Done! Stripping & refinishing my Squier Bullet

Tenebrous

I said recently in a thread that the Squier Bullet is an absolutely fantastic strat for the money, so taking it apart & risking doing irreparable damage to it just felt like the natural thing to do Really though, apart from the dirty fretboard (which I fixed) & the finish, which is a film of some sort rather than a typical paint job from what I can tell, I just love the guitar, so why not give it a bash.

The idea came to me after seeing a video recommend on YouTube randomly yesterday. I ended up watching a few guides, & most people started did the stripping process with a heatgun. Makes sense, and they're nice & inexpensive...

... But I'm an impatient twat, so here's what it looks like after 45~ minutes with a B&D Mouse (Heatgun is on the way, though!)

The polpar under there actually looks quite nice, although I'm going to paint over it after the fact. Since the picture was taken, I've taken the neck & bridge off to make it a lot easier to work with (I just cut the ground wire as there's plenty of excess to address that later on).

Anyway, now I've got everything off apart from the loaded pickguard, I can get to work sanding the hell outta the back & sides properly. Should hopefully make it a lot easier! Did the sensible thing & ordered a heat gun

Will keep you updated.

munckee

I painted over a squier standard and put a new loaded pickguard on. Was a nice project and turned out fine. I could be bothered to take off the finish. Will be interested to see what you do with it. 

Tenebrous

munckee said:

I painted over a squier standard and put a new loaded pickguard on. Was a nice project and turned out fine. I could be bothered to take off the finish. Will be interested to see what you do with it. 

I'll keep you informed! Only plans so far are take the old finish off, add a new one, change the pickguard & ta-da, done.

Decided I probably need a heat gun I thought I was doing a decent job sanding the back, but there's definite ridges & whatnot on it! Oh well, there's a reason why I'm doing this on a Squier Bullet lol. A heatgun would be fine for taking this sort of finish off, right?

Ah well. Here's where I am right now.

Sarge

Definitely get a heat gun, you'll have it all off in 20 minutes while keeping all the wood on the body

Just remember low heat and keep it moving, you don't want to melt that plastic, just soften it and get under with a blunt scraper. 

Tenebrous

Sarge said:

Definitely get a heat gun, you'll have it all off in 20 minutes while keeping all the wood on the body

Just remember low heat and keep it moving, you don't want to melt that plastic, just soften it and get under with a blunt scraper. 

Any recommendations? Tempted just to grab the cheapest B&D from a reputable eBay store for like £20. Should do the job

munckee

The standard I used had alnico pickups, after buying a loaded pickguard I eventually put the squier pickups back in and realised it was the wiring that improved it, the squier ones were fine. 

In case you end up continuing to mod it!

Tenebrous

munckee said:

The standard I used had alnico pickups, after buying a loaded pickguard I eventually put the squier pickups back in and realised it was the wiring that improved it, the squier ones were fine. 

In case you end up continuing to mod it!

The standard pickups sound pretty damn good, so they're certainly not on the chopping block for now! I do kinda like the idea of making it a one humbucker/one volume kinda deal, though... Sparkly purple with a metal pickguard

Zoolooter

Tenebrous said:

Sarge said:

Definitely get a heat gun, you'll have it all off in 20 minutes while keeping all the wood on the body

Just remember low heat and keep it moving, you don't want to melt that plastic, just soften it and get under with a blunt scraper. 

Any recommendations? Tempted just to grab the cheapest B&D from a reputable eBay store for like £20. Should do the job

Any cheap heat gun from eBay. You will use it for about 10 mins max on that body.

Tenebrous

Zoolooter said:

Tenebrous said:

Sarge said:

Definitely get a heat gun, you'll have it all off in 20 minutes while keeping all the wood on the body

Just remember low heat and keep it moving, you don't want to melt that plastic, just soften it and get under with a blunt scraper. 

Any recommendations? Tempted just to grab the cheapest B&D from a reputable eBay store for like £20. Should do the job

Any cheap heat gun from eBay. You will use it for about 10 mins max on that body.

Done & done. Ordered this heatgun: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2000W-Hot-Air-Heat-Gun-Dual-Temperature-Paint-Stripper-DIY-Tool-4-Nozzle-UK/351948108890

& this iron: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/KATSU-48W-Variable-Temperature-Soldering-Station-Iron-Electronic-W-Extra-Tips/272161465372

Should both be here around the end of the week. Hopefully the weather will be good so I can make some good progress.

