One for the Squire Strat fraternity...which model is it?

jasperthecat

OK so on Saturday afternoon while looking for a guitar that I could leave up at my caravan between visits I spotted a Squier Strat for sale locally on Gumtree for the princely sum of £10.00.

Yep only £10.00 and what's more it looked remarkably tidy on the advert so as the advert had just been put up and the seller lived at the other side of town I quickly jumped in offered to drop around and buy it which I did.
  
At the time of reading the ad I'd noticed they also had a TKL jumbo acoustic case for sale...this is an excellent make of case and built like the proverbial and they offered to let me take it and either bring it back or take the money to them if I wanted it. It fits my Epiphone J200 perfectly like a glove so it was a no-brainer and I got that too for just £10.00.

Anyway the Squier is very tidy with very few dings and just needed a good set up. Apparently the owner couldn't get away with electric guitars and the guitar had been stored in the loft which explained the rusty stings but when I removed the strings that were left and checked the neck with my notched straight edge it was surprisingly pretty good and only needed a slight tweak of the truss rod so that was fine.
I then checked for any high individual frets and proceeded to dress only only those which required attention which really only meant two frets needing immediate attention and then gave the rest a quick polish as there was no fret wear to speak of and it was almost like new.

The fingerboard was dry and dirty so gave that a good clean and oil and then set about restringing it with a set of D'Addario 9-42s.
I hadn't actually heard the guitar plugged in so didn't bother to lift the pickguard to see what was underneath but I knew it wouldn't be much if it didn't work but it was fine.
Once I'd restrung it and set up the action height, I gave it a quick intonation adjust as you could tell from the bridge saddles that the intonation had never been adjusted it played very well.

Now the question is: There are no identifying markings on the headstock or anywhere else as far as I can see which would allude to the age or where it was made or even the individual model.
The pickguard has certainly aged as have the tone and volume control knobs so it doesn't seem to be a very late model but I'm a bit thrown by the very white pups?
From what I've been able to discover I am leaning toward it being a Squier Strat SE model. The neck is very slightly fatter than my Squier Telecaster Custom fitted with P-90s which of all my guitars which include Fender Telecaster and Gretsch 5120 is my goto guitar and it plays very much like the Strats i've played belonging to other people.

I spent an a good deal of time working on the Squier Custom's neck and the action is absolutely superb and I suspect I could do the same with this Squier. The guitar would make a ideal model to upgrade as it plays fine now and I suspect with a proper set of original pups etc it would make a great playing guitar and given that I paid virtually nothing for it, it's worth the investment, plus I enjoy restoring guitars so that is a bonus.

So any ideas of the model? Pics below.

 



The strap must be worth half of what I paid.

dbphoto

Looks like an SE with a replacement guard and knobs.

(and the tuners in the wrong place so the strings fan out instead of going in a straight line from the nut..)

I have had a few and year and country of manufacture makes a difference to quality but for £10 you can’t go wrong!

jasperthecat

dbphoto said:

Looks like an SE with a replacement guard.

(and the tuners in the wrong place so the strings fan out instead of going in a straight line from the nut..)

So is the tuner alignment a giveaway as to model? you could well be right about the guard as that would explain the very white pups.

Wolfetone

Circa 2008 SE but definitely worth a tenner!

jasperthecat

Wolfetone said:

Circa 2008 SE but definitely worth a tenner!

Sounds about right. I've just been playing it and it actually plays really well even though I've never been a Strat lover and it's perfect for leaving at my caravan. I've definitely played worse guitars in my time.

The strap on it has got to be worth a fiver so it was a cheap guitar.  

Funkfingers

Chinese-made. Its serial number might begin with the letter Y.

dbphoto said:

tuners in the wrong place so the strings fan out instead of going in a straight line from the nut.

I prefer to regard that as the nut width being narrow. A bit of slot flaring will fix any snagging issues.

jasperthecat said:

I ... didn't bother to lift the pickguard to see what was underneath

Expect to find a generous, one-size-fits-all pickup rout. HSS conversions are a cinch. HH or HSH ought to be possible. 

The vibrato bridge is a weak spot in several ways. Upgrading is slightly awkward because of the narrow pivot screw spacing and the short sustain block. (Somebody on this forum is threatening to introduce a direct replacement block in decent quality materials. Possibly, Feline Guitars.)

