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Recently picked up this Squier Cyclone for a steal of a price, and have been playing it for a while to see whether it needs modding, and if so what into.

Changed the strings, lowered the action and put some black knobs on. The switch tip is missing, but other than that it is virtually mint







Love the neck, but needs a new nut with widened string spacing. This will be the first job.

Needs an arm for the vibrato, but as I don't use these much its not a priority.

Really like the neck pickup, nice and plummy, but the humbucker is pretty nasty, very harsh and one-dimensional.

I had thought of putting this spare Squier 51 HB in there, but I already have two '51s so that will make it too much like them

What I am thinking of doing at the moment is doing a Musicmaster or a Bronco style conversion, but keeping the original pickups and pickguard to return it to its original condition should I want to.

I had a Musicmaster years ago, it was my first real gigging guitar, and many players used these and Broncos and Bullets as they were a cheap way of having a Fender guitar. Many indie/punky/new wave bands were driven by the budget Fenders in the early 1980s.

I loved my Musicmaster, and modded it and wore it out, and I also used to borrow another bands guitarists Bronco as a spare, and he often used mine.

They are fetching silly prices today these plywood bodied budget Fenders, so I was thinking that this (better built IMO) Cyclone would be a good one to rekindle a bit of nostalgia.

So I am thinking along the lines of this;-

Single pickup, probably a Hotrail or even the nice existing one with a black cover.

New red torty pickguard.

New black back plate.

What I am torn between is whether to make it into a Musicmaster with the pickup in the front slots, or maybe make it more Bronco-like and move the pickup further back.
I dont really want to go the Mustang route as although I like them, I also have a few twin pickup guitars, and I love single pickup ones like Jnrs and Esquires. Plus making it more like a Bronco, will be a bit more faithful to the fact that the Cyclone is equipped with a vibrato.

Anyone got any pics of an unmodded Bronco or Musicmaster that I can get some inspiration from?

Not unmodded... but some inspiration nonetheless.

My 78 Musicmaster:



and my old Squier Cyclone

Wow that old MM is great, just like the one I had. When I first got it I gigged it stock but soon did some mods, remember this was 1982 so some heinous things were done to what were essentially old guitars at the time. I put a Bill Lawrence pickup in the neck slot and used it like that for a while. Then I decided to rout out a cavity and put the Lawrence in the rear, and use the stock one in the front. Lost the tone control and used a three way toggle switch instead. Thats when I discovered that some of the later Musicmasters were plywood bodied.

A few months later someone gave me an old Jaguar vibrato so I routed out for that. I't didnt work that well, so I refilled the hole I had routed, and sprayed it orange.

I often lent it out as well as playing it in my own bands. It was often borrowed by the then guitarist in Wedding Present, and searching through some old YouTube clips, he can be seen playing my orange Musicmaster.

Yours is a beauty, simple no frills. I should have kept mine, and hindsight is a wonderful thing, I should have kept it near enough stock as well.

Thanks

I've been bouncing the idea of getting one to mod . Change the electrics and maybe the pickguard . I've been finding them cheap on ebay .

Nice buy . Enjoy it .

I did this, before putting it back to stock and re-selling it on eBay.

The swimming pool rout is going to help with this one.

I plan to take off the old PG and pickups, wire in the Hotrail and screw it in to the body with springs, then string it up and play it a bit. I plan to move the pickup to different locations to find the optimum place for it to be a single banger.

Then I will make up the pickguard and slot accordingly.

If I want to make it into a two pickup I can do at a later date.

Plus if I keep the old pickups and PG, I can return it to stock if needed to

I promise I'll post pics

I never go back on a promise;-)

I tried the pickup in different positions, and lo and behold for me it seemed to work best in the traditional Musicmaster slot.

So using a pickguard blank, I made a nice red torty guard for it, and mounted the pickup in place. New strings, new nut and it looks like this now.





Plays and sounds really sweet, the Hotrail is pretty high output so it might need lowering a bit to tame it.

I even had enough pickguard material left to make a spare guard for my other single pickup guitar

That is sexy! I like it!!

In my Musicmaster I added a coil split via a push-pull pot, in order to have SOME tonal variety. Maybe do that?

mkt3000 wrote:

Best choice for non-stock pups I've seen in a while Extra points for originality.

mezzio13 wrote:

mkt3000 wrote:

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Best choice for non-stock pups I've seen in a while Extra points for originality.

Thanks! She was a tone monster. I just couldn't get along with the neck after a while. I wouldn't hesitate to drop those pickups in another guitar again.

Where did you get the pickguard material man?

Punkacc9 wrote:Where did you get the pickguard material man?

A guy on the 'bay in the UK.

Sells different sizes and colors pickguard blanks.

There is also www.axesrus.co.uk

like! and I usually am not a tort liker.

Looks good on both, transformed the Cyclone