I happened to receive a Squire Strat as a gift, it plays rather well, considering some of the unfavorable things I have read about them. I wanted to upgrade the bridge to something like what is on the SRV. You knoww where the tremolo bar is positioned opposite of where it is normally. I was not sure if that modification is possible or if it is will it be cost effective. I do not want to put $3000 rims on a $1000 car if you catch my drift. Any help on this will be greatly appreciated.

Hi cjp1980, welcome to the Forum.

If you look at your bridge you will see that it is asymmetrical. There's more of it towards the treble side, where the whammy is rooted.

That goes for the cavity beneath it, too. So if you wanted a left-handed trem on there you'd need to route out the cavity on the other side to accommodate it. And then you'd have a gap showing on the side where the arm used to be.

Altogether, it would make a bit of a mess of your new guitar. I'd just enjoy it as it is for a good while before considering whether anything needs improving on it. Nothing at all wrong with a Squier: it's where most of us started!

Enjoy - C

Thanks, you are right, had I taken a more than a cursory glance i would have noticed that more work than a simple swap job would be required.

What model did you get?

_________________
-Classic 50's Strat.
-Std. Telecaster.
-Mike Dirnt P-bass.
-Custody of SE Strat.
-Peavey Predator/Dean Evo/Epiphone DR150/Gibson Slide (much older than me).

Rellik Productions Inc.

Personally i love upgrading Squier Strats, its easy work and good fun.

I recently purchased a Squier Bullet Special Strat (new at £69.00), purely because it was orange (my orange 65 Mustang set a fetish for the colour off lol).
The neck played nice but it felt flimsy, so i fitted a 90s MIK Squier maple neck i had purchased for a future project. The decal had been stripped with plans of designing my own but in the end i just opted for a 50s style logo.
I also scalloped the last frets (12th onwards) as i like the 'feel' of Malmsteen necks.
The last part was replacing the reasonable Squier humbucker with a Duncan Custom.

Okay, so not much left of the original i guess? But point being, for under £150 i have a superb guitar that i sometimes prefer to my US models!
The no-nonsense 1 x pickup and volume knob is surprisingly quite liberating whilst playing, its also hardtail so this is a really good 'workhorse' guitar.

A few pics




A pic of the scalloping after i had just done it

Hi FrancoAC: wow, that's actually a rather cool orange, especially against the black. Do you call it "the Liquorice Allsorts Strat"?

Point of curiosity: when you scalloped between the upper frets did you lose and need to replace the black dot markers, or do they run deep enough not to?



Cheers - C

Thanks. No i did not lose any, the first neck i scalloped was a cheap name Strat (a practice piece), and i went too deep as one of the higher inlays fell out. I took more care with this one

That thing looks great. A friend of mine has a double fat strat with the same orange and black scheme.

_________________
-Classic 50's Strat.
-Std. Telecaster.
-Mike Dirnt P-bass.
-Custody of SE Strat.
-Peavey Predator/Dean Evo/Epiphone DR150/Gibson Slide (much older than me).

Rellik Productions Inc.

Thanks. I built another one with a left handed neck, so the headstock was upside down (<3 Hendrix), just changed the nut around.
I dont have any pics but theres a vid here;


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2lXgZDxo8c&feature=channel_page