Building a Fender Mustang out of Parts – Parts Stang

I put together a lot of Fender Stratocasters and Telecasters of every shape and style imaginable. Every once and a while I want to put something new or altogether different.

I recently saw that Stratosphere had Fender Player (made in Mexico) bodies without a bridge or loaded pickguard for $189. I found from another source a Fender Player neck for $199.

I have a box of modern fender 2 pin tuner sets that I have acquired over the years as I upgraded client’s guitars with locking tuners. The neck was already setup for a drop in installation.

I dug through my parts and found I had a used tortoise shell pickguard for a Mustang with two single coil pickups. What is cool about the body that I ordered is that the pickup routings really offer a lot of choices for now and later upgrades/modifications. I will start with a set of single coil strat pickups now but later could buy a new pickguard and install two p90s because the body routing is setup for this.

I found a used Mustang bridge online for $20 and for another $5 I was able to get a used control plate and knobs.

The switch, pots, and capacitor I already had on hand but would only be about $20 total.

A used version of this guitar goes for about $500 and up and a new version starts around $799. What I was spending was a lot less than purchasing an already assembled guitar.

For the pickups I have a box of Fender Single coil sets that are used and pulled from other guitars I have worked on over the years. After digging through the box, I came upon a great idea. The single coils in a Mustang guitar normally have a pickup cover the hides the poles of the pickup. Unlike a Stratocaster where the cover has holes cut out, so the poles fit through and are visible.

The idea was that I had a used red and blue Lace Sensor pickups that was missing the third pickup. After checking the pickups out with a multi meter I was able to tell they would work.

I assembled the guitar circuit which consisted of two 250k CTS pots, a Three-Way Toggle Switch, and a .022 uf Capacitor.

Everything electronic checked out once assembled.

The bridge on this model of Mustang is a hardtail string through bridge like a hardtail strat. I prefer this than the trem version of a mustang bridge or the top loader of the Squier Bullet or Sonic Mustangs.

The only thing I needed to do was to enlarge the holes in the body for the four neck plate screws. Then I installed the neck.

A project like this is a nice easy assembkly project because you get a neck and body that already has holes drilled for you for the bridge, pickguard, neck, and others. In this case I even have a body with conductive paint in the electronics cavities so as to prevent noisy electronics. Although with the lace sensor pickups going into this build, I will have a pretty quiet guitar to start with.

The pickups look like a typical mustang set of pickups which is cool.

I love playing mustangs. My new guitar weighs in at 6 lbs. and 7 ounces which makes for a very comfortable guitar to play while strapped to your body.

I am surprised how bright the lace sensor pickups are. The guitar has almost like a telecaster bite to it in the bridge position. Very nice!

Out the door everything priced out I am coming in less than $500 for basically a brand-new guitar that is a kick to play.