I had been intrigued by the so-called "3/4 size" Fender Stratocaster Jr. but was unwilling to spend $370
to get one, so I decided to try upgrading a Squier Mini instead. I bought a used Mini on eBay [making
a point to get one that came with a Mini-sized gig bag {Have gig bag, will travel!}], and also bought
a loaded pickguard removed from a brand new Mexican Fat Strat to transplant into the Mini.
Here is the patient before the transplant surgery. The guitar clearly had been around for a while; it had minor
dimples here and there from bangs and knocks, and it had been played—there was a good bit of minor pick
scratching, most of it to the left of the pickguard or above it in playing position, which suggested violent
strumming, though I wonder if any actual music resulted. It also must have been sitting around for a
while as it was dusty and the strings were rusty. Plugged into an amp, the pickups, switch, and pots
worked, but it did not sound like a strat [it didn't sound like much at all], and plugged or unplugged
it had some unwanted buzzes (for one, the neck pickup was loose and vibrated and buzzed a lot).
The body has universal routing that provides plenty of room for the humbucker without modification.
Examination of the routing of the body revealed that the body is plywood. Can't say I was surprised.
Comparison of the underside of the Mini's pickguard (left) with that of the Fat Strat (right). The Mini's pickups do not
consist of the usual Fender-style wound bobbins inside a loose fitting cover, but rather had a smaller coil wound on
a smaller bobbin with only a single bar magnet along the midline below the poles, and all of it paraffin potted inside
the 'cover'. The wiring of the Mini is very light gauge, and the pots are miniature and an un-strat-like 500K,
presumably to brighten the feeble pickups.
I left the pickups wired essentially as they came on the Fat Strat pickguard. Thus, positions 1, 3, and
5 give you the neck, middle, and humbucking bridge pickups alone, while postion 2 gives you the
bridge and middle pickups in parallel, and position 4 gives you the middle pickup and north coil
of the humbucker in parallel. However, I had to modify the wiring because of the single tone
pot, and I copied the wiring of the tone pot (above) from Fender's Greasebucket Tone
Circuit, which "rolls off highs without adding bass" or so they say.
I sanded down the rough spots in the routed areas, made sure there was clearance for the
larger pots, and glued in foil shielding. The Mini had its string ends in the bridge, but the
Stratocaster Jr. has through the body strings, so I drilled the body and installed ferrules
for through body string routing in the hopes of improving the sustain.
Here is the Mini pickguard in place after the transplant. I had to sand the holes in the pickguard
for the neck and middle pickups slightly to get the new pickups to fit, they are quite snug now,
and I cut out a large opening to receive the humbucker. One of the screw holes for the old
single-coil bridge pickup [on the upper left] was reused, and two new holes were drilled.
I spent quite a while with emery cloth cleaning up and rounding the corners of the frets, then
polished up the fretboard with a buffing wheel in a dremel, and when I was done the neck
was much smoother and more comfortable than before. Lastly, I added to the name on
the headstock. Perhaps "Fat Mini" would be more descriptive, but I prefer Mini-Fat.
Here is the finished Mini-Fat looking small next to a Fender 50s Reissue Stratocaster.
In setting up a "3/4 size" guitar they say one can either put on normal gauge strings and tune the
guitar up two halfsteps or put on heavy gauge strings and use standard tuning. I use 11-48 strings
on most of my guitars, and so I tried a set of 12-56 strings on the Mini-Fat. However, they felt
too heavy and I replaced them with a set of 11-48 strings, which feel fine in standard tuning.
And how does it play and sound? The neck is slightly narrower at the nut (1.65" vs. 1.675") and
slightly thinner at the 5th fret (~0.85" vs. ~0.93") than the V-shaped neck of the 50s Reissue strat,
and so is well suited for small hands [something I don't have], but although the neck is not as
nicely finished as the strat, it is still comfortable. Side by side comparisons of the Mini-Fat
and the strat plugged into the clean channel of a 15W tube amp show that the Mini-Fat's
tones are a bit woody and hollow compared to the solid 'bell-like' and quacky tones
of the strat, but it still sounds fine. All in all the Mini-Fat is not a full-sized strat but
it it still a lot of fun to play, and I think the experiment was a great success.