Steve St.Laurent
Senior Member
- Messages
- 238
After building my Warmoth strat my first guitar just wasn't doing it for me any more - a craigslist special Squier Affinity that I basically got for free because I sold the amp that came with it for what I paid for the guitar & amp. But it was my first guitar so it has sentimental value for me. The frets were tiny vintage style frets and my Warmoth neck had me completely spoiled. So I bought a barely used Warmoth neck off Ebay and started collecting parts. Here's what I ended up putting together:
There's not much Squier left in it now. I set this up as a downtuned guitar - it's tuned to D. I also have a Tremol no in it so I can lock down the tremolo and play with the tuning along with using a capo to do Drop D, Eb, etc.
I put in a set of D Allens CS VooDooBlues HSS pickups ( http://dallenpickups.com ) - which are CS Voodoo 69 single coils and a matching humbucker. The wiring is custom from TFN Technologies with a TBX master tone control and the 2nd tone is a variable coil split for the humbucker. I had to route the control area of the body to make room for the super 5 way and the TBX tone since the affinity body is thinner than standard. I also shielded all of the cavities and the pickguard in copper.
The tremolo is from GFS and I shortened the block so that it would fit inside the affinity body and so that the Tremol-no would fit properly. I trimmed the trem cover so that I can access the tremol no easily and still have the cover in place.
The neck is a Warmoth pro - a birdseye maple neck with a rosewood fingerboard, vintage tint gloss finish, 6150 frets, 10"-16" compound radius, and a TUSQ nut. Tuners are locking Schallers.
I did the setup myself last night and took it in to my guitar tech today for a final setup.
I played it for a couple hours last night and love the Dallen pickups. The tremol no works great too. I locked it down and tuned up to Eb with virtually no difference in the feel of the setup. Dropped the E string down to a C and capo'd it at the 2nd fret and ran in drop D. Looks like it will do everything I was hoping for.
There's not much Squier left in it now. I set this up as a downtuned guitar - it's tuned to D. I also have a Tremol no in it so I can lock down the tremolo and play with the tuning along with using a capo to do Drop D, Eb, etc.
I put in a set of D Allens CS VooDooBlues HSS pickups ( http://dallenpickups.com ) - which are CS Voodoo 69 single coils and a matching humbucker. The wiring is custom from TFN Technologies with a TBX master tone control and the 2nd tone is a variable coil split for the humbucker. I had to route the control area of the body to make room for the super 5 way and the TBX tone since the affinity body is thinner than standard. I also shielded all of the cavities and the pickguard in copper.
The tremolo is from GFS and I shortened the block so that it would fit inside the affinity body and so that the Tremol-no would fit properly. I trimmed the trem cover so that I can access the tremol no easily and still have the cover in place.
The neck is a Warmoth pro - a birdseye maple neck with a rosewood fingerboard, vintage tint gloss finish, 6150 frets, 10"-16" compound radius, and a TUSQ nut. Tuners are locking Schallers.
I did the setup myself last night and took it in to my guitar tech today for a final setup.
I played it for a couple hours last night and love the Dallen pickups. The tremol no works great too. I locked it down and tuned up to Eb with virtually no difference in the feel of the setup. Dropped the E string down to a C and capo'd it at the 2nd fret and ran in drop D. Looks like it will do everything I was hoping for.
