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Post subject: A very cool find!!
Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2009 9:58 pm
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This is going to be quite long and with a lot of pics..

So I set out to find a 1.75 Squier body. I know they exist, my CV '60s is a 1.75 as well. I've been looking for a few weeks. I think I saw 1- being sold on ebay all month. But as I remember, it was a Fiesta Red which I try to avoid at all cost.

I hit the Vegas pavement in search of one, knowing full well it was gonna be nearly impossible. The 3rd Pawn-shop I went to, lo and behold, I can spot a 1" neck pocket heel from a mile away. It's a nice black and white Squier. I ask to take a look at it.

And this was staring me in the face..

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No serial number front or back. None on the neck-plate. But the guitar had the body I wanted, and the neck looked KILLER!! Only one problem. The neck has a SERIOUS back-bow. The guitar couldn't even be played. But I thought "no problem, I can fix it, just adjust the truss rod."

Got it home, and proceeded to take it apart. Here are some interesting pics of the mystery Squier:

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The neck, as you can see, is outstanding!! Just look at that maple grain going in all different directions!! I couldn't resist. Not pictured are the tuners which are Squier labeled sealed tuners. Gotoh tuners will fit in these holes as well.

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It's a nice rosewood face. The color is more of a light-brown color than my others. White pearloid markers. The frets are 100% like brand new. Incidentally, the rosewood slab seems to be quite thick.

The neck has the only markings. They are only a series of numbers. 6&7 beside the screw-holes. What looks to be a 4 (originally thought it was an F). And a 2 on the back of the neck-plate.
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Looking at the neck pocket, I've determined the body to be a 1.75" Alder body. The routing isn't the cleanest, but it's still flat. Another observation is the single pickup routing. No swimming pool, or humbucker option at the bridge. The screws that were holding the neck were thicker than the screws for all of my Strats with a more round pan head than I usually see.

The electronics are pretty basic. Much like what you'd expect to see in a Squier guitar.

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A close inspection reveals that there are blue dots on the sides of each pickup. The bridge pickup has a red line going up the side of the magnet, the neck pickup has a black line. The screws used for the pickups look more like wood screws, not machine screws. Nice shielding throughout the pickguard.

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The electronics are what I would expect to find in a Squier as well. Cheap switch, mini-pots (250k), cap looks consistent with what I've seen in Squiers. Nicely wired, just cheap parts.





Now onto the neck issue..

The neck has a REALLY bad back-bow in it. My guess is that someone thought that the truss rod screw needed to be fully tightened without any consideration of what it might do if you do that. So a quick lesson for the beginners. DO NOT TOUCH THAT SCREW WITHOUT DOING PROPER RESEARCH. TAKE IT TO A TECH, OR YOU CAN ASK HERE WHAT IT'S FOR.

So with the screw loosened all the way, it's still a major problem. What to do.. What do I do???

Well here's my current solution. I really don't want to clamp the neck to anything to get it straight. If you clamp it to something that has a twist in it, the neck will follow. So I needed a flat surface, and I need some pressure on the middle of the face. It doesn't help that it's cold these days. In cold weather, maple turns rock hard. So whatever neck adjustment you make in the Fall will most likely stick throughout the winter.

Anyway here's what I came up with:

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The neck is on a nice flat surface sitting just below the fire. And surrounded it with objects to make a warming oven type thing. Too high and I can heat up the neck too much. As it's sitting now (about 2-feet away and below the fire), it takes a good 3-hours to heat it up this way. The heat is going to expand the wood, and by using the weights (note, I'm using the smaller ones to concentrate on the center of the bow) the neck should settle back into a usable position eventually.

Since this is all experimental for me, I'm always concerned with the neck warping by heating up just one side, so I rotate it every hour. After about 4-hours of this last night, I turned the fire off, and let the neck cool down with the weights still on. After inspection in the morning, half of the bow was gone, and the neck hasn't warped. So it's back in the oven tonight for a second run. I've got about 65-lbs. on it right now.

In the meantime, I just couldn't resist hearing the guitar. So I put a CV '60s neck on it (bought on ebay), and took it for a test-drive.

