I've had a long history with Stratocasters and for years my go to was a 1976 American Standard in "natural" or what we now call "Tobacco Burst". In 1997, I picked up a bright red Squier Affinity for my teen son to start learning on and he quickly decided that Porsches were more his style that guitar playing, so the Squier became relegated to the closet.
Around 8 months ago, I discovered a series of great videos on Youtube by Gelazzo Frudua on setting up Strats. One series dealt with the tremolo setup. Not wanting to mess up my '76, I pulled the Squier out of the closet and took a look. It was AWFUL! You could only down-bend and intonation sucked. I don't think this is what turned my son off, though, as he never got that far along.
One of Gelazzo's videos dealt with adjusting the springs and the screws holding the trem block in position. I removed the back cover and - low and behold - the spring bar was screwed tight up against the inside of the cavity. This kept the trem block tight against the body so that a drop bend was all you could possibly achieve. I backed the screws out a good 5/8" and the trem block was now floating properly. I then followed Gelazzo's quidance on setting the six screws holding the bridge plate in place to get proper up and down motion. Voila! The trem worked as it should AND things stayed in tune no matter how I banged on it (I use D'addario NYXL 009's).
The next step was the action - it was currently good, but I thought it could be better. Back to Gelazzo's videos ...
Total time spent was a relaxed evening on these two items and I found that I actually liked the Squier better than my '76 - mainly because it was so much lighter and alive feeling (the '76 was a heavy SOB).
My next problem was the cheap electronics that came with the Squier. They had gone down the "this is junk" path over the last 18 years in the closet and I had to move the pickup selector on and off of positions (like in the old 3 position days) to get a clean selection. Argh - I finally get it playing nice and the electronics are toast :(.
I did a bunch of looking around at pre-wired pickguards, but they were all made for Top line Strats, not Squiers (different hole pattern), so I dug a bit further. In the end, I discovered Guitar Fetish. They had a number of kits for Stratocaster and I settled on a pre-wired pickguard (this meant things were pre-wired) that used Alnico V mid-output pickups rather than separate components. Once I received the package, I swapped the new electronics into the existing Squier pickguard and dialed everything in. To quote our good buddy Gomer Pyle - "Shazam!" The tonal characteristic are of a slightly hot Tex-Mex configuration and ALL of the scratchy electronics are gone.
Now, I find myself hitting the Squier far more than my '76 American because it's lighter and the limited paint thickness provides a much nicer resonance.
I doubt I'd sell the '76, but it has turned into a bench warmer :) when I need that single coil bite.
