Korean Squier Strat restoration

  This is a nice 25-year old Squier stratocaster guitar a friend of mine found used at a pawn shop. It was in a bad shape as it was sitting for years and nobody tried to restore it. There was dirt, rust and dust all over the guitar and it had a few marks and dents. Its original semi-closed tuners were out, the electronics were all scratchy with an ultra low output and its setup was awful.
  What was special about it was its maple neck, its finish and the fact is was made in Korea. Based on the serial number, it was probably made by Cor-tek (aka Cort guitars). The neck has a comfortable C profile and it looked pretty playable. We couldn't test the guitar but we were confident it would be a nice project.
  At first, I removed the old rusty strings and cleaned up the guitar. I cleaned the fretboard and the body and then removed the pickguard to test the electronics. The pickup were okay but the volume control was worn out. So, I replaced the old 250k log pot with a brand new Alpha 500K linear pot. I used a 500K pot because I wouldn't want to restrict the output and highs the bridge humbucker can produce. I also changed the stock tone caps with new 22nF ones. Then, I re soldered all the electronics and cleaned them up using some contact cleaner.
  Then, it was to time to inspect the neck and its frets. I've also decided to replace its old crappy tuners with brand new 10mm closed type ones. I removed the rusted string tree that was holding down the G and D strings to get more tuning stability and then filed and lubricated the nut. I also leveled the frets to make up for a few of their dents and get a medium to low action.
  Once the neck and body were ready, I set up the guitar using a fresh set of 0,009" coated strings. The guitar is now fully restored and plays better than ever before! The sound is pretty amazing too. I compared this Korean Squier to my newer Fender std Mexican strat and they were pretty close!

Here are the new specs of the Korean made Squier:

-Solid alder body finished in dark purple
-Maple neck with maple fretboard, C profile, 9,5" radius, 21 medium frets, rosewood "skunk stripe", bone nut, vintage string tree
-Aged H-S-S hot ceramic pickups on a white 3-ply pickguard
-1 x 500K linear volume, 2 x 250K log tone controls, 22nF tone cap, 5-way import pickup selector
-Modern 10mm closed type tuners, 18:1 gear ratio
-6-point tremolo with vintage saddles
-Color: dark metallic purple

Here are a few pictures of the restored guitar:

-Thanos

guitardreamer.gr@gmail.com