I wasn't sure where to post this. It's not exactly a bench report (more of a kitchen floor report), and as you'll soon see I'm nowhere near an expert. This is the 1st time I've ever attempted anything this drastic with a guitar. Hopefully this will help people learn from my mistakes and/or inspire some ideas, just like Chris' Stiked Daytona inspired this project. I started with this MIM Classic Series '60s Strat:
Although it sounded and played great as it was stock, I bought it for this project and dammit, I had my mind made up. So I dismantled it, parted out the electronics and plastic, and slowly gathered up the necessary parts. Once I had the pickguard and pickups in my hands, I could finally begin the crazy part. With a hammer, a 3/8" chisel, an X-Acto knife and some sandpaper, I made room for some Filtertrons. I tried to go slow with the chisel and shave off 1/32"-1/16" of wood at a time, but I got a bit too eager at times and you can see it in the results. I used the X-Acto knife to cut the outlines of the routes in the finish so that the finish wouldn't chip off at the edges. To smooth out the sides I used sandpaper wrapped around the back of the chisel for the flat surfaces and wrapped around the X-Acto knife handle for the corners. I tried to remove as little wood as possible and not make too much of a mess of things, but eh. It won't win any awards, but it's done:
You know the "measure twice, cut once" maxim? This was more like "measure once, cut once, then repeat 5 times". I had to keep adjusting the size of the routes to account for the little skirts that stick out at the bottom of the Classic pickup covers and to make sure that the pickups lined up comfortably with the pickguard without having to physically mash everything into place.
Now that the routing is done, here's what I have to work with:
Classic+/Classic pickups and 500k CTS split-shaft pots from TV Jones, 22awg stranded hookup wire and .022uF poly film cap from my local Radio Shack, Fender switch from my local Sam Ash, chrome import Electromatic Gretsch knobs off of eBay, and mint green pickguard from Terrapin. Check out the difference in mint greens between the Terrapin guard and the original Fender guard:
Terrapin's mint green has a slight glow-in-the-dark greenish white hue to it. It looks good with the LPB body, but it would probably annoy the mint green connoisseurs out there.
Now I just need to drill the pickup mounting holes and put everything together. I'll post an update when it's finished. At the rate this is going it will probably be another couple of months. When it's all done it should look something like this:
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burningyen
I wasn't sure where to post this. It's not exactly a bench report (more of a kitchen floor report), and as you'll soon see I'm nowhere near an expert. This is the 1st time I've ever attempted anything this drastic with a guitar. Hopefully this will help people learn from my mistakes and/or inspire some ideas, just like Chris' Stiked Daytona inspired this project. I started with this MIM Classic Series '60s Strat:
Although it sounded and played great as it was stock, I bought it for this project and dammit, I had my mind made up. So I dismantled it, parted out the electronics and plastic, and slowly gathered up the necessary parts. Once I had the pickguard and pickups in my hands, I could finally begin the crazy part. With a hammer, a 3/8" chisel, an X-Acto knife and some sandpaper, I made room for some Filtertrons. I tried to go slow with the chisel and shave off 1/32"-1/16" of wood at a time, but I got a bit too eager at times and you can see it in the results. I used the X-Acto knife to cut the outlines of the routes in the finish so that the finish wouldn't chip off at the edges. To smooth out the sides I used sandpaper wrapped around the back of the chisel for the flat surfaces and wrapped around the X-Acto knife handle for the corners. I tried to remove as little wood as possible and not make too much of a mess of things, but eh. It won't win any awards, but it's done:
You know the "measure twice, cut once" maxim? This was more like "measure once, cut once, then repeat 5 times". I had to keep adjusting the size of the routes to account for the little skirts that stick out at the bottom of the Classic pickup covers and to make sure that the pickups lined up comfortably with the pickguard without having to physically mash everything into place.
Now that the routing is done, here's what I have to work with:
Classic+/Classic pickups and 500k CTS split-shaft pots from TV Jones, 22awg stranded hookup wire and .022uF poly film cap from my local Radio Shack, Fender switch from my local Sam Ash, chrome import Electromatic Gretsch knobs off of eBay, and mint green pickguard from Terrapin. Check out the difference in mint greens between the Terrapin guard and the original Fender guard:
Terrapin's mint green has a slight glow-in-the-dark greenish white hue to it. It looks good with the LPB body, but it would probably annoy the mint green connoisseurs out there.
Now I just need to drill the pickup mounting holes and put everything together. I'll post an update when it's finished. At the rate this is going it will probably be another couple of months. When it's all done it should look something like this:
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