NGD: Squier Jim Root Telecaster

Dave Sloven

Dave Sloven

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I picked this Squier Jim Root Telecaster in a trade today. An MXR Black Label Chorus plus (AU) $200 cash. It has a few chips and dings (mainly on the back) but it is a 2011 build with a rosewood fingerboard. Frets look okay, which was my main concern. A previous owner has changed the pickguard to a black one, which I do not care for, but my mate Steve said he'd make me a new one from checkerplate when I'm ready. I have a Bare Knuckle ceramic Black Hawk bridge pickup laying around doing nothing, so tomorrow I will clean the guitar, install that, and put on a fresh set of strings. I took it to Josh's house afterwards and he put it through this Vox AmPlug Metal 2 that I bought for my nephew and it sounded pretty cool, despite the old strings. I'll give it a clean and do those few things and post some more pics, but here it is in the back of my car tonight.

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I'll pull it completely apart later today and clean everything, install the Black Hawk and restring it with 9-46 strings in EADGBE. I won't try fitting bigger strings etc at this point but that's the idea. I'll buy a Graph Tech nut for it and take it to Steve for a setup in C standard with 12-60 set after playing with it in standard for a while. There's something odd with the nut anyway, not sure if it is a crack that has been repaired or just a strange cut. In any case I would usually install a new nut anyway when going for such a drastic change of string gauge.
 
Okay, I have spent a lot of time working on this today, including some real frustration around the simplest thing: some idiot cross-threaded the nut on the output jack (which is the usual Squier rubbish) and I can't get the nut off, and in the process destroyed the jack. Also I found that the non-original metal volume knob had no set screw so someone had decided to spread the shaft and then jam the knob on really hard, so that was hard to get off and I won't be reusing it. All I want is the jack plate, but it looks like I am going to have to go to Fretco on Saturday and see if Brian has one floating around. I'll pick up a Switchcraft jack, a TUSQ nut, and some screws etc from him while I am in there. I also need to buy the fasters for a DiMarzio ClipLock strap, and I can get them nearby at Derringers.

I have completely disassembled the guitar (besides the output jack mentioned) and cleaned everything, and found that while the control cavity appears to have shielding paint there is no actual connectivity or conductivity, so I am using the rest of the paint that I got from Brian for the other Squier on this one, in the control cavity and the pickup cavities. I will test it again tomorrow on the multimeter but it seems like it might need a second coat, in the pickup cavities at least.

I tried to desolder the pickup leads from the volume pot and switch but didn't have much luck with the lead-free solder, which seems to require a lot of heat, so I ended up snipping the wires off. I will completely rewire the guitar anyway. I have an Oaks-Grigsby selector switch that fits well and I will fit a new volume pot and eventually a new volume knob. I have disassembled and cleaned the bridge assembly and removed all of the tuners from the neck to give the headstock and tuners a proper clean, as well as the string tree. I might get a TUSQ string tree from Fretco as they are pretty cheap.

I might refit the neck before taking the guitar to Fretco regarding the jack as that way I can ask for Brian's opinion regarding if I have the neck in straight. I will also ask him for his opinion on the bridge spacing. I'm not sure if it is 2 1/16" or 2 1/8" ... the former would be better in terms of if I wanted to fit an aftermarket wraptail. It does look as though I could fit the old bridge from my Schecter C-6 Pro if I want one with side rails. It seems to cover most of the sins and line up well, but it would mean drilling some mounting screw holes.

I have fitted the Black Hawk to the bridge pickup ring but not installed yet, as I don't have the new electronic components yet.

Here are some photos. It has some damage to the body but the neck is great for the most part. There seemed to be some marks on the control cavity cover, but the protective film was still there so I peeled that off. Frets seem okay. Again I will ask Brian for his opinion on that as he is the local fretwork master.

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I managed to get a new jack plate and Switchcraft output jack as well as a Graph Tech Black TUSQ XL nut from Fretco on Friday. Brian attempted to get the nut off of the original jack but it's jammed on real good, so he just sold me a new plate. All up it was $20, then I went to Derringers and spent another $20 on the fastener ends to fit a DiMarzio ClipLock strap (I only needed the ends as I have a lot of straps). Then I had an Oaks-Grigsby 3-way switch and a heap of new screws, nuts, and washers in black at home so I eventually fitted those together with the Bare Knuckle Black Hawk. I did reuse the original screws but when I found the others it looked so much better. I also touched up the gouges with black sharpie. It's a bit rough but the guitar is rough.

I haven't wired it up yet as I am still waiting on some mail order stuff. A BKP CTS 550K push-pull pot from Boutique Sounds (I bought two, given the postage) and a Gotoh volume control knob from Five Star Music (I bought three of those as they are in short supply here due to supply-chain issues from covid). I will wire it up when those arrive. I will not worry about the nut until later when I have it set up in lower tuning. For now I have restrung it with a D'Addario EXL125 9-46 set in EADGBE. I will let the neck settle, adjust the truss rod, and then set up the bridge

I gave the cavities a second coat of conductive paint and then applied some under the bridge, applied some shielding tape, soldered the new bridge ground wire to that and painted over it. I also reinstalled the factory shielding ground wire and painted over the screw to ensure everything is grounded. I screwed the bridge down tight so that the solder pushes down into the wood.

