One Squier To Rule Them All...

[ultra60]

Beautiful routing work.

 

[charlie monroe]

I'm not a Tort guy.

I'd run that without the pickguard thanks to your clean routing job.

 

[LowNloud1]

Awesome refurb! I love seeing basses get a new life! Now, will you resist the power of the ONE or throw it into the fire of Mount Doom?

 

[gregmon79]

Some of you know that I enjoy doing rebuild and projects, especially ones that I can do in less than a day. I like the near immediate gratification of finishing the day with a much cooler instrument than I had in the morning. With that in mind, here is a quickie project !

The donor : Stock Squier Active Dlx 5 string.

I got this at a pawn shop for $150. It was filthy, needed setup, and completely neglected. But I could see the beauty in it . Here's what the stock bass looked like...

View attachment 1389004 View attachment 1389005

These are highly underrated basses in my opinion. They play well, have decent electronics for an inexpensive instrument, and are pretty enough in their simplicity. That said, I can see the potential to take it to the next level.

First up, a pickup replacement. I had purchased these Dingwall FD-3N pickups a couple weeks ago off the TB Classifieds. I wasn't sure what I'd use them on, but I bought them. I also emailed Dingwall to find out more about them. Jeff at Dingwall was kind enough to give me some tips about them, as well as send me a wiring diagram. So.....I decided that this bass would be a cool project to use them on.

View attachment 1389606


Of course that would require routing the body for them. No problem. Dingwall staggers the magnets, which requires them to be slanted to work properly, so I needed to take that into consideration.

First up, strip the body of parts and remove the neck.

View attachment 1389920


Then get out the router and start making wood chips !!!

View attachment 1389921


I also decided I wanted a pickguard on it, so I grabbed this 5 string J guard. Of course it didn't fit properly....

View attachment 1390058


So I mounted it into position, grabbed the router, and went to work !

Much better !!!


View attachment 1390100


I also wanted to do some work on the neck ...first up was polishing the frets ....

View attachment 1390182


Once that was done, I cleaned the gunk off the fretboard. Much nicer looking...

View attachment 1390316


And because I'd never done it, I decided to use some vinyl block inlay stickers. It actually looks pretty darn good !

View attachment 1390459


Ok, at this point I won't bore you with details about wiring and assembly.... I'll just skip ahead to the "finished" bass. I wired it up, put on the neck, put a set of GHS Boomer Roundcores on there , and gave it a quick setup. I wired the pickups in series because I wanted maximum fatness and punch, but I may add a series parallel rotary switch someday. And the stock Squier preamp sounds good with these pickups. 3 band EQ with a slap switch. Maybe I'll upgrade someday, maybe not. Anyway, it sounds fantastic, and I'm just barely scratching the surface of the available tones.


So now I'll shut up and get on with the final photos... I think it turned out great !


View attachment 1390954 View attachment 1390956 View attachment 1390968 View attachment 1390983 View attachment 1390984 View attachment 1390995

DUDE!! This is sweet! I've wanted one of these for a while (but the 4 sting ver). I think they are awesome basses for the money and I want to get one before most realize how good they are and I can't find one at a decent price. Awesome job with the mod!! Looks spectacular!

 

[NKBassman]

Very cool! I really like it. Those stickers really take the classiness up a notch or two.

I'll second the sound clips request, whenever you have the time.

 

[Dark Horse]

Thank you for the kind words everyone!

 

[JACink]

Very nice, congrats!

 

[Clutchcargo]

Very nice DH..... Excellent work and tasty upgrades. Congratulations sir and thanks for sharing....

 

[imdkoz]

Great work!! Love my 4 string Active Deluxe.

 

[dls119]

Very nice! I ended up doing something similar. The affordability/playability plus upgrades have made mine in excellent placeholder while I plan for a better 5 string.

 

[Spidey2112]

If I tried to write the words that came out of my mouth when i saw the completed bass they'd all get censored by the admins. That looks fantastic. I wish I had half the tinkering technical skills (and tools) that you posses.