King85

Funkfingers said:

jasperthecat said:

I ... didn't bother to lift the pickguard to see what was underneath

Expect to find a generous, one-size-fits-all pickup rout. HSS conversions are a cinch. HH or HSH ought to be possible. 

It's been in the loft so probably some spiders too.

rocktron

My Squier Strat, in bright Racing Red, was purchased around 2002 from a music store at the Windsor Town Centre.

It has a similar small headstock on which the strings go perfectly straight from the nut to the tuners, ie not splayed out. The Squier logo is similar except the fancy script "By Fender" is in a plain Arial type font, and in the centre at the round part at the top of the headstock is a small logo which says Affinity Series.  

At the back of the headstock, it says Crafted in China and a serial number S/N CY9807 8024.

CY (“Crafted in China”) - C = China, Y = Yako (Taiwan), the first number following the prefix is the year. 8-digit number.

Example: CY9xxxxxxx = made by Yako in 1999-2000

The metal plate at the back where the neck bolts on to the body is mirror-like in finish and does not have numbers or a logo stamped into it.

It has a 5.0mm thread Tremolo arm. NOTE: Check yours as it may have a 6.0mm thread. 

I use Ernie Ball Regular Slinky 10-46 strings. This is an amazing guitar - it stays perfectly in tune. . . but I do not use the trem. 

Kittyfrisk

King85 said:

Funkfingers said:

jasperthecat said:

I ... didn't bother to lift the pickguard to see what was underneath

Expect to find a generous, one-size-fits-all pickup rout. HSS conversions are a cinch. HH or HSH ought to be possible. 

It's been in the loft so probably some spiders too.

Be careful, it might be another one of the things living in Emp_Fab's loft 

MLten80

Great find for 30£

I used some of these for my first partscaster experiments 
 The necks can usually tidy up with some minimal levelling & sorting any rough ends 
 I found the earlier ones usually had better fretwork  

With some mid range pickups & 1/2 decent tuners you could have a fairly decent toy for not a lot of wedge
 I kept my red slightly modded one for donkeys yrs
 (I put some emg hzs & a set of grovers on & it played great)

jasperthecat

I have a Westfield brand Strat copy which I use for recording when I want a Strat quack and I noticed the headstock on that is slightly different and the strings are all in line with the tuners so no splaying at the nut as on the SE.

The Westfield to my ear definitely has better pups than the SE but I have no issues with either in regard to tuners and I don't use the trems so they are screwed down.
If I want a trem effect I just use my Gretsch.
Just like on the Westfield there were only two slightly high frets so I didn't need to do a full fret dress on the SE and they both play very well once set up and quite similarly too. In fact in a blind test, other than slightly better pickup sounds, it would be difficult to tell which one I was playing. 

For the princely sum of just £10.00 for the SE it's an absolute bargain and now that I've set it up, if I was still gigging I wouldn't be afraid to use it on stage, no probs.  

SNAKEBITE

Is the difference in colour of the guard and pick ups due to the different plastics aging differently?

King85

SNAKEBITE said:

Is the difference in colour of the guard and pick ups due to the different plastics aging differently?

That was my first thought too, almost certainly made by different suppliers and therefore different plastics.

jasperthecat

SNAKEBITE said:

Is the difference in colour of the guard and pick ups due to the different plastics aging differently?

I thought of that and it could well be the answer. The nut has also aged to the same colour as the pickguard, as has the white rear trem cover so, it's either the difference in plastics or the pups have been replaced.

I might even have argued that the pickguard colour was due to nicotine staining and the staining of the control knobs kind of support that idea too but if that was the cause, then logically it would also leave staining on the pups too, so one could argue that's out, especially as I raised the pups to set their correct height and there was no sign of staining.

I should have lifted the pickguard while the strings were off to see what if anything had been done underneath and I might just do that but it plays ok so I'll leave it for now.

Actually I'm just looking at it now and I quite like the aged effect of pickguard, it's just the glare of the pups that put me off. 

rossi

I have had several SE's and the pickguard goes off colour like a slight creamy mushroomy  look on all of them .

dbphoto

I'm fairly sure the old sunburst SE's had a tort guard as standard.

jasperthecat

rossi said:

I have had several SE's and the pickguard goes off colour like a slight creamy mushroomy  look on all of them .

Creamy is definitely how I'd describe it! The control knobs are the same colour too.

rossi

I fancy a burst SE .I didnt know they made one .My ones red with a Joe Trohman  tele neck , which has a Strat large headstock.