Squier Affinity Tele Headstock??

[mijstrat72]

Hey all,

I have an Affinity neck I'm using for a homebuild project. I wanted to use vintage style tuners, so I purchased some conversion bushings and the tuner holes are alot larger then even the conversion bushings. Have any of you done this conversion? I am guessing I'm going to have to fill in the stock holes and start from scratch...grrr.


Regardless, I've been using the sealed diecast tuners that came on the neck. Now I have put new strings on, and I thought I stretched them well enough, but the guitar comes out of tune rather quickly. So could it be the tuners? They seem solid, but if others have had issue's with them, then I'll know where my problem lies and address it.

Thanks in advance for any insight.

[mellecaster]

Stew-Mac now has the conversion bushings in a larger 10.5mm OD...those should work for you....The ID is .250 which is designed to work with Gotoh Vintage style...not Pings.

[Woz05]

Yeah I did that conversion on my Squier Affinty Series Tele and it went together perfectly using the converson bushings.

Use the search function to search "changing tuners on Squier Affinity" you should find the thread.

[yegbert]

Vintage style tuners look cool. And I like the way the strings connect to the tuners. When I have strings that don't really need replacing but I want to do some work that requires getting the strings out of the way, I can slip the strings out of them for a pickup swap or similar work and then after the work, get those same strings back into the tuners easily.

But I'm not convinced the stock Squier tuners on recent production guitars are inferior to other tuners in terms of tuning stability. I think some folks like the idea of other types of tuners or just have an itch to tinker and mod, so they will rationalize replacing the tuners based on tuning stability issues.

Stock Squier nuts aren't always made very well and you may have some binding of the strings in the slots. So you bend a string and it slides some through the nut for the bend, but when you release the bend, the string is tight enough in the slot that it doesn't return completely to pitch. Or in tuning, you'll notice that tightening the tuner isn't effective in raising the pitch a little, until you turn it some more and then it jumps past where you wanted it to be. If you have these symptoms, you could try some nut slot lube. Or you might need to rework offending slots with an appropraite file, or even have a better nut made and installed.

[telepath]

Yep I recall that I put vintage tuners on my Affinity (since sold).
i dont recall having any major issues.

MijStrat - re going out of tune - how quickly does this happen?

What i found with my Affinity is that the string height adjusters on the saddles would work temselves upwards due to vibration - taking it out of tune, and continually lowering the action.

You might want to check that - and if so, simply grab some loctite 'medium strength' and put a spot on the grub screws!

I dont think I had issues with the nut, but others report that they have.

[Fatmanstratman]

Originally Posted by yegbert

But I'm not convinced the stock Squier tuners on recent production guitars are inferior to other tuners in terms of tuning stability.

yegbert, I would agree with you 100% - except for the Affinity range.

In my experience, the "standard" Squier stuff has been pretty good, but I have to say that the tuners on both the Affinity Teles and Strats struggle to hold tune (always slipping, and not so smooth when tuning up - they tend to "jump" instead of tightening the strings gradually and evenly).

JMHO, of course - YMMV.....

[mijstrat72]

Thanks for the suggestions. Since this is a home build, I'm using a variety of component. Most of the components are MIA. The neck I scimped on due to a funding shortfall amongst other reasons. I have replaced the nut already with a TUSQ unit.

I used some really old pine for the build, that weighs next to nothing and the diecast tuners almost push the guitar over into the neck heavy catagory. It's also an Esquire type build so I'd kinda like to keep with the "vintage" theme. I'll check the resources mentioned above and hopefully things will work out fine.