Squier XII Upgrade & Mod

[scole]

I picked up a used XII at the beginning of the month and I'm currently working through a small project with it. Before buying it, I read through the posts here and saw how some people weren't happy with the bridge pickup and swapping them out for Vintage 65s so that's one part of my upgrade (I'm also replacing all the internals with Fender pots & 3 way switches.

But the other thing I wanted to do was add series / parallel wiring options. You could implement that by adding a push-pull tone pot and not have to modify the body but I wanted to go a different direction. Since the XII has Jazzmaster inspired features and looks, I wanted to add a slide switch to control series / parallel and I wanted to place it in the empty space where you would normally find the rhythm circuit on a Jazzmaster.





Obviously the body isn't routed for that so that's the challenge I accepted. First step was to create a routing template for the slide switch so I made a 1.5" x 0.75" rectangle with a spare piece of MDF:



With that constructed, I took a spare piece of acrylic and routed out the rectangle into the acrylic. Now I had something I could see visually and find the best location to place it on the body. I drew some parallel lines off the neck pocket (I know- I should have used the neck pickup route since that edge would be parallel to the body center) and that helped me align the cavity template:



With the switch cavity traced, I could now draw in the channel that would be needed to feed wires to it. The switch cavity would be routed to a depth of 1" and the wiring channel was routed to the same depth as the neck pickup which is about 5/8".



I used a forstner bit to remove as much of the wood as I could and then routed out the remainder in stages until I reached bottom:





More progress later!..

[MattK]

Nice work!

[SixStringSlinger]

Nice. I modded mine with a 4-way rotary with the options for both series and parallel combined positions, as well as a mini-switch for in/out-of-phase. The guitar is currently with a local guy I know who’s done other work for me to route it for a rhythm circuit (which I will wire to work in all pickup/phase positions, sort of like a bright/dark switch).

I also put PV’65’s in mine (I had them hanging around as I didn’t like them in my regular JM. They make it easier to get cleaner/clearer tones, and I can always kick in dirt or a boost if I want to.

I actually have a set of XII-style pickups I want to install once I find a pickguard that’s fit for them and the Jaguar-style plates I’m using for the rhythm and lead circuit controls.

[Fiddy]

First mod needed. Mod the name from Squire to Squier.

Cool project btw

[scole]

Doh! Fixed, thanks. I’ll have more progress to share tonight or tomorrow..

[Fiddy]

How about a different bridge? Get something cooler looking than the stock one.

[scole]

Nah, although I’ve seen some discussion here about alternatives, that’s beyond my comfort zone. Finished up the pickguard tonight and I’m frankly amazed at how well I was able to implement my plan for this. Nothing went sideways but I still have wiring to do.

I’ll post more progress pics tomorrow evening.

[Nudger]

Luvin the way you are making it your own
Iv been scouring youtube for the first sound clip of one off these with a pup upgrade..

[scole]

More progess photos-

So after routing out the new slide switch cavity, I focused next on the channel for the wires between the neck pickup cavity and the slide switch cavity. I had made an MDF template for the channel but I experienced a weird situation where the guide bearing on the router bit was just wider than my channel. Not sure how that happened but the end result was that I had to basically freehand route the channel. It turned out well but there is a slight meander in there. Oh well. It will be covered by the pickguard anyways-



Next up was to make a MDF pickguard template so I could turn my custom material into a pickguard. This is the 3rd or 4th pickguard I've made so it's getting easier and this time, I had an "aha" moment where I realized that if I tape the source pickguard to the MDF upside down, the bevel edge will be elevated, making it much easier for the bearing on the router bit to follow. Anyways, this went pretty quick:



Once the template was complete, I took some spare acryllic I had from making a different pickguard and I made a "mini" pickguard that would cover the area of the slide switch. I secured it to the body using the pickguard screws and now I could easily mark the area where the slide cavity was. I also then drew a horizontal centerline for the cavity:



Using my MDF template for my paisley Jazzmaster, I transfered the slide switch holes and switch cutout onto another piece of acrylic and this finally let me play with positioning to get the switch centered, both horizontally and vertically in the cavity:



After making the new pickguard using the template, I positioned my placement scrap acrylic onto the real pickguard, aligning it by the pickguard screws and then securing it with painter's tape to finally drill the real holes and then begin filing out the rectangle needed for the switch itself:



A lot of slow and cautious filing finally left me with the finished piece and everything screwed together almost perfectly. Here's my custom pickguard and the switch in place:





I just threw those PV 65 pickups in there for the photo. When I assemble it back together, I'll re-use the pure white covers that came with the XII. Pretty happy with how it all turned out. My final bit of progress tonight was to tape off the body and apply the first coat of shielding paint:





If you're curious about the pickguard.. I love the Decoboom pickguards and the 60s-ish styling but options and stock are limited. Since this is a 60s style guitar for me, I wanted something mid century modern or atomic age as a pattern. Several people on Etsy sell digital patterns in these styles so I bought a few and experiemented until I settled on one pattern. The pattern did not have these colors but I was able to tweak it in photo editing software and build out the appropriate aspect and resolution.

I googled a bit and found a company in North Carolina called Custom Made Better which prints custom images onto acrylic in different thicknesses. This one was 1/8" thick and approximately 12" x 18" in size and cost $25. If you follow this route, I would be care and pick up some crafting transfer tape and apply it to the side of the acryllic that does not come with a protective film. I actually used double stick tape between the MDF and the contact tape and it stayed put the entire time I handled it while using the jigsaw and routing table. It will probably be sometime next week before I have any new progress to share..

[N0_Camping4U]

Super cool. Are these XII's noisy?

[scole]

Probably not? I’m doing this for a few reasons- I already had the paint leftover from another project, it can’t hurt and it will look cleaner & more professional, especially since there’s now that area with fresh router cuts.

[SixStringSlinger]

Super cool. Are these XII's noisy?

Mine isn’t shielded at all (except maybe a little foil around the controls, I don’t remember) and it hasn’t been particularly noisy either with the stick pickups or the PV’65’s. It’s not dead silent, and it’s quieter in the middle position, but the noise is really only just enough to make clear that the amp is turned on.

I’ll still probably use some copper tape and a pick guard shield as part of the mods I’m doing, just to be safe.

[scole]

I wrapped up this project last week so here's a final post of pictures..

After applying my 3 coats of shielding paint, I was ready to add in some shielding tape strips so I could tie in the cavity and pickguard:



After that, I added the foam strips for the pickups:



While the shielding paint applications were happening, I had wired up everything except for the bridge ground wire so everything was ready to go:



The bridge pickup wires had to run all the way up to the slide switch and barely did so. In fact, I had some trouble getting the loaded pickguard to drop into place flat because some of the wiring group kept short-hopping some of the cavity corners. I eventually got it thanks to thin pin flag wire bent into a mini J hook which I was able to hook & tug the wiring into the open cavity. Here's everything buttoned up:



The last thing I had to do before restringing it was replace all the tuners. I was hoping not to but some of the original tuners just felt like they were a little loose in the gearing and didn't have smooth turning. I turned to Gotoh locking tuners since they drop right in. I did make the mistake of ordering two sets of righthand tuners. Don't do that. One side takes righthand tuners and the other side takes lefthand tuners.







So there you go. From concept to reality. Cheers.

[SignoftheDragon]

Absolutely brilliant!

Needs a review of the sound/result, but wow- that's some beautiful work!

[BoringPostcards]

I LOVE that pickguard!