We’ve seen our fair share of guitar restoration projects, from Jared James Nichols rescuing a tornado-damaged Gibson Les Paul, to Monty’s Guitars salvaging Ed Sheeran’s Martin acoustic guitar – gifted to him by Eric Clapton – which had been almost destroyed in a fire.
Such stories usually make for some of the most heart-warming tales of the instrumental world, and this new project from YouTuber David Hilowitz – who sought to resurrect an abandoned Squier Stratocaster – is no exception.
But there’s a twist: Hilowitz didn’t just restore the Squier, he completely brought it back to life with a wild alt-rock mod.
This particular case is one of the more peculiar ones we’ve come across because, as Hilowitz notes, the Squier wasn’t subjected to a fire or a natural disaster – instead, it was the victim of complete neglect.
Indeed, the guitar itself had been inexplicably stripped of most of its hardware and electronics, and had been cruelly zip-tied to a fence, seemingly left by its former owner to perish. What’s more, according to Hilowitz, it had been wasting away for more than five years, in some bizarre display of six-string crucifixion.
Hilowitz, who lives in the area, had been walking past the Strat most days, and seized the opportunity to rescue the poor thing when a moving company gave him permission to remove it from the fence and take it home.
What was once a Squier Affinity Stratocaster had been weathered almost beyond repair, with mountains of dirt gathering in the body cavities and extreme exposure resulting in a dried, cracked and disfigured neck.
Refusing to give up on the six-string, Hilowitz decided to give it a new lease on life by transforming it into a Basitar – a quirky two-string bass guitar/electric guitar hybrid that had been championed by alt-rock heroes Mark Sandman and Chris Ballew.
The Basitar was first pioneered by multi-instrumentalist Sandman, whose unique music style influenced the likes of Les Claypool, Mike Watt and Josh Homme. The innovation was refined by his close friend Ballew, who used his Basitar on The Presidents of The United States of America’s debut album.
In the case of Hilowitz’s salvaged Strat, a deep clean of the neck and fretboard was followed by an extensive refinish in an effort to rehydrate the wood. Enough hardware to accommodate two bass strings – along with an HSS-equipped pickguard – was then reintroduced to the barren body.
While it wasn’t returned to its former glory – its savior even admits that might have been beyond the realms of possibility – the Basitar experiment proved to be a roaring success, with Hilowitz going on to use his newly revived Squier to write and record an entire song.
Hilowitz also said the Squier would continue to be a bed for further experiments, so head over to his YouTube channel to keep up to date with the Strat's fate.
