Agreed re the Classic Vibes, I often think how different it is for the beginning guitarist these days, when the cut price range is being built to standards that the expensive gear struggled to reach in the 80s when I started out. When I think of the plywood Strat copies with shrill pickups and hardware made of pot metal, I wonder why I ever got into it at all.
And sitting on the couch with the 50s bass and flats, I found myself playing and figuring out a few basslines which must have been played on uprights on the original recordings, I guess my head was back in the 50s when they brought out this model to relieve the headache of carrying those on tour.

holy moly

Boring (?) update. The guy who sold this to me had strung it with LaBella flats, but the ball-end silk wraps were sitting on the saddles. Thought it was weird and then realised they were intended for through-body strings which have extra length between ball and saddle.
Instead of changing the strings, like a sane person, it began to bug me that this bass was an exact copy of a 1954 Precision (when the body was first contoured) except it had a 1959 bridge. It should have the original 1951 bridge, i.e. 2-saddle and through-body stringing. So I decided to do it, and bought some ferrules and a 2-saddle bridge from Fender (I think the same part they use on the Squier Telecaster Bass, so it has brass saddles). You might be able to see from the pic above that the factory bridge was slightly crooked so I figured I might as well fix that too.
Old bridge off (the tape shows the edges and pencil marks for the saddle positions so I could check if the new one could reach them):
New bridge test fit (note change of angle, I measured from the neck pocket to each side, the extra lines run from the edges of the neck):
Drilled the string holes with the drill press, then used a brad point bit spun backwards to score the finish so it wouldn't chip. This stage was terrifying:
(then drilled with a 1/2" wood bit, 10mm down, using the press, for the ferrule to fit in)
New bridge installed:
Ferrules on the back (there was a bit of dicking around to get them looking straight, fortunately a small gap is in the black part of the finish).
And now it's vintage-correct, the strings cross the saddles with metal on metal, it looks cool and I love it even more. The irony is that a new bridge and ferrules cost a little less than a replacement set of LaBellas ...

Nice work with the ferrules, they look dead-straight.

Quite a lot of fudging after the counterbore wandered on one - I would highly recommend the locator-pin technique to anyone who’s contemplating it - but fortunately the dark burst hides the gap beside one of them!

Sorry not sorry #nowthereare2

Currently floating my boat: 1985 Fender Japan E-serial standard Tele (in "Marlboro Gold")
1983 Squier Japan SQ-serial Tele Custom
1984 Fender Japan A-serial Jazzmaster
2019 Squier Indonesia CV 50s Precision Bass
1973 Greco Japan Electric Bass (Jazz copy)

let's see the rest of that Greco!

Let's see the rest of all of them!

On the Squier Classic Vibe front, I bought a new white blonde Telecaster model earlier this year, after reading people here and elsewhere praise them. Had never owned a Tele or Tele-style guitar before. It would've been fine as is, but I decided to give it some mods and upgrades.

Months in the making, after some setbacks (not worth getting into), I finally got everything back today.

Behold!


I installed the black locking tuners myself, but had the following other upgrades done to it: Lindy Fralin "Vintage Hots" (with a 2% overwind on the bridge) swapped in for the stock pickups; a steel Hipshot bridge in place of the stock vintage-style repro; CTS pots and three-way switch in place of the stock ones; the addition of a "little white stars on black" pickguard (note the matching strap), for style points.



Oh, and I had a custom neck plate with a cartoon image of my dawgie made, which I was able to install myself:


Just put some D'Addario EXL110Ws on.

The sound? It's a twanger! Sounds very good through a Honey Bee pedal, and most importantly it's fun to play.