Is it worth converting a HSS Squier Bullet to SSS (~£70)?

JamesC01

Right now the only two strats I have are a squier bullet HSS, and a yamaha pacifica 112V HSS with coil split. Is it worth modding the squier bullet to have SSS pickups? It would cost me £17 for a decent SSS pickguard/backplate, £30 for some wilkinson vintage pickups, and £15-£25 for a soldering iron kit, totalling around £70. Am I better off just putting that money towards another guitar, or would it be a good idea to create more of a variety out of my current guitars?

I know the pacifica has coil-split, but it would be nice to have a classic SSS strat. I don't plan on selling the bullet, since it was my first guitar, and I'd like to keep it, so concern over re-sale value isn't an issue (and it was only £110 when I bought it, anyway).

hollywoodrox

Will it make you happy to do so?  Do you need SSS ?  You can still get the 2 & 4 switch position sounds with your Hss I assume . 

If you’re planning to keep it & you have an affinity for it as it’s your first guitar & the SSS will make it more viable for you  go for it. 

The main thing though is will it make you happy to do it , provide you with an amusing project 
  Make the guitar more personal to you. This is its true WORTH

JamesC01

hollywoodrox said:

Will it make you happy to do so?  Do you need SSS ?  You can still get the 2 & 4 switch position sounds with your Hss I assume . 

If you’re planning to keep it & you have an affinity for it as it’s your first guitar & the SSS will make it more viable for you  go for it. 

The main thing though is will it make you happy to do it , provide you with an amusing project 
  Make the guitar more personal to you. This is its true WORTH

True, it would make me want to use the guitar more. I suppose another issue I have is that if I end up buying a more premium SSS strat in the future, I might feel like the money I spent on modding the bullet went to waste. At the same time, lots of people have multiple of the same type of guitar, with the same pickup config, so maybe it wouldn't be much of an issue.

Funkfingers

If you are happy with the stock Squier single coils, continue to use them. Just invest in a bridge position pickup.

paulnb57

Easiest option would be to put a humbucker size P90 at the bridge of the HSS

ICBM

JamesC01 said:

I know the pacifica has coil-split, but it would be nice to have a classic SSS strat. I don't plan on selling the bullet, since it was my first guitar, and I'd like to keep it, so concern over re-sale value isn't an issue (and it was only £110 when I bought it, anyway).

Do it. There are no downsides, especially if you keep the original parts so you can put it back if you ever want to.

Someone here had their first guitar, which was also a low-end Squier I think, completely rebuilt by @FelineGuitars - madness from a purely economic point of view, but so what? Still cheaper than an expensive Fender, and actually quite likely to be as good a guitar!

WezV

I've done a complete rebuild of a Bullet Mustang, and butchered, modded and refurbed many other Squiers from all periods over the years.  I still have a self build with Bullet neck hanging behind me.

They are a good base for modding.  I would argue its rarely cost effective, but if you enjoy doing it and get a good result then that  is no more of a problem than buying a brand new guitar and it losing value as soon as you leave the shop.

prowla

JamesC01 said:

Right now the only two strats I have are a squier bullet HSS, and a yamaha pacifica 112V HSS with coil split. Is it worth modding the squier bullet to have SSS pickups? It would cost me £17 for a decent SSS pickguard/backplate, £30 for some wilkinson vintage pickups, and £15-£25 for a soldering iron kit, totalling around £70. Am I better off just putting that money towards another guitar, or would it be a good idea to create more of a variety out of my current guitars?

I know the pacifica has coil-split, but it would be nice to have a classic SSS strat. I don't plan on selling the bullet, since it was my first guitar, and I'd like to keep it, so concern over re-sale value isn't an issue (and it was only £110 when I bought it, anyway).

If you want to do it, then go for it and have some fun; however, at the end of it your guitar won't be worth a penny more than when you started.

Alternatively, putting £70 towards another instrument could get you something better; I have an SSS Squier Affinity which is a decent £100 instrument.

FYI, I've got a project where I'm putting £100s of parts onto a crappy <£100 bass, because I want to! The outcome will be a load of parts on a plank of wood, but I'm doing it for the fun of it.

