DIRTY Stratocaster Restored! | Axe From The Grave

welcome to cs guitars the science of loud what we have here is a squire affinity stratocaster made in china in 2002 stamped with a 20th anniversary badge on the neck plate now that might sound like something interesting but it's my understanding that every squire model made in 2002 was stamped 20th anniversary what is interesting however is that this instrument probably hasn't been played in almost 20 years and it really shows it is disgustingly filthy especially that neck i've never seen anything quite like this it is thick with dirt and grime and i feel sick just looking at it these strings are about 90 rust at this point much like a lot of the hardware with corrosion eating through those chrome parts the pickguard has been shrinking over time and cracking especially around the screw holes and part of it's even fallen off entirely now you might be thinking why would i even want to restore something like this well aside from the issues mentioned this is surprisingly in pretty good condition the frets have very little wear the body has only a few little dings and that neck is pretty much perfect this is a squire from around the same era as my bullet special which is still one of my favorite guitars for how comfortable it is to play and this affinity is from higher up the quality tier for squire at the time there's a lot of potential for this to be a fantastic playing instrument either as a clean restoration or as a more interesting modification platform before i can make a decision on how much i want to mess with this and change it up i need to get it stripped down cleaned up and a fresh set of strings on there so we can see exactly what we're working with [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] now when i took that pick guard off and saw this body route i got very excited we've got a deep swimming pool big control cavity so much room for activities knowing this i can come back at a later stage drop in a pic guard loaded with humbuckers and turn this into a fat super strat 80s dream machine with basically no effort at all i've even got parts and plans to do such a thing but i'm not going to get ahead of myself right now i want to turn this back into a stock three single coil strat for the end of this video the neck cleaned up beautifully now smells fantastic and i'm not afraid to put my face up against it the fretboard came up really nice once oiled and the frets didn't require any recrowning just a pass with the micro polishing pads to remove all the corrosion and get them shiny again i can already tell this is going to be a fantastic playing neck all of the rusted chrome parts came up lovely with the old white vinegar and aluminium foil technique the combination of weak acid and soft abrasive foil just melts the rust away without damaging the chrome obviously that can't replace any places where the chrome is pitted from the rust eating through it but at least the parts are back to being shiny i'm going to give them a light coat of wax to hopefully protect any of the exposed areas from rusting in the future all of our screws and other metal parts receive the same treatment and they are all clean now ready to be reinstalled speaking of reinstallation i've given myself two aesthetic options i've picked up a one ply white pick guard to replace the broken one and put this back to its original look or i could opt for this three-ply black guard and go for a tuxedo strat vibe frankly i'm leaning more towards how sexy the latter looks especially with some milled brass saddles as an upgrade to the cast chrome plated ones [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] all right oh hey there i know what you might be thinking that delightful young fella on my video screen looks like he's having a wonderful time playing all them guitars i want in on that action but i'd never even hailed a guitar before well in that case pack your things mr baggins were going on a quest a guitar quest internet sensation musician extraordinaire and all around top bloke rob scallon has put together a fun and engaging beginner's guitar course unlike anything i've ever seen it's designed to get you playing as quickly as possible while keeping everything accessible and real world relevant this isn't just scales and technical exercises for squares this will get you playing your first gig within an hour creating jingles for fictional brands taking you into the recording studio to write your own song and battling against the final boss in a do or die test of all the skills you have phoned even as someone who's been playing guitar for almost 15 years i've been really enjoying going through guitar quest laughing along with rob's jokes and even learning a few new tricks along the way if you want to start learning to play guitar then check out guitarquest guitarquest.com or follow the link in the description this came out incredibly well and i'm so glad i chose to save it from the scrap peep these squares are great guitars and this one performs well beyond its retail price point and i don't even do that much to it really it's only a clean and set up job swapping the look of the pet guard is entirely cosmetic but it changes the entire visual energy of the instrument those pickups are traditional style low output single coils and just nail that strat sound despite them being cheaper units there's a great range of tones and all positions on the switch and that middle coil is reverse wound reverse polarity allowing us to get humpbacking actions in position two and four the traditional six screw vibrato bridge works incredibly well which is a pleasant surprise i've got it set up so only the two outer screws are actually screwed down to the bridge plate the other ones are raised slightly essentially giving us a two point fulcrum with the replacement arm installed this just works and it returns to pitch very well indeed there's a few little modifications we could do to improve that performance a little bit further but this is a really good starting point i've got no fear about wiggling that stick the new saddles add an extra touch of visual class i feel and the increased mass from the solid brass will also help the volume and sustain of the strings i can't get enough of that big 70s style headstock looks really imposing i've swapped out both of the bent steel string trees that were catching the strings before for a single graphtec low friction one this should help in tuning the guitar prevent any strings catching and potentially breaking and the final change was an internal one lining that large inner cavity with copper foil to improve the shielding now these single coils are still going to act as antennae for emi coming off my studio lights but hopefully all that shielding on the inside will help to cut out a lot of the noise pickguard saddles string trees and shielding that's all that's changed here everything else about this instrument is stock quite often all an instrument like this needs is a little bit of setup and a few tweaks to get it playing at its best but don't just take my word for it why don't you listen to this and tell me what you think going to be running this into my orange rocker terror and on the floor we have an essentials pedal board noise gate to cut out the 50 hertz emi coming from the studio lights a compressor to level out the dynamics and cleans and give a really nice lead boost and in the loop we have a spring reverb and a bucket brigade delay for some nice vintage ambience [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] [Applause] money [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] hmm now there you have it another guitar brought back to life as much as i love how this guitar looks right now there are plenty of other things i could do to this one wonderful thing about stratocaster especially one with a big swimming pool route is that i can lift off this pick guard and replace it with another loaded with completely different electronics to totally change the look and sound of the instrument i've always been a really big fan of hsh super strats particularly the one that dave murray played with iron maiden back in the 80s i think i can do something pretty similar with this so if you're interested in seeing that leave me a comment and make sure you're subscribed don't forget also to click all the buttons you're supposed to to make this video viable to the ever-changing whims of that youtube algorithm that's all for now keep it loud and stay safe no no no no no

Channel: CSGuitars

Views: 120,247

Rating: 4.9764867 out of 5

Keywords: CSGuitars, Colin, all the gain, guitcon, scotland, victory, pickups, science, will it shred, whats the difference, studio, recording, guitar, amplifier, pedal, scottish, metal, cs guitar, cs guitars, collin, strat, stratocaster, squier, fender, restoration, renovation, clean up, maintenance, beginner, guitarquest, rob scallon

Id: Zgswde4svtU

Length: 14min 27sec (867 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 16 2021