A fantastic looking bass.

You have to add 'time' to the equation, as well... Great job, @Dark Horse !

 

[mikeyjm2]

Nice! You do good work, Dark Horse. I'm with you on the immediate gratification thing. It's what makes me a lousy painter of basses unfortunately.

 

[dave64o]

Great work!

Now, this is really hard to say for a diehard tort fan like me but, with those inlay stickers, I'm thinking a white pickguard would look killer. Or, even better, white pearl.

Still, I really like what you did. Nicely done.

 

[Inky13]

I didn't know you could even use a router on plastic. But what do I know, if I tried that I would surely carve a hole in my cranium.

 

[SteveCS]

Came out nice! The slanted PUs look sorta wrong but they're dingwalls in a squier so it IS wrong and works!

I like them. There is something Escher-esque about how the slanted pickups accentuate the offset J body and pickguard curve that 'works' for my eye. Maybe something subtle could be done with the marker shape (slight trapezoid or wedge) to create an even greater sense of illusion...

 

[logicman69]

Damn.. That is pretty!!

 

[BlueShox]

Nice work but I think your pick-ups are crooked

 

[Wfrance3]

That is very cool!!! The angle on the pickups really messes with my ocd, but I totally get it. Well done. I'll bet it plays like a champ!!

 

[filmtex]

I would absolutely play the you-know-what out'a that thing. Very, very nice. Can't wait for sound samples.

 

[FenderB]

Some of you know that I enjoy doing rebuild and projects, especially ones that I can do in less than a day. I like the near immediate gratification of finishing the day with a much cooler instrument than I had in the morning. With that in mind, here is a quickie project !

The donor : Stock Squier Active Dlx 5 string.

I got this at a pawn shop for $150. It was filthy, needed setup, and completely neglected. But I could see the beauty in it . Here's what the stock bass looked like...

View attachment 1389004 View attachment 1389005

These are highly underrated basses in my opinion. They play well, have decent electronics for an inexpensive instrument, and are pretty enough in their simplicity. That said, I can see the potential to take it to the next level.

First up, a pickup replacement. I had purchased these Dingwall FD-3N pickups a couple weeks ago off the TB Classifieds. I wasn't sure what I'd use them on, but I bought them. I also emailed Dingwall to find out more about them. Jeff at Dingwall was kind enough to give me some tips about them, as well as send me a wiring diagram. So.....I decided that this bass would be a cool project to use them on.

View attachment 1389606


Of course that would require routing the body for them. No problem. Dingwall staggers the magnets, which requires them to be slanted to work properly, so I needed to take that into consideration.

First up, strip the body of parts and remove the neck.

View attachment 1389920


Then get out the router and start making wood chips !!!

View attachment 1389921


I also decided I wanted a pickguard on it, so I grabbed this 5 string J guard. Of course it didn't fit properly....

View attachment 1390058


So I mounted it into position, grabbed the router, and went to work !

Much better !!!


View attachment 1390100


I also wanted to do some work on the neck ...first up was polishing the frets ....

View attachment 1390182


Once that was done, I cleaned the gunk off the fretboard. Much nicer looking...

View attachment 1390316


And because I'd never done it, I decided to use some vinyl block inlay stickers. It actually looks pretty darn good !

View attachment 1390459


Ok, at this point I won't bore you with details about wiring and assembly.... I'll just skip ahead to the "finished" bass. I wired it up, put on the neck, put a set of GHS Boomer Roundcores on there , and gave it a quick setup. I wired the pickups in series because I wanted maximum fatness and punch, but I may add a series parallel rotary switch someday. And the stock Squier preamp sounds good with these pickups. 3 band EQ with a slap switch. Maybe I'll upgrade someday, maybe not. Anyway, it sounds fantastic, and I'm just barely scratching the surface of the available tones.


So now I'll shut up and get on with the final photos... I think it turned out great !


View attachment 1390954 View attachment 1390956 View attachment 1390968 View attachment 1390983 View attachment 1390984 View attachment 1390995

Beautiful.