Cheap guitar of the week #38 - Squier Bullet Strat HSS with MAPLE fretboard

Three things about this guitar make it special and worth getting.

The Strat HSS from Squier is a guitar you already know. But what's new is that Squier has just released not one but three of these with alternative color options.

The three things that make it special?

1. "Blackout" hardware.
2. Black pick guard.
3. Maple fretboard.

And the colors are:

• Squier Bullet Strat HSS w/maple fretboard - Sunburst
• Squier Bullet Strat HSS w/maple fretboard - Black
• Squier Bullet Strat HSS w/maple fretboard - Surf Pearl

All three guitars are the same price: Dirt cheap.

Of the three, if you want one that's the most collectible, that would be the Surf Pearl model, because I seriously doubt you'll see that one in guitar stores.

No matter which you get however, the big thing here is the maple fretboard. Up to this point, the only time you saw small-headstock treatment with an all-maple neck was on the Classic Vibe '50s Stratocaster series - and that series never had an HSS model.

Now you can finally get a truly cheap Squier Strat with an all-maple neck that has the small headstock, and in three body color choices.

This is a winner of a guitar all around, and I'm very glad to see Squier do this. It's about time.

I like this guitar so much that I actually might buy one myself!

How often should you clean a guitar?

Probably not as often as you think you should.

There are actually a fair amount of guitar (and bass) players out there who, quite literally, almost never clean their guitars. They just let all sorts of gunk build up on the instrument and maybe only truly clean it once every few years.

Well, I clean my guitars a little more often than that, but not by much.

My Squier Jazzmaster, the guitar I play most, doesn't go in a case and instead stays on a stand since it gets played often.

Does this mean the Jazzmaster gets a layer of dust on it sometimes? Yes. Do I care? No, because it just gets wiped off later.

How often do I perform a "total cleaning" of my Jazzmaster? Rarely. The guitar is meant to be played, and when a guitar is played, it gets dirty and that's the way it is.

What is a "total cleaning"?

A total cleaning, at least to me, requires a partial disassembly of the guitar just to make sure every single part of it gets cleaned properly.

Fortunately with the Jazzmaster, a total cleaning is fairly easy since every part of the guitar is loaded on top. With other guitars that have everything loaded on top (like a Les Paul), those are also fairly easily to give total cleanings to. With a Strat however, you're dealing with both front and rear areas to clean up.

Since I don't have any guitars that have a nitrocellulose finish, otherwise known as "nitro finish", my total cleaning process is as follows:

1. Take off the strings.
2. Remove string tree(s), if any. Clean up with microfiber cleaning cloth, then set aside.
3. Remove all tuning keys, clean up the same way as the string tree(s), set aside.
4. Wipe down headstock and dry with polish cloth, front and back.
5. If there's gunk on the headstock, wash off with water and non-abrasive microfiber cleaning cloth.
6. Clean nut slots using dental floss. For stubborn gunk, drip a drop of water in the slot and run the floss through it.
7. Inspect fretboard. If there's no gunk, wipe down with water, dry, skip to step 9. If there is gunk, go to step 8. (Note: If you're the type that likes to "rejuvenate" rosewood, the best kit for that is the Dunlop System 65 kit).
8. Wipe away the gunk off the fretboard using water and microfiber cloth. This may take a while depending on how much finger gunk is present. A few passes may need to be made.
9. Inspect the back of the neck by running your hand along it. If it feels smooth and there is nothing sticky from dried sweat, leave it alone. Otherwise, clean with water and microfiber cloth.
10. Lightly polish each fret using 0000 grade steel wool. This is a steel wool so soft that it almost feels like cloth. You use this on frets so you can polish them while at the same time barely taking off any fret wire material. Be sure to wipe down the fretboard dry with microfiber cloth when finished. It is suggested to use this steel wool while wearing kitchen gloves, for the reason that some of you out there may have hands that don't "like" touching steel wool.
11. Reattach tuning keys and string tree(s). At this point you're done with the neck.
12. Examine strap buttons. If you see gunk on the screw head, clean off gunk with microfiber cloth and water.
13. Take out all pick guard screws. Inspect each screw. If there is any gunk on any screw, lightly clean the head and only the head with a microfiber cloth and water, and do not polish screws with the 0000 steel wool. Set screws aside when done.
14. Clean pick guard plastic using microfiber cloth (and water, if necessary). Set guard aside afterward.
15. Remove bridge and any other component that is exposed. Clean using microfiber cloth.
16. Remove knobs and other switchgear, and once again, clean using microfiber cloth and water if necessary for stubborn gunk.
17. Wipe down the FRONT of the body dry with microfiber cloth. Use water for areas with stubborn gunk.
18. Reattach everything, but don't string up yet.
19. Wipe down the BACK of the body with microfiber cloth, and again, use water for stubborn gunk areas.
20. String up, tune up, done.