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All I can say is this.. I like the way it sounds better than my CV. I don't know what these pickups are, but sign me up!! I love these things. If anyone has seen these markings before, can you please tell me which model they were on?

I played this guitar for about 3-hours last night just amazed. I can't explain it really, every position works to my style. The outputs are balanced. I played everything from Blues, to Reggae, to Heavy Metal, to Jazz, to Classic rock, modern tones, vintage tones. The guitar could just do it all!!

In light of all of this, I'm still determined to return the original neck to this guitar. It's actually more v-shaped than a CV neck. Which I personally favor more.

So there you have it. The mystery Squier. For all I know it's a Partscaster. But in looking at the components, I really don't think so. The neck didn't come off without a good cracking sound. Why would someone fake a guitar that's better than most originals from that maker anyway?? I don't see any indication that it's a fake as far as my knowledge goes. Even if it turned out to be from a starter box, I wouldn't care. This guitar single-handedly squashed the idea that a CV is the best Squier made in my mind. I'd take this guitar over all of the CV models I tried.

So by the way.. I'm back where I started. I still need a body!! Damnit!! :P



**One more thing.. I understand it now.. I understand why people name their guitars. Unprecedented by me in all of my years of playing, I finally named a guitar.

I named this guitar Zeke.

Who's Zeke?

This is Zeke.
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Zeke is a kitten I found in my backyard one night. I had no idea where he came from either. But I still have him. Being that the cat and the guitar are both black and white. It just made sense. It doesn't matter really where they came from, I still like 'em.

I'll keep you guys posted on the neck later on.

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Posted: Sun Dec 20, 2009 9:47 pm
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Ok, it's day 3 and the neck is looking good!!

After checking the neck when it cooled down from day 2 of the makeshift oven, I determined that I'd done enough cooking. Keep in mind the neck never really did get HOT, just warm to the touch throughout the neck. You don't want it to get any hotter than the sun itself would make it. That's how I gauged when it was time to turn off the fire. When working with necks, you can't be impatient. It's a slow process.

Here's a nice pick of the back of the neck again. Awesome grain on this thing! Some really good flaming and twisting grains. So you can see why I'm so determined to fix it.

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Here are the Squier labeled tuners it came with:
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Earlier this morning, I decided to just let the string tension do the rest. It still had a slight back-bow, but not enough to risk cooking too far with the weights. If you notice in this pic, I used a metal sleeve from a box-cutter to keep the strings from going into the nut. The reason is I used heavy gauges on the High-E side as well as the low-E side, to keep the pulling balanced from edge to edge.

In this particular case, I know the guitar had the truss the way it was for at least 6-months (most likely much longer), and in that time, the neck bowed a little more on the high-E side due to less resistance of the lighter gauge strings. This neck had a back-bow of about 1/4" if not more.

So I used a heavier gauge string on the high-E than I even used on the low-E. The string gauges look like this:

6 (low-E)- 52
5- 46
4-36
3-38
2-48
1 (high-E) 58

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In order to handle the heavy gauges, I put 5-springs on the trem and blocked it as well. I also took the string saddles and raised them pretty high for this pulling process.

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Now as I tension the strings I start working from the low E toward the high-E, about as close to a regular tuning tension as I can guess. Then I tension it more until it's where I want it to be. Once I got the neck straight on the low-E side, I worked from the High-E toward the center until it was straight as well.

Here's how it's looking now:

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Now, all that's left to do is wait.. As each day goes by, if I see the neck starting to bow forward on either side, I'll start letting off tension until the neck stays with little or no tension, and the process will be complete. I think this neck is well worth saving. It would have been a shame to just chuck it in the trash.

Well, there's the update on the neck. I can't wait to be able to play the guitar again. Believe it or not, I only paid $80 for this guitar. Probably one of the best deals I've ever encountered.

Zeke decided to stop by for a photo shoot with..Zeke. Hahaha.

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Peace.

