joepampel
- Jun 14
- 3 min read

Saving a budget Strat

Updated: Jun 21

Back in 2020, a guy I went to HS with saw that I was fixing guitars online and he reached out when he saw a beat up guitar at a construction site he was working at. I made arrangements with him to pick it up and see what it was and what could be done.

When I got there, I found an Squire "Affinity" Stratocaster; an entry-level Fender instrument made in China. It had been "well loved" by a child it seems, hand painted with house paint and in pretty rough shape. The vibrato arm had been broken off in the bridge among other things. I decided to see what I could accomplish with a minimal investment. What had I learned from building that Tele I could apply here?

I pulled it apart and found the body was essentially sawdust with some kind of glue binder. It was also smaller than a standard Strat body. The pickups had ceramic magnets, the bridge was broken and the neck looked a bit sketchy. The tuners were in bad shape and some were broken.

I bought a new bridge, tuners, & a pickguard with pickups. The Affinity guitars (or at least this one) had odd sized parts, perhaps in keeping with the entry level price point, perhaps in keeping with guitars that kids will most likely handle and perhaps - I said in my most cynical adult voice - to help prevent counterfeiting of "real" Strats. Perhaps, all of the above.

I spent a lot of time getting the old house paint off of the body and then re-spraying it with Sonic Blue; it's the color of the Strats John & George had in the Beatles and I think it's a great look with a Rosewood fretboard. I purchased new tuners, pickups, tools, paint and a bridge from various sources (see below). I did the best I could with the original neck, but it was too far gone. I found another neck on Reverb for very little money and so I bought & installed that. I set the guitar up and it intonated well and played well - much better than it had a right to.

I wanted to continue my friend's kindness, so I donated it to my friend's music school. This would give the kids another option to work with, and he soon sent me some video where one student stated that he wants to build guitars now and another said this one is his favorite. Being able to inspire someone is perhaps the greatest thing an instrument can do, so I feel great about how it turned out and was (and am) quite surprised at what a playable guitar it turned into.

Will it stand toe to toe with a $5,000 custom shop axe? No, but you could get through a gig with it just fine and no one would be the wiser. All the parts came in for $214.72 without shipping or tax (since that can vary a lot). You could easily spent more that that on pickups alone.

Details below.

Pics

How it started

Ceramic magnet pickups, a cheap 5-way switch, tiny pots & a broken bridge. Rough life.

I took lots of measurements to make sure the replacement bridge would fit since it was "non-standard"

New Guitar Fetish bridge (L) vs stock (R). The replacement is much more substantial.

I sanded it down to get to a decent state to apply the new paint.

Several coats of blue with sanding in-between gave it a good solid color. It would have been more work to get all of the orange-peel out (that gentle texture you see where the light reflects). My super high tech booth only looks like a wood pile...