After (mostly) taking the pickguard off, I've discovered the body is routed for HSH, so if I were to swap, every option is pretty much available to me, which is great.

Sarge

They should be fine, but don't use the included scrapers on the gun, they'll be far too close to the body and melt or burn the finish, if that happens you'll be sanding anyway to get melted plastic or scorch marks out of the wood.
Get a wallpaper scraper and blunt the edge, it's really easy to dig into the wood with a sharp scraper... And you'll be sanding again

I have the same brand iron in a slightly different casing and 58watt, it works but after a couple of jobs the screw/nut keeping the tip in place came loose, it is held in place by a tiny center punch dimple! I had to crimp it with pliers to stop it spinning when changing the tip. 

Zoolooter

This is my weapon of choice with the heat gun. As mentioned above, nothing too sharp.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=old+butter+knife&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-gb&client=safari#imgrc=0z3lDYnjO22FvM:

Tenebrous

Thanks a lot for the advice, guys. I'll make sure I've got an old knife handy.

Here's my list of needs so-far. Is there anything obvious I'm missing?

Soldering Iron/Heat Gun Ordered.

Primer

Paint

Lacquer/Gloss

An ungodly amount of sandpaper/masking tape

(Also a new pickguard/pick-up covers/knobs, etc).

I know grain filler is seen as a must, but honestly, I've already dinged it up through daily use & user stupidity, so I'm not too bothered about a few imperfections in the finish. I'll just save the money & call it character

Tenebrous

Everything ordered apart from a cream coloured pick-up selector switch Should be able to start proper in the coming days. Decided to also go with a matching headstock, so I've been trying to mask it up as good as possible.

Needless to say I can probably do a bit better around the head itself. Bloody hard work!

Jalapeno

Get your own brand label from Rothko&Frost, rather than make it a faux Fender !

Good job so far !

Tenebrous

Jalapeno said:

Get your own brand label from Rothko&Frost, rather than make it a faux Fender !

Good job so far !

Thanks! I'm definitely not putting a Fender logo on it, and I was thinking of sourcing a replacement Squier one for it, but instead I've decided to do my own thing with stickers... At least, with what I have planned, I'm pretty sure no-one will have one like mine haha.

prowla

My barebones Squier Bullet cost me £7.50, so that is value for money. 

I’ve put a loaded pickguard on it which I’ve had for a while and it needed a new nut too. 

A set of strings and some setup. 

It might be worth £50 when it’s done. 

Tenebrous

North of Brum was blessed with a whole 45 minutes of sunshine earlier today, and with stuff arriving a lot faster than expected (big shoutout to Northwest Guitars), I managed to get the scratchplate unsoldered from the jack, remove everything from the body, heatgun the hell out of the back, & also get 4 layers of primer on the headstock! If all goes well, tomorrow I'll be able to get some colour on the headstock & the body fully primed up & ready to go.

You might notice a burn mark on the bottom right of the picture, but that's where I started & got a little bit overzealous. I think I got used to it pretty fast after that, so it all went rather well. Still need to get everything off the top, though...

Still waiting on the scratchplate, pick-up covers, & knobs. Once again, if anyone has a cream coloured pup selector switch they're willing to part with for a beer token, lemme know!

Tenebrous

I know it's a bit uncouth to toot your own horn, but I'm pretty damn chuffed with how this came out for a first attempt.

(I know I've put it back together a LOT faster than recommended, but hey, excitement was too much to contain )

Tenebrous

Next up in this episode of "putting things together too fast & not letting them properly dry", I present to you this. It's quite far from perfect, but I know exactly where I went wrong: Being overly worried/spray heavy with early coats, & starting with the can on the guitar rather than off the guitar.

Still, I think it's come out rather nice for a first effort, and I'm confident I'll do a lot better on my next attempt.

Oh, I also put the neck & bridge back on. The neck went on just as smoothly as it came off, so hopefully it'll be alright. I'm going to string it up & see how it behaves/feels. The electronics will have to wait until the pick-up covers I ordered come.

MattNovak

Good job! Is that shell pink? I might try that on my next build.

Andyjr1515

Looks pretty good to me!  Well done