My Squier 51 experience

[Guitar-Chris]

Now it is here: My neighbour boght a 51 after I suggested this model to him only knowing it from Rob's videos.

So i tried it and here is my review:

At first ist was made very well. The finish and painting well done, the frets and - at last -a very good setup. Ultra low action without any buzz.


Sound: Very versatile. The neck pickup seems a little bit sharp, but my amp was setup for my Telecaster and it has a neck pickup with not so many high frequencies. So after dialing in the amp it was allright.

After all a great guitar for that price.:R

The only negative thing: The vintage blond colour is urgh.... looks like pudding.

But my neighbour loves it.

 

[Tim]

GC - To each there own.

 

[Guitar-Chris]

GC - To each there own.

Yep, of course. He was waiting for this colour sind November!!! The guitar was available in black and sunburst (I love sunburst!), but blonde was his colour.

An indeed, it is a very special colour.

 

[Robert]

I think it is a very cool guitar indeed, the '51. I do use it the most of all my guitars.

 

[Spudman]

I know what you mean about the briteness of the neck pickup. I've been toying with the idea of replacing mine with a hot alnico. Without a boost of some sort it seems a bit thin, but with a Monkey or Full Tone it sounds great.
I have a blonde and ya the color is strange, but under lights and after 10 years of gigs it's going to look so sweet!

 

[Robert]

I must say I don't find my neck pickup very bright sounding. It's just right.

I have hum problems with both my Tele and the '51 when I play live. Often I have to play only on the middle pickup on the Tele, and only on the bucker on the '51. Time for noisless? Maybe!

I have noticed the intonation on mine is way out. Gotta fix that.

 

[SuperSwede]

Robert, I have found that there is a lot of ground noise / hum coming from my tele as well. A cheap solution is to shield the pickup cavities with copper tape. I always forget to check for copper tape when I am at the utility store, so I dont know if it will work out well for this guitar. I did this on a Ibanez I had and it worked great! It was Ibanez Super 70´s humbuckers on that guitar, and it had more noise coming from it that any single coil guitar I have played

 

[Tim]

I normally take the pups of the pick guard . Then apply a light coat of contact cement on the underside. Then I lay a large piece of aluminum foil on top of the contact cement. After a few minutes I trim and punch through the holes and reassemble.

You can go here for more info:

http://www.guitarnuts.com/index.php

 

[SuperSwede]

Thanks Tim, looks like a very useful link. Does it eliminate much of the hum?

 

[Spudman]

This link will take you directly to the shielding page.
http://www.guitarnuts.com/wiring/menu.php

 

[Robert]

The guitarnuts.com site is quite useful - thanks for posting that!

On my Strat, I have my middle tone knob wired to the bridge pickup - very useful on that guitar.

 

[Tim]

Thanks Tim, looks like a very useful link. Does it eliminate much of the hum?

It got rid of most of the hum. I was really surprised. I am sure if you bought the copper sheet it would do a better job at sheilding. I could not find the copper so I went into the wife's cupbord and borrowed the aluminum.

If I get in front of the computer with it ... it still hums, but not as bad.

 

[SuperSwede]

Sounds nice! Why buy Vintage Noiseless when you can get Tims Virtual Noiseless for the low price of 99c

 

[M29]

New '51

Hello all,

Well I have been wrestling with getting an inexpensive acoustic to knock around with or a Squier '51. I decided that I would rather have a very (nice) acoustic down the road and I ended up getting a '51 in sunburst yesturday.
I looked over about 5 of these at a local GC and ended up with the one I have. Most had issues of some sort but this one is very nice finish wise and has a good neck. I am adjusting the truss rod a little each day for a couple days to dial it in.
The finish is very nice but the neck is getting dirty already from the string residue on my fingers. What concerns me is that it appears like the neck may not have any finish on it. It has a very flat look to it and not satin like most of the other Squier necks I have seen.
Over all I like it and have lowered the action to just above buzz and have intonated it which did wonders for the sound. I would like the action a bit lower and that may come once the truss rod is dialed in. The thing really vibrates through the whole guitar and is odd to me being Gibson friendly. I am getting used to my Strat but this '51 reeaally vibrates. I assume this is normal probably from the basswood body. It gives a bit of a cheap feel to it but I guess I will get used to it. It sounds great through the amp.
I am going to replace the strings and when ever I replace the strings I like to do as much to the body as I can as my strings last a long time and while I am at it I think I will take the pickguard off and check things out, (solder joints, loose hardwhare and what not). I have read the screws can strip in the basswood easy so I will be careful there. I am also thinking of adding copper shielding while I am at it. I found shielding info at Guitar Fetish and that will be helpful. The machine heads seem to work good and I will have to sand the fret edges like most of you guys have done.
I think new strings will do wonders at this point and a bit of tweeking here and there should make this a nice player. I do love the variety of sounds you can get with it and I will be looking into a way to add a tone control.

Any suggestions on what to do while I have the pickguard off?

M29

 

[Robert]

You probably know I dig my '51, and one thing I recommend is to lower the pickups a bit. Gives a little less output but much better tone.

 

[M29]

Pickups lowered

Hello Robert,

Thank you for the tip on lowering the pickups. I know you love your '51 I can tell by how you play it. You really put that thing through it paces and it sounds great!

I just took off the pickguard and was surprised that there is not much in the way of a cavity. The pickups are real tight in their places. Should not take much to shield this baby.

Did you just lower the humbucking? I can't see a way to lower the single coil. I suppose there is not much need to lower the neck single.

Thank you Robert as always for your time and help.

M29

 

[Robert]

Oh yeah, you are right, just the humbucker. It helped my tone.

If you know of a good way to get it shielded to minimize pickup hum, let us know how you did it. I'd like to fix the hum if possible on mine, but I have never done it before.

 

[Spudman]

M29
Read this thread. You may want to try something like is described here while the guitar is apart.
http://www.thefret.net/showthread.php?t=852&highlight=a+little+tung

 

[kerc]

It seems I'm one of the few people who find the '51 blonde color attractive! Mine's pretty cool in that the finish is very transparent--I still haven't seen one as clear as mine, and it also has a lot of white-ish faded areas...Relic without relicing!