Dave_Mc

paulnb57 said:

Easiest option would be to put a humbucker size P90 at the bridge of the HSS

That's not going to turn it into an SSS Strat, though... arguably HSS will sound Strattier, especially if it has a coil split!

If you're not going to sell the guitar and SSS will make you like it more, then go for it, as everyone else is saying. I'd maybe look at Entwistles (if anywhere has them in stock) rather than Wilkinsons, the AS57s are a lot nicer than any Wilkinsons I've tried. Or keep an eye out on Ebay... Toltec has a couple of handwound single coils up at hte moment starting at £20. They might get bid higher, but they might not...

JamesC01

prowla said:

JamesC01 said:

Right now the only two strats I have are a squier bullet HSS, and a yamaha pacifica 112V HSS with coil split. Is it worth modding the squier bullet to have SSS pickups? It would cost me £17 for a decent SSS pickguard/backplate, £30 for some wilkinson vintage pickups, and £15-£25 for a soldering iron kit, totalling around £70. Am I better off just putting that money towards another guitar, or would it be a good idea to create more of a variety out of my current guitars?

I know the pacifica has coil-split, but it would be nice to have a classic SSS strat. I don't plan on selling the bullet, since it was my first guitar, and I'd like to keep it, so concern over re-sale value isn't an issue (and it was only £110 when I bought it, anyway).

If you want to do it, then go for it and have some fun; however, at the end of it your guitar won't be worth a penny more than when you started.

Alternatively, putting £70 towards another instrument could get you something better; I have an SSS Squier Affinity which is a decent £100 instrument.

FYI, I've got a project where I'm putting £100s of parts onto a crappy <£100 bass, because I want to! The outcome will be a load of parts on a plank of wood, but I'm doing it for the fun of it.

If I was going to buy another strat, I'd probably go more for a classic vibe, but I don't really want to drop that amount of money any time soon. I'm sure the Affinity guitars are nicer, but they don't have a full thickness body (neither does the bullet), so I'm not sure if I'd want to just add another cheap strat to my collection. Since I'm not going to sell the bullet, I think I'll mod it. Some people have suggested loaded pickguards, and they seem like a cheaper option, so that might be good.

CampbellH

It should always be all about the experience and not the financials. 

If all you are doing is dropping in, for want of a better phrase, a new loaded pickguard it is an easy revert project if you dont like it. But you will never know until you do it.

Enjoy the now and forget about the future ifs/buts/maybes, we only live in the now.

ICBM

JamesC01 said:

Since I'm not going to sell the bullet, I think I'll mod it. Some people have suggested loaded pickguards, and they seem like a cheaper option, so that might be good.

Be aware that anything other than a pickguard specifically for that model or copied from it won’t fit - the outline and the screw positions are slightly different from other versions.

Personally, I wouldn’t penny-pinch too much just because the basic guitar is cheap - if you’re not going to sell it the actual value is irrelevant, the only thing that matters is how much you enjoy the result.

I spent over £200 on new pickups for my old 1980s Aria ‘Strat’, and it was money well spent since I will never sell the guitar and it now sounds great, as opposed to average. I may even upgrade the bridge at some point too.

paulnb57

Dave_Mc said:

paulnb57 said:

Easiest option would be to put a humbucker size P90 at the bridge of the HSS

That's not going to turn it into an SSS Strat, though... arguably HSS will sound Strattier, especially if it has a coil split!

Why? A P90 is a single coil, admittedly a “proper P90” is built differently to a Strat SC, but I would bet your Pension a HB size P90 is not really built like a proper P90
Just a SC made to fit the humbucker footprint and wound to sound more like a P90, especially the cheap ones
Ive got a HB size P90 in a Strat and it sounds like a SC to me, albeit a bit (and it is a bit) fatter which is always a good thing on a Strat IMHO

And an HSS Strat wont sound like a Strat with SC’s when just the bridge humbucker is selected?

Funkfingers

Ash at Oil City Pickups makes a model he calls the Big Block - effectively, a Telecaster bridge/Treble pickup in a humbucker housing. (Possibly, named after a Jeff Beck recording.)

