Squier Tele Custom -to- Custom II

I have a Squier Tele Custom. I'm replacing the humbuckers with P-90s. I have a pickguard and a set of the P-90 pickups made for a Squier Tele Custom II. I have the pickguard assembly ready to drop in. In doing a test fit I have discovered that I have a limited amount of depth in the body. The pickups bottom out while still sitting about 4/32" above the top of the pickguard.

For anyone who has a Squier Tele Custom II: how high relative to the pickguard and to the strings, do you set your P-90s?

If anyone has a Squier Tele Custom II body handy without the pickguard and pickups in place: how deep is the rout for the pickups? My Squier Tele Custom is about 24/32", except for some areas immediately under the pickup mounting screws that are routed a little deeper. The main body of the stock P-90s are the same depth as the stock humbuckers, however there's more space taken up by the P-90s, for a mounting bar underneath. I'm wondering if the bodies for the Squier Tele Custom IIs were routed any deeper than those for the Squier Tele Customs.

Thanks in advance for anyone who has any info to help me with this!

 

reverend, the caps from my custom have 223 on them, the ones from my Standards have 333 and are slightly larger. I don't have a meter that can measure capacitance, but those two different caps are almost identical to the Radio Shack "green chiclets" that are .022 and .033 respectively. So my guess is .022.

I like to experiment with different spec caps anyway, so a while back I bought several 5% tolerance Mallory 150s in each of these sizes from Mouser: .022, .033, .047 and .1. Here's a link to the .022, which is the size I use most often including this Custom with P-90s; and here's a link to guitarpartsresource's page that lists those 150s in several popular sizes. I think Mouser is cheaper if you're buying a good handful (shipping is more expensive than guitarpartsresource), but they are easier to find on guitarpartsresource. At the time I bought my stash guitarpartsresource didn't have them.

On my Squier Tele Custom, just like my Squier Standard Teles, the stock volume pots were dime-size split shaft linear taper 500k; the tone pots were the same except for being audio taper. I decided to try some Alpha pots for this P-90 project, so I ordered some from Antique Electronics here. I stuck with the same electronic spec as the stock (500k, linear volume, audio tone) but they are the 3/8" bushing with a 1/4" diameter solid shaft. I had to enlarge the holes in the stock Squier pickguard slightly (small round file), but they fit the Fender '72 Deluxe/Custom knobs I'm using perfectly.

 

I got it put together and working, likely high pickup position be damned. It sounds good, probably would be better with the pups a little lower but I had been waiting too long and had to hear this.

The thicker than stock wire I used was one factor in my first try at this that limited room to lower the pickup, so I'm going to try to find some thinner wire.

The wire type I need is single conductor with a shield and insulation over that, but it needs to be real skinny stuff, even skinnier than the StewMac stuff here. Anyone know where I can find some?

 

I gave up trying to find the skinny wire. I removed some wood in the floor of the cavities to make the room I needed, using a drill and a couple different sizes or forstner bits. Now I have plenty of room to adjust the pickups.

I started off trying to use the same long L-shaped Switchcraft switch the MIM '72 Deluxe/Custom uses and it wouldn't fit. I got a short version and I'm using it instead. It's still a cramped fit, for now the direction of the switch movement is a bit of a compromise.

 

Check out the info in this thread; Music Parts Guru has them new, mine was $15 plus shipping.

I see them occasionally on ebay but since many folks don't seem to know they can get them new for that cheap, the used ones sometimes go for more than those new ones.

You could put an ad in the garage sale here for a used one.

 

The pickups might be dimensionally the same. However, their method of mounting in the Squier Telecaster Custom II is to the pickguard, so there is a flat mounting bar underneath the pickup that the pickup is screwed to, and the screws that go through the pickguard screw into that bar.

I bought one of those stock Squier P-90s used and got the bar with it. I bought the other P-90 new through my local Fender dealer. The new pickup didn't come with the mounting bar, and my Fender dealer couldn't locate and order one of the mounting bars for me.

I used the one bar as a guide and fabricated another mounting bar from a strip of flat aluminum I found in a hardware store.

There's almost no room underneath the P-90 pickups for any extra material. I couldn't find wiring as skinny as the stock wire and the aluminum bar was slighty thicker than the stock brass-looking bar. So I carved the body out some more with a Dremel to make room for the thicker bar and thicker wiring.

I later found somewhat thinner wire from Stewmac. One day I'll take the pickguard off and redo it with the thinner wire, because I have some iffy grounds on the bottom of Alpha pots to fix anyway and the thinner wire is more flexible than the stuff I used.

I like the stock neck P-90 okay but I don't like the stock bridge P-90 as much, it's quite a bit hotter. I'd kinda like to find another P-90 with an output even cooler then the stock neck, put my old neck neck in the bridge and the cooler one in the neck.

But I put the Custom on a back burner and haven't messed around with it lately, I've been preferring to play my Teles with traditional Tele style single coils.

 

With a dogear the mounting screws go through the tabs on each side of the pickup, right? If so, I think the soapbar style would be the easiest to adapt to this guitar.

There are two holes in the cover of the stock Squier P-90s: one between the 2nd and 3rd string polepiece screws; and the other one between the 4th and 5th string polepiece screws. And if I remember correctly, there are holes in the metal baseplate underneath each of those. Are those where the screws would go for a traditional mounting of a soapbar? And I suppose you'd have to remove the plastic pickup cover to insert those screws?

And what goes underneath a traditionally mounted soapbar - is it foam or springs for a somewhat adjustable mounting height? Or some precisely sized and shaped shim of something uncompressible like wood or similar?

You'd have to locate where to mount it, but if my understanding is correct how a soapbar mounts, you could loosely insert the pickup in the pickguard hole, set it in place and make a starter screw hole in the pickup rout with something like an icepick.

The holes in the pickguard for the stock pickguard mounting of the pickup would be left unused.

 

Yes, the mounting to the pickguard allows you to adjust the height of the pickup.

The design probably allows a less expensive and easier building process, than if they has used a body mounted pickup design.