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Posted: Mon Dec 21, 2009 11:42 pm
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That is way COOL Nice Job 8)


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Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 5:18 pm
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Shredd6 Thanks for the lesson.
I have learned a TON from these project others have posted. I am nolonger unsure on how to do alot of things because I did ask and these tutorials definatley help.
Zeke is one cool cat.... 8)


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Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 6:31 pm
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The Best thing about this Forum is not the pic's of new guitars, But the things like shredd and others have done with the pic's to walk us thru the steps they took. The biggest mistake I made with my project was not to take any photos until it was nearly done so no one can really appreciate what came out of the pile of junk I started with. Kinda like seeing the Phoenix fly but never see the smoldering ashes it came from.

You guys keep up the fine work!!! 8) :idea:


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Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 7:49 pm
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Thanks guys. The neck really is turning out nice.

Oddly, this got me thinking about how to fix an '80s Squier HM neck I have around here that has a different problem. It has a twist in it. Generally, everything I've seen on the net suggests that the neck needs to have the frets taken out, then re-sanded flat, then re-fretted.

I'm not so convinced.. :wink:

Problem is, neck warping is something that's REALLY hard to capture in a pic. But it should be an interesting experiment to see if I can pull the twist out without doing all of that. I only paid $5 for the neck, so it'll be worth a try.

Another thread for another day.

I think overall Zeke will be one of my favorite guitars. Everyone has that thing where they like their guitars to be somewhat unique in some way. I personally think it's one element that gives someone a certain unexplained confidence that shows in their playing. And the neck on this one certainly has a unique grain. I can see that grain when I hold the guitar, and it makes me feel good to see it. I get a distinct feeling that it'll show in my playing when the guitar is ready. Could actually be a few weeks before the pulling process is done.

Thanks again for the nice comments. I do appreciate them. You guys are great.

Peace. 8)

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Posted: Thu Dec 24, 2009 9:16 am
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Great save. That is a nice looking neck. 8)

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Posted: Sat Jan 09, 2010 12:10 am
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Hey Shredd6
Thanks for the detailed info on dealing with your neck. I have a 1984 MIJ Squire strat that also has a backbowed neck (thought not as bad as yours was). I'm not sure how it ended up that way, although I will say I have owned it since new so if anyone screwed it up by overtightening the truss rod, it would have to be me! I know a lot more about guitar adjustments and physics today, than I did then.

Anyways, I'm definately going to try a method similiar to yours to get that neck back to where it should be. Thanks again, and good luck with your next experiment.

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Posted: Sat Jan 09, 2010 12:29 am
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Wow, that's got to be the nicest Squier neck I've ever seen! And $5? :shock: I've enjoyed the pics so far, let us know how everything turns out. :)

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Posted: Sat Jan 09, 2010 2:01 pm
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It's actually going to be a while. It's still cold here in Vegas. Not extremely cold or snowy, but enough for the neck to not want to move very much more. It sucks to be this close and have to wait, but it'll be worth the wait to finish it off correctly. In the meantime, I've put the CV neck back on it, and the original neck is sitting in a corner with the weights on it.

I have a plan to do the same string pull method using a 4"x4"x5' wood plank and attaching a hard trem to it. Then I'll use the good ol' Vegas early Summer Sun and string pull to do the rest. My gas bill was getting pretty steep..Hahaha.

Had a good full band practice with the guitar, and the pickups sound great!! The CV neck isn't bad either, just not really in the same league as the original neck.

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Posted: Sat Jan 09, 2010 6:17 pm
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Shredd6,

Keep us posted from time to time. I know what you mean about cold. It was been in the teens where I live and not getting over 30 degrees F during the day. I know for some that is not cold at all, but for the Gulf-coast Texas area, this is darn cold.

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Posted: Fri May 07, 2010 12:22 am
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Just wanted to give an update on this neck. I don't have any pics of the process, I can't find my camera right now. But I wrapped the neck up in a Black t-shirt and clamped it to a table in my back yard for two days. Two days of about 90 Degree weather, and the neck is now straight on it's own, back on the guitar, and playing great. All I had to do was use a quick-grip clamp directly in the center of the neck, and it settled straight.

I had to do a little bit of fret fixing, but it's playing smooth and solid.

It's a little more of a C shape than a modern C. You can really wail into it SRV style. So anyway, I'm really glad I was able to fix it. It's a different guitar than when it had the CV neck on it. It feels and looks great.

Peace.

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