Request this with three-conductor wiring. Coil start, coil finish and ground for the metal parts. That way, any signal phase issues can easily be corrected.

Andyjr1515

I'm also in the 'go for it' camp.  While there's nothing wrong with the sound of an HSS, the sound of an SSS is tangibly different.  Indeed, it is 'the' strat sound.

And the quality of timbers and construction of Squiers is impressive.

Dave_Mc

ICBM said:

Personally, I wouldn’t penny-pinch too much just because the basic guitar is cheap - if you’re not going to sell it the actual value is irrelevant, the only thing that matters is how much you enjoy the result.

Yeah exactly. If you know you're not going to sell it, cheaping out (or even just not bothering) with mods means you'll have a guitar you're never going to get rid of which you don't much like. At least with mods you can hopefully turn it into something you love.

That's not to say I'd put Throbaks into it, of course! (But you don't have to pay anywhere close to Throbak prices to get something great. Those Toltecs I mentioned, for example, are excellent.)

paulnb57 said:

Dave_Mc said:

paulnb57 said:

Easiest option would be to put a humbucker size P90 at the bridge of the HSS

That's not going to turn it into an SSS Strat, though... arguably HSS will sound Strattier, especially if it has a coil split!

Why? A P90 is a single coil, admittedly a “proper P90” is built differently to a Strat SC, but I would bet your Pension a HB size P90 is not really built like a proper P90
Just a SC made to fit the humbucker footprint and wound to sound more like a P90, especially the cheap ones
Ive got a HB size P90 in a Strat and it sounds like a SC to me, albeit a bit (and it is a bit) fatter which is always a good thing on a Strat IMHO

And an HSS Strat wont sound like a Strat with SC’s when just the bridge humbucker is selected?

I don't really think a P90 sounds like a Strat-style single coil... it's still a single coil, but its design is so different that it sounds more like a Gibson-style pickup to me. (Granted, I've only tried "proper" P90s, not HB-sized ones, but I'm guessing they're trying to sound as close as possible to the "proper" ones.)

I agree with you that humbuckers don't either, but you can split most of them. If you have one you can split, while I still agree it's not exactly close, it's a bit closer, at least to my ears. That's all I meant.

I guess there's the option of going for a tapped P90, but they're not exactly common, and to make it sound like a Strat pickup I would guess you'd have to go massively underwound on the lower output tap. And it still might not sound anywhere close to right. 

And if you're willing to go to that bother, another option which still doesn't sound exactly right but is a lot closer would be to get one of those humbuckers which are designed to split, which have alnico rod magnets in one of the coils. (And ideally a tap on that coil to remove some of it for the humbucker tones, since that coil tends to overpower the slug humbucker coil. But then you're getting really complex...)

But all of that is really overkill if you know you just want a Strat... just get a new pickguard and a bridge single coil. (Or avoid the pickguard and get one of those "angled Strat singles in a humbucker casing", which I haven't tried but I'm guessing aren't a million miles away.)

JamesC01

Anyone think this loaded pickguard from northwestguitars would be a good option? It's only in white, not parchment or vintage white, but I'm thinking I can make the compromise for the convenience of it being pre-wired. The only issue is that the price is very low considering it has alnico V pickups in it. The entire loaded pickguard is cheaper than the cheapest wilkinson alnico V's. What do you think?

ICBM

JamesC01 said:

Anyone think this loaded pickguard from northwestguitars would be a good option? It's only in white, not parchment or vintage white, but I'm thinking I can make the compromise for the convenience of it being pre-wired. The only issue is that the price is very low considering it has alnico V pickups in it. The entire loaded pickguard is cheaper than the cheapest wilkinson alnico V's. What do you think?

If it’s not specifically for a Squier Bullet then it won’t fit.

It also has a crap switch and jack, and the pots aren’t great.

JamesC01

ICBM said:

JamesC01 said:

Anyone think this loaded pickguard from northwestguitars would be a good option? It's only in white, not parchment or vintage white, but I'm thinking I can make the compromise for the convenience of it being pre-wired. The only issue is that the price is very low considering it has alnico V pickups in it. The entire loaded pickguard is cheaper than the cheapest wilkinson alnico V's. What do you think?

