Squier Paranormal Rascal Bass Mod Project

Welcome to the Next Project, we have a Squire Bass on the bench today. It's in for a little finish removal from the neck and a rewiring to include a blend pot, rather than the factory 3 position switch. 00:00 - lights, camera, action 00:04 - intro 00:37 - teardown 01:16 - naked neck 02:32 - tru protection 04:12 - natural recap 05:36 - wiring prep 06:30 - wiring time 08:22 - reassembly 09:45 - did i mention... This is a brand new 2023 Squire Paranormal Rascal 4-string bass guitar, which I'm very impress with the build quality. The fit and finish are immaculate. Well done Squire! Honestly, they did a great job, the routed cavities are clean, no buffing compound nor debris anywhere, very clean and neat. After I removed the neck, I clamped it to a beam and sanded the factory gloss urethane finish from the back of the neck. 120, 200, and 320 papers were used. The neck was in great shape, looked perfect as I began the sanding, and I only found 2 little waves in the shape as I sanded. The sanding was followed by a quick cleaning and 2 "scrub-on, scrub-off" coats of Tru-Oil, allowing an overnight dry time between coats. While the Tru-oil was drying, I moved on to the wiring. The first obstacle was making a reducer/washer for the new blend pot to fit where the 3-position switch originally was located. I McGyver'd a solution, using a large flat washer, an old Sharpie marker and some head-scratching. Works perfectly. Now to tackle the new parts kit and wiring diagram, which went well, but yielded a output from the guitar that neither I, nor owner were expecting. Back to the wiring/drawing board. Thank goodness for Google and a bunch of other bass enthusiasts whom have been down this road. I borrowed a new diagram, changed the wiring and the result was better, but still not where I expected the sound to be. One more wiring diagram and a change from a 250K, to 500K tone pot did the trick. Keep trying until you find what works. The guitar was put together and back to the owner it went. All good, whew! This was the first Blend pot I've dealt with, a rather interesting device, basically 2 potentiometers stacked together, which hand-off signal between each other as the knob is rotated. The final result was a uniform output level that would pan/blend from one to the other of the 2 pickups as the pot was rotated. The first wiring diagram created a dip in output at the center detent of the pot rotation, that didn't fly. Now it's working great! Thanks for watching and hop you enjoyed the project. Be safe and take care!