Ever since my friend Steve changed the ancient volume pot in my ’76 Strat to a brand new American made CTS pot, I have been itching to learn how to do guitar mods. My obsession may even have begun shortly after a student of mine brought over a black Fender Squier 51. These guitars are famous for inspiring an army of guitar modders and the message boards that they frequent.
I bought a very clean Squier 51 on craigslist, meeting the seller at a train station down on the Jersey Shore. The train fare cost me $30, the guitar, $120. The neck was quite good for these guitars, with no sharp fret edges. The humbucker barked, the single coil and overly complicated coil splitting settings were attractive but seemed to evaporate on stage. The overall live sound was somewhat blurry (see video below). But I was able to set it up where you could play both slide and regular guitar, so it was somewhat useful as a second guitar for gigs. And, I knew I could get it to sound better.
I’m a firm believer in the idea of finding the right pickup for the right guitar. I had a couple of spare pickups in the closet, a Gibson 500T bridge pickup from my Les Paul (replaced with a Gibson 57 Classic), and a Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounder Strat neck pickup. So, I began to research the necessary wiring to swap out the cheap Squier pickups for these legitimate contenders.
Unfortunately, the mania surrounding the Squier 51 has died down, and the message boards supporting them are all but defunct. I soon realized that working on these guitars is not so easy because the cavity where the guts go in is tiny. A typical pickup selector switch will not fit. I did at least five hours of research online looking for parts, diagrams, etc, finally settling on using a mini toggle switch, which is most often used to make additional effects (coil splitting, etc.) in addition to the main pickup selector.
My ingenious wiring diagram is shown above
On the fateful day, I dove in, spending about four hours with my diagrams and brand new soldering iron from Stewart-MacDonald. In the end, I got one pickup to work. I was overjoyed! Let me tell you! Had I gotten nothing, I still would have been proud of myself to a degree. It was a journey in itself just opening up the guitar and getting busy with the soldering iron.
As luck would have it, a few days later I got a call from Mike Maggio, the owner of Maggio’s Music in Brooklyn. He wanted me to come in a substitute teach, as I have in the past. It was an auspicious moment. Mike is an expert at guitar repair, and I finally broke down and let him set the Squier 51 up for me. He re-wired the guitar and it worked perfectly. The 500T is ferociously loud. I don’t know why it never sounded like that in my Les Paul, but at the same time, it was much sweeter and more balanced in that guitar. The Duncan sounds full, round and smooth. The combination of the two is somewhat unique, a little chimey, a little hot, but attractive.
Everything worked out perfectly in the end. I’ve got my eye on another inexpensive guitar that should be perfect to work on, and I learned a lot about guitar modification in the process. To top it off, I now have a permanent day teaching at Maggio’s. How cool is that?
I wonder whether Michael Maggio was the same person who had some Korean Strats made to his specs and sold them in his or an associated shop... I grabbed a like-new plain one once for cheap and it was the last one on display in a shop and the headstock has a scripted Michael Maggio and no other marks or ID in any way. Excellent all over and in the pickups. I may have bought it in 2012 or somewhere around that time....
Posted by: Doug in VA | 06/17/2020 at 09:51 AM
Doug,
Thanks for writing! I spoke to Mike Maggio and he did indeed sell some guitars at one time with his name on them, he said they were as you describe, Strats in a natural finish. He added, "Small world!" Do you still have it? -Chris
Posted by: On Practicing Guitar | 07/01/2020 at 07:06 PM