My Squier Bronco is now a JMJ Mustang look-alike (but not a clone, of course)

Nobody would mistake this for a Mustang and I wouldn’t want anyone to.

But I did want to make it cosmetically similar for as cheap as possible. I pulled it off with nothing but a 3D printer (my other fanatical hobby) and a regular paper printer.

Squier Bronco Bass: $199
Modification cost: about ten bucks.

Here’s what I did:
1. I 3D printed my own thumb rest.
2. 3D printed knobs
3. I 3D printed a small, plastic crescent to place next to the original pick guard in order to give it a Mustang pick guard shape. The Pearl design of the pick guard is simply a photo I printed, cut, and glued on top. I covered it with a thin, clear sticker layer.

The pickup is stock, but I colored it black with a sharpie. The machine heads are stock, but I designed and 3D printed some covers that snap on.

The label: I didn’t want to make a clone, so I scratched off the original “SQUIER by fender” logo and redesigned it to say squier by FENDER. It still says Bronco Bass. The label is mildly deceptive, but still entirely honest.

The last step was to take it to the garage and the belt sander, along with giving it a few whacks with hammer claws.

All electronics are stock (although I had to re-solder a couple wires I broke loose). I did add some copper foil tape inside to eliminate hum, and it worked great.

a fun project.

Note: the tuner covers are annoying, so I have some fender-looking tuners coming in the mail. Fifteen bucks on Amazon.

 

I meant to add: there are more photos of this on my Twitter page: Rumblelord

 

I got in the new machine heads, so now my $199 + $10 project is + another $15. I still have to add the collars (or whatever they’re called around the post.