It's a pain because I haven't even played this guitar yet! I let Josh play it the night I got it but it was so filthy that I wanted to pull it apart and clean it right away. Josh is much less fussy!!

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I am still waiting for that Gotoh knob but I received a little package of 550K CTS push-pull pots in the mail today so I wired the guitar up, adjusted the neck and the bridge and tested it out.

I did try something I had seen for compensating for the lack of a tone pot ... adding a 470k resistor between the hot input on the volume pot and ground ... but either I made a mistake or the instructions were wrong and it sounded very very dark, like I had a tone pot on zero. So even though it is in the photos below it was snipped off and now the guitar sounds great, crunchy and tight like you'd expect a ceramic Black Hawk to sound.

I also added a partial coil split mod with another 470k resistor. That sounds okay for now, it kind of waters down the coil split effect a lot though so the difference with the switch engaged is maybe too subtle to be worth doing.

One issue was that the area around the one pot is really tight so I had to be good with how I soldered the grounds onto the pot, and how I set up the various pickup cables to reach everything.

Anyway here's the photos.

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I just ordered a sheet of black single-ply pickguard material so a Bare Knuckle Cobra strat pickup (RWRP) for the neck slot is next on the agenda. Going to wire it with an auto-split in the middle position so that in the middle position only the inner coil of the Black Hawk is active. I might wire up a phase switch yet.

I also ordered a white one-ply sheet so my SG Junior will get a new pickguard at long last. There is a 20% off sale at Australian Luthier Supplies right now
 
Dave Sloven said:
I'll pull it completely apart later today and clean everything, install the Black Hawk and restring it with 9-46 strings in EADGBE. I won't try fitting bigger strings etc at this point but that's the idea. I'll buy a Graph Tech nut for it and take it to Steve for a setup in C standard with 12-60 set after playing with it in standard for a while. There's something odd with the nut anyway, not sure if it is a crack that has been repaired or just a strange cut. In any case I would usually install a new nut anyway when going for such a drastic change of string gauge.
Click to expand...

I've made them from Graph Tech blanks and different variations of bone. I still keep coming back to brass...

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Dave Sloven said:
I am still waiting for that Gotoh knob but I received a little package of 550K CTS push-pull pots in the mail today so I wired the guitar up, adjusted the neck and the bridge and tested it out.

I did try something I had seen for compensating for the lack of a tone pot ... adding a 470k resistor between the hot input on the volume pot and ground ... but either I made a mistake or the instructions were wrong and it sounded very very dark, like I had a tone pot on zero. So even though it is in the photos below it was snipped off and now the guitar sounds great, crunchy and tight like you'd expect a ceramic Black Hawk to sound.

I also added a partial coil split mod with another 470k resistor. That sounds okay for now, it kind of waters down the coil split effect a lot though so the difference with the switch engaged is maybe too subtle to be worth doing.

One issue was that the area around the one pot is really tight so I had to be good with how I soldered the grounds onto the pot, and how I set up the various pickup cables to reach everything.

Anyway here's the photos.

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Click to expand...

Looks good. We're you adding the resistor to trim off high frequency response??? If so, then it must be placed in line with the pickup's hot lead - not grounded on one end.
 
Robert Herndon said:
Looks good. We're you adding the resistor to trim off high frequency response??? If so, then it must be placed in line with the pickup's hot lead - not grounded on one end.
Click to expand...

Yes I was, but I think I will leave it as is for now and just adjust at the amp if I need to roll off some highs. I will probably use the resistor on the neck pickup selector switch mod when I install the single coil neck pickup though. I've been talking to Bare Knuckle about a Cobra for the neck position. They said to state that it is for a HS guitar and they will reverse the polarity of the pickup so that I can set the middle position to split the humbucker so that only the slug coil is active, and the two pickups are noise-cancelling in that position. I might also wire the push-pull up as a phase switch, so that I can pull the switch up to get an out of phase sound, which might be good if I want to do some Johnny Marr or something :LOL:
 
Dave Sloven said:
Yes I was, but I think I will leave it as is for now and just adjust at the amp if I need to roll off some highs. I will probably use the resistor on the neck pickup selector switch mod when I install the single coil neck pickup though. I've been talking to Bare Knuckle about a Cobra for the neck position. They said to state that it is for a HS guitar and they will reverse the polarity of the pickup so that I can set the middle position to split the humbucker so that only the slug coil is active, and the two pickups are noise-cancelling in that position. I might also wire the push-pull up as a phase switch, so that I can pull the switch up to get an out of phase sound, which might be good if I want to do some Johnny Marr or something :LOL:
Click to expand...

Awesome!!!!

I love that out of phase tone...

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