Tips

• Pick guard screws are only meant to be hand-tight. DO NOT use a power tool for pick guard screws, especially if your guitar is made of basswood (very soft stuff and really easy to strip a screw hole).
• Keep water and other liquid away from the pickups. Or if you have to use liquid around pickups to clean up stubborn gunk, do so carefully. You don't want water getting in there.
• If there's a part on your guitar you don't feel comfortable taking off to clean it, don't take it off. Only remove parts to clean that you're comfortable with, and only if it's necessary.

Things you can't do a damned thing about

Metal corrosion

Remember that part I said about not polishing screw heads? It's to specifically keep those nice, shiny screw heads from turning a reddish-black - as in rusted. Sure, the screw still works fine, but it looks awful. If you want to avoid rusted screw heads, don't polish them. Clean them, yes, but don't polish.

Screws can and will corrode and you can't stop it. But you can slow it by not accelerating the process with unnecessary polishing.

Gold turning into steel color

Gold hardware just sucks, because when it wears off it looks so bad. Whether it's a tuning key, pickup casing, bridge, knob, screw or whatever it is, that gold will turn into a steel color if you play your guitar even semi-regularly.

Can anything be done about this? Other than not playing the guitar, nope.

Plastic scratches

For any electric you play normally, there is absolutely no way you will ever keep any plastic on it scratch-free. You will get scratches on pieces of plastic you thought un-scratch-able.

That plastic truss rod cover on your Les Paul? Scratched. Don't think it is? Look again. How did it get scratched? You used a paper towel to "clean" it and not a microfiber cloth like you were supposed to. Oopsie...

...but don't feel bad about it. Seriously, don't, and I'll tell you why. Plastic is just a material type that when used on a guitar cannot be kept scratch-less. Plastic sucks like that. Get used to it.

The unclean-able volume knob(s)

A master volume knob is the most-used control on an electric guitar. As such, it will get dirty before the other knobs.

White volume knobs, such as on Strats, all eventually get to a point where they become permanently stained. Can you do anything about it? In fact, yes. You could use certain solutions to break away the grime and whiten it up again. The problem however is that any silver/bronze/gold/black lettering also gets removed in the process, resulting in an all-white knob. Yes, that's bad because now the knob looks like a piece of Styrofoam. Not good at all.

In other words, expect the white volume knob on your Fender or Squier Strat to get perma-stained at some point, if it isn't already. It just happens.

Black volume knobs, such as on Les Pauls, aren't necessarily unclean-able, but do typically suffer from being dulled. All the handling of them over the years takes away all the shine where no amount of cleaning brings the shine back, and nothing can be done about that.

So... how often should you clean your electric?

I have a bit of a weird-yet-not-weird answer to this.

Some people want an absolute time frame, such as "every month" or "twice a year" or something like that. That's not the answer you'll get out of me for this question.

The way I answer it like this:

If your electric even after a fresh string change feels stiff with "scratchy" frets, a sticky neck and there's gunk on the instrument that prevents you from playing it well, then it's time to clean it up.

If on the other hand your guitar, even if dirty, does feels correct, don't clean it. Or do clean it, but just lightly with a microfiber or polish cloth.

