one of the grub screws has fallen out of its saddle at some point since i last took a photo of the bridge lmao god this is such a cursed instrument

almost wonder if i should replace the saddles too (ideally not the entire bridge…) while i'm at it…

hmm the problem with replacing the tuners is that i don't want to buy the cheapest possible ones (i'll surely regret it?), i don't want to spend close to or more than $100 (too much for a guitar that cost $350 in 2010), and i don't want to buy whatever fender originally put on it

at the same time, i don't want to change the appearance of the guitar too much, and also more than anything else i have no idea how to judge the quality of these things, but i don't want to have to lean on someone else for advice yet again… so many “buts”

an unfortunate thing about owning an old, cheap squier from 2010 is that the tuners are not in one of the standard shapes you'll find sold on, say, thomann. they're these weird things: hexagonal, closed, with staggered screws

i've found a few forum posts online mentioning them…

in case anyone else should find this thread in future, here are other places i've seen them mentioned:

• https://www.tdpri.com/threads/are-there-any-replacement-tuners-for-these-90s-squier.1074079/
• https://menga.net/squier-tuner-replacements
• https://www.instructables.com/Rehab-and-Upgrades-for-a-Fender-Squire-Strat-Plus-/ (no text mention, but one of the “more images” under “step 1. dismantling” has the same tuners)

i fear we might be getting to a set of options that looks like “replace the tuners with exactly identical ones from some ebay seller that somehow has those” or “drill new holes” if i insist on replacing the tuners. man…

a few sellers seemingly have a replacement with a slightly different button; https://guitaraudio.com/genuine-fender-squier-old-style-99-06-affinity-strat-chrome-tuners-keys-set claims fender part number of 005-5404-049 which i can't find elsewhere, and others claim a part number of 005-5404-000, e.g.
https://www.guitarpartsfactory.us/005-5404-000-Fender-Squier-Tuners-99-Affinity-Strat-Chrome-Diamond-Style-Set-6-0055404000 and https://darrenriley.com/homepage/fender-squier-affinity-tuners-0055404000/

if they aren't lying about the parts being genuine then presumably this is new-old-stock

then there's https://www.stewmac.com/parts-and-hardware/tuning-machines/solid-peghead-guitar-tuning-machines/economy-covered-gear-6-in-line-tuners/ which was linked in that forum thread…

https://www.ebay.com/itm/175599165185 is an interesting ebay listing and the source of the attached image. the suggestion it makes is that readily obtainable 6-in-line tuners with vertically aligned screwholes are appropriate for replacing the dreaded diagonally-aligned squier ones

of course, that requires drilling, soooo

a funny thing about economies of scale is that it's seemingly much easier and cheaper to just buy a new set of saddles for this bridge rather than to get one (1) screw to replace the one that fell out

well, mr thomann, you make a compelling offer (€12), i guess i'll take it

one concern i had was that perhaps this guitar's bridge is unusual in that it has to be grounded for it to function (assumption: fret sensing works by testing if a fret segment is currently grounded by the strings+bridge) but apparently grounding the bridge is normal? cool

i am throwing 666 (lmao) SEK at a set of things that should help in restoring the guitar, and i pray i shall not need to spend another

i wondered before if one could get thin wooden veneer strips to make the guitar more appealing. turns out yes, and they can be remarkably thin, cheap, made of very appealing kinds of wood, and entire businesses specialise in this niche (for guitars!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgVAQo0SXBk

i'm not saying i'm going to buy such a thing, but it's very interesting to discover it not only exists, but is a well-filled niche

though applying the word “tonewood” to a veneer is rather amusing

tfw you accidentally do the blur meme when taking a photo of your guitar stuff order

the HOSCO fret polishing rubber is magic, it is making it easy to remove the corrosion (example quick before-and-after with a little rubbing; there's now a clean strip of metal, not just a hint of one), i just gotta uh, remove all the strings again to make this easier lmao

the life of these perfectly innocent strings, so full of promise, cut so tragically short