If it’s not specifically for a Squier Bullet then it won’t fit.

It also has a crap switch and jack, and the pots aren’t great.

I measured the screw holes on my bullet and they are no more than 0.5mm off compared to a standard fender pickguard, and that might just be my ruler and measuring accuracy being slightly off. What's wrong with the pots, switch and jack. Would they be worse than the stock ones in the bullet?

ICBM

JamesC01 said:

I measured the screw holes on my bullet and they are no more than 0.5mm off compared to a standard fender pickguard, and that might just be my ruler and measuring accuracy being slightly off. What's wrong with the pots, switch and jack. Would they be worse than the stock ones in the bullet?

You may find the screw down by the lower tone control goes into the cavity not the wood, and possibly that the neck cutout and pickup holes aren’t quite in the right place so the pickups conflict with the rout. Or that may be my memory! But they don’t quite fit, anyway.

The switch, pots and jack aren’t worse than the stock ones, but if you’re going to replace them, why not use decent ones?

I would get a good replacement pickguard made in the colour you actually want, with a CRL switch, CTS pots and a Switchcraft jack. It will only cost a bit more but the result will be far better.

I would actually save money on pickups before the rest of the electrics - things like Toneriders are pretty decent for not much money.

JamesC01

ICBM said:

JamesC01 said:

I measured the screw holes on my bullet and they are no more than 0.5mm off compared to a standard fender pickguard, and that might just be my ruler and measuring accuracy being slightly off. What's wrong with the pots, switch and jack. Would they be worse than the stock ones in the bullet?

You may find the screw down by the lower tone control goes into the cavity not the wood, and possibly that the neck cutout and pickup holes aren’t quite in the right place so the pickups conflict with the rout. Or that may be my memory! But they don’t quite fit, anyway.

The switch, pots and jack aren’t worse than the stock ones, but if you’re going to replace them, why not use decent ones?

I would get a good replacement pickguard made in the colour you actually want, with a CRL switch, CTS pots and a Switchcraft jack. It will only cost a bit more but the result will be far better.

I would actually save money on pickups before the rest of the electrics - things like Toneriders are pretty decent for not much money.

ICBM said:

JamesC01 said:

I measured the screw holes on my bullet and they are no more than 0.5mm off compared to a standard fender pickguard, and that might just be my ruler and measuring accuracy being slightly off. What's wrong with the pots, switch and jack. Would they be worse than the stock ones in the bullet?

You may find the screw down by the lower tone control goes into the cavity not the wood, and possibly that the neck cutout and pickup holes aren’t quite in the right place so the pickups conflict with the rout. Or that may be my memory! But they don’t quite fit, anyway.

The switch, pots and jack aren’t worse than the stock ones, but if you’re going to replace them, why not use decent ones?

I would get a good replacement pickguard made in the colour you actually want, with a CRL switch, CTS pots and a Switchcraft jack. It will only cost a bit more but the result will be far better.

I would actually save money on pickups before the rest of the electrics - things like Toneriders are pretty decent for not much money.

I've read that CTS pots are too big for some squiers, and the more expensive switches are sometimes too long, because the squier bullet is only 40mm thick, as opposed to 45mm for a regular strat. People have have to rout/dremel out some space for a nicer switch to fit in.

I added up the price with nicer components, and I'd end up paying £120, and that's with the wilkinson pickups, it'd probably end up about £150 if I got toneriders, at that point, it'd probably be better to get a fender tex-mex pre-wired pickguard for £150.

Even buying the cheapest components it would still be a lot more than the £50 pre-wired pickguard. I think maybe the £50 pickguard is quite a bit cheaper because they get it pre-made from the factory, and that might allow them to discount it a bit more. I'm not sure. I suppose it really depends on what pickups they have in the £50 pre-wired one.

I haven't had any issues with the current electrics in the squier, the switch actually feels quite solid compared to some more expensive guitars I have, so I don't think I'd have a problem with the electronics in the £50 loaded pickguard. It's just that I'm wondering how it's so cheap. Whether its because it was made in the factory, or because the pickups are really cheap or what.