For your main guitar that you play regularly, don't obsess over keeping it clean because that's just a waste of time. Clean the guitar only when it's truly necessary, and spend the rest of the time playing it, because that's what it's there for.

Fender American Shortboard Mustang is cool

When Fender introduced the limited edition Longboard Stratocaster, I really wasn't liking that. For the Shortboard Mustang, however, this one I like much better.

The Fender American Shortboard Mustang is a cool guitar as far as limited editions from Fender are concerned.

What really makes this design work is the ash body with walnut competition stripes. That gives the guitar a very cool vibe all around because the stripes are not paint but rather real wood.

As for the pickups, Fender calls them "Black Dove" pickups, which have made appearances in Telecasters. They basically have a P90-like sound to them, and have height adjustment like a P90.

No vibrato system is present on this Mustang, as Fender decided to put a "hardtail bridge" (Fender's words, not mine) on it.

I only have two complaints about the Shortboard Mustang.

First, it has two string trees. Granted, they are the nicer T-roller style and not the wing style, but still, it would have been nicer were there just one and not two.

Second, I don't like the knobs. Yeah, I know the Fender Mustang traditionally has those black plastic knobs with line indicator, but the Shortboard would have looked so much better with black knurled Telecaster knobs on it. I know Mustang knobs, and they just feel so cheap even on expensive collectible models like the Shortboard. If you know the Telecaster metal knob, you know how much better those things look and feel.

In the end...

...this is probably one of the most easy-playing Mustangs you'd ever put your hands on; it is a collectible that out-of-the-box is a very easy player with a tone that's also just as easy to get along with.

Yeah, I can safely say this is a winner of a guitar. Pricey? Of course it is, as it's an American model. But it is a great guitar.

On a final note, is this modern or retro? Definitely modern. 9.5-inch radius fingerboard, sealed tuners, bi-flex truss rod. And I agree that this is best suited as a modern guitar. Fender already has a '65 Mustang reissue, so they didn't need to reinvent the wheel there.

Cheap guitar of the week #37 - ESP LTD H-101

Looks expensive, but it's not.

ESP LTD is one of those guitar brands that's easy to miss, mainly because most players don't go looking for them. When you do look at them however, you quickly find out they make some pretty good stuff.

I think what the H-101 model suffers from more than anything else is Looks-Too-Expensive Syndrome. There are guitar buyers who will - and I kid you not - pass on a guitar and not even try it just because it looks expensive. Will they examine the price tag? Nope. They'll see the fancy flame top, instantly make a judgment that it costs too much and move on to something else.

Their loss is your gain, because this guitar is really affordable.

My favorite part of the guitar, other than the burst finish, is the fact it has black nickel hardware. I actually really like that specific dark-color hardware because it doesn't pit and chip over time like regular black hardware does. Sure, it will fade and discolor as the guitar gets used, but will do so in a desirable way that looks good.

And as for the rest of the guitar, I can tell just from looking at it that it will age well. Black nickel ages well as does cream color pickup rings along with the dark-but-not-too-dark rosewood fingerboard. This particular cheap axe was definitely built to be truly played.

PRS is now a better deal than a Fender

What PRS is offering right now is great and a better deal than Fender...

...if the price doesn't change.

The Fender Standard Stratocaster was the king of the hill concerning mid-priced guitar value until Fender decided to raise the price of it by 100 bucks. Because of that price hike, a PRS SE ST24 is now the better deal. The version of the guitar without the vibrato system, the SE ST22, has several models for the same price (as in without a "guitar pack" and just guitar alone, although the guitar packs are also really good values as you'll see from the links.)

Long-time readers of my writings know I don't like PRS. However, I do recognize a good deal when I see one, and both the ST22 and ST24 for the moment are better values than the Standard Stratocaster from Fender. You simply get more guitar for the money.

Note however that I said for the moment. PRS could hike their prices for the ST24 and ST22 to match Fender's price for the Standard Strat just as easily and get away with it. And they probably will.

In other words, the time to get a PRS SE, if that's a guitar you like, is now.