HOSCO #1000 Fret Polishing Rubber 👍

circa 110 minutes of scrubbing later, every fret is now at least slightly shiny

after another three hours of scrubbing, well, these frets are still a long way from ideal, but this must be the best they've looked in a very long time!

i am really very impressed by just how resilient, versatile and gentle this fret polishing rubber is, incredible tool

removed the one of the tuners from the Squier in the hopes of lubricating it. this finally lets me see who made it (JIN HO) and what the hole diameter is (~8mm but i really am not confident measuring wooden hole diameters with this caliper, big error bar); shaft is 6.0mm

casing on the Squier JIN HO tuner is fairly loose, you can peek inside without damaging it (i am not going to try to pop it open, seems risky)

a peek in from the other side

some carefully targeted injections of tiny drops of the white teflon gunk seem to have put this first tuner in much better spirits!

accidentally popped the second tuner out of its case. BEHOLD, THE MECHANISM

oh the third tuner is really loving the Plausibly Deniably Carcinogenic Gloop, smooth as butter now, might need to go back and re-apply to the first two in the same way i did for this one because clearly this time i got it perfect

can you tell that i'm now very much at the “having fun” stage of amateur guitar tech 101

all the tuners are back on the headstock now!

they're all easy to turn now… but some of them are too easy, and tragically i know why that is, and it is due to one of my several unforced errors from being impatient last week. kids don't copy me i do not always act wisely

i think i managed to get the string winding right this time? this time i unwound and rewound a few times as necessary until i got it right. you have to hold the string tight while winding and pay close attention… once again i am grateful for https://youtu.be/UKFe8LpyBKA this video

okay it is weird it ended up with that many winds though, i assume this is an accident of the un-winding and re-winding i did

i think this string winding is less bad than my first attempt at least, but i will research technique better before next time

at long last, i now have a more or less fully-functional midi guitar <3

(i need to adjust the string action and possibly the sensitivity though, sheesh)

oh my god i measured the string action it's somehow set at over three fucking millimetres no wonder this feels so awful to play lmfao

time to fix that

will set it to the fender recommended 1.6mm as a starting point

halving the string action and re-intonating just the low E string, nothing else, took me an entire hour 🙃

this bridge is… not fun to work with

possibly interesting detail of this guitar's bridge: whoever designed it was clearly concerned that the low and high E strings' saddles might slip out of alignment if the screws aren't level, so there's actually little indents in the plate for the screws to sit in for those two

i would not say the Squier Stratocaster Guitar and Controller is a good guitar if you don't enjoy the process of adjusting tuning, relief, action and intonation, because unusually poor rigidity of the neck means you'll be doing a lot of those. but it's kind of relaxing

it took four hours(!) but the action is now in the pleasant 1.5~2mm range, the neck relief is good, the strings are in tune, the saddles do not wobble and intonation is acceptable. she's now quite enjoyable to play, acoustically at least!

just need to tweak pickup height now?

here's what a DI of it sounds like now ^^

even with more normal string action and pickup height, one of the middle strings (was it D or G? i forget) was still registering far too weakly on the MIDI output, so it was time to finally adjust the fabled undocumented sensitivity pots hidden cunningly next to the batteries

oh you want MIDI guitar do you? I'LL GIVE YOU MIDI GUITAR!!!

(followers with a keen memory may recall that it was in fact one of the General MIDI distorted guitar presets from the Roland SC-7, which you're hearing here, that originally convinced me to learn electric guitar. lmao)

now that my Squier Stratocaster Guitar and Controller is in shape, i can finally play Rock Band 3 Pro Guitar!

it's hard but i am having fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP4QQ5IDzxU

the real-time visual feedback as to what your hands are doing is excellent, i can keep my eyes off the guitar

that is, i suppose, an interesting advantage this game has over rocksmith

honestly can't believe how well the Squier is working now, i didn't notice a single fret tracking issue in the game which is so hard to believe considering the dire state this guitar was in when i got it. i'm really happy. going to have a lot of fun with my funny cyborg guitar