just that soldering to them terminals is mildly annoying.

(I also found it weird that CTS pots fit the control plates just fine. Must import Mustangs need a quick date with a 3/8" drill bit first.)