Best inexpensive strat to mod from??

sunvalleylaw said:
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Sweet! It looks great and just what I was wanting. But watch out! Apparently it might spontaneously burst into flame!
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I love that warning sticker.
 
Ok, thinking it will look something like this, using one or two of some old creme knobs I had hanging around. Liking the look so far.

Found out not have mounting screws and springs in my old stock pick up. So will either need to pirate from the stock pickups and pick guard or see if the hardware store has appropriate Springs. I have screws that will work. Though I will be using a mix of Flathead and Phillips if I use all four provided with the new pick up. Oh well, I can live with that for now.

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Ok, so soldering day. will hopefully get to the neck clean up as well if I have time. But solder first. I have never really soldered before, other than replacing a battery connector in my old Bad Monkey pedal years ago. I have a serviceable little iron, but not a fancy one, and do not have a nice holder, or a "third hand" alligator clip thingy. So will be doing it by hand, ghetto style. Found some good info here:
http://www.premierguitar.com/articles/so-you-want-to-solder-1

And even better here:
Good demo vids on technique lie therein.
http://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/the-tone-garage/how-to-solder

And good info on the overall project here, even if the projects are slightly different.



If I have time, during the project, I will take a couple pics. For those of you that know how to do this, I am sure it seems super basic. but I am hoping it will be helpful to some others who have been reluctant to try any modding, etc.
 
Ok, got the old pickguard off, with parts still on it. But, brakes put on this aspect of the project. My old soldering iron is obviously insufficient as I am spending way too much time with the tip on the part to get stuff desoldered. Will need to get a recommendation for a new iron. Oh well, will move to the neck for the rest of my time today.

Wait! Tried one more time and I think I have it working. I think I just did not let it heat up enough first.

EDIT: Yep. it says you don't have to have a fancy iron, and you don't. But it might be nice to have a better one than the cheapo 15/30 Radioshack one I have. Ok, onward.
 
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So, got the soldering figured out as I said. I think I will get a better soldering iron. Prolly the BYOC one. Good enough with enough heat, adjustable, and inexpensive.

Got confused on one connection, but I think I have it right. Did the "gross" connectivity test when you plug in before screwing everything down and stringing it up, and tap with a screwdriver, and it seems to work. Did not remember to test the tone pots.

So yeah, pretty messy.
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I may have to redo some of that. :wink: We'll call it a learning experience.


Got excited and decided to put it all back together. BUT . . . when I went to install the wired PG, it would not fit all the way in. Guess what? The screws provided by Dimarzio are too long to fit in the routing of the guitar body. So, I tried to pirate the screws off the stock PG, though I had wanted just to leave that for a later project without messing with the pup mounting in the mint PG. But, guess what? Those screws are too wide! Will not fit in the Dimarzio screw holes. HaHa! So just comical. Oh well. I learned a lot about soldering. The result was a little messy looking, and certainly not up to standards. But it seems to work. If I get it all installed and it is not quite right, or even if I screwed up a stock pot or switch, they are not expensive, and I can get a couple new ones. I was thinking to get a new volume pot anyway for better taper for volume roll down, so if that one does not have clean joints, no big deal. I learned a lot for the next project. Definitely more challenging for me right now than the Santellan solderless kit I used in my tele. But once I get my soldering cleaned up, it will be no big deal.

So, that was the mixed success and lack of success. Perserverance then demanded that I use my time, so I went on and cleaned up the neck using my new files and file guide, and a cheap little file I got as part of a kit (pictured) to dress the ends once excess material was removed. I then hit the ends with a sanding sponge and steel wool, and then cleaned it all up and oiled the fretboard. I may have to do a little final clean up on that, but was burned out for the day, and have to wait until I get the correct screws to put it back together anyway. Then I put it to bed for the night until I get the correct screws.

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All in all, a good learning experience and some good progress was made. :)
 
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I don't remember what my first soldering job looked like, but I am pretty sure it was worse than that. As long as it works, who cares what it looks like.
 
If you have a set of wire strippers that have the gauged holes, those are for cleanly cutting off the ends of the screws to make them fit.

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The ones by the hinge.... you open the cutters up and you can see through each of those holes. Find the smallest one that fits and snip the ends of those long bolts off. It's easier to get the springs on when the screws are long, so I load up the pickguard and solder it up, then snip off the excess length of the screws. :baimun:

Another tip is to finish the pickguard and solder it to the guitar ground and output, then before you put ALL the pickguard screws in, test the pickups by tapping the coils of the pickups with an allen wrench while moving through the pickup selector to make sure you didn't put one in the wrong place or get a cold solder joint. It's much better than putting it all together, stringing it up, and you have a dead pickup. :mad:
 
baimun said:
If you have a set of wire strippers that have the gauged holes, those are for cleanly cutting off the ends of the screws to make them fit.

201452916535927340.jpg


The ones by the hinge.... you open the cutters up and you can see through each of those holes. Find the smallest one that fits and snip the ends of those long bolts off. It's easier to get the springs on when the screws are long, so I load up the pickguard and solder it up, then snip off the excess length of the screws. :baimun:

Another tip is to finish the pickguard and solder it to the guitar ground and output, then before you put ALL the pickguard screws in, test the pickups by tapping the coils of the pickups with an allen wrench while moving through the pickup selector to make sure you didn't put one in the wrong place or get a cold solder joint. It's much better than putting it all together, stringing it up, and you have a dead pickup. :mad:
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Thanks. I have a version of that, but too large a gauge. I ordered a little one from BYOC. Along with their soldering station.
 
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OK, most of the family is busy doing other stuff so back on the project. I have my Mexican beer to go along with my Mexican made guitar, Weezer on the Sonos system and I'm ready to go.
 
Yeah, ok. It all seemed good. Having the right size screws for the pickups is really nice. But in bench testing it for connectivity, in the middle position, I am missing the inner coil of the bridge. The outer coil toward the bridge is active. So something must be awry with my wiring on the switch. I have double and triple checked it, and it sure looks like I put the wires back where they were when I pulled them off the other pickups. Of course on the Dimarzio it is black and white together rather than green and white. But otherwise, the positions should be the same. Hmm.

Also, in the second and fourth positions, I seem to be getting both lower coils on one, and both upper coils on the other. And I think it should be inner coils on one, outer on the other. So maybe that is messed up too. Hmm. Will have to do some study to see what I can fix before putting it all together.



How it was wired stock.

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How I put it back together. Looks like it should be the same. Maybe I have a bad joint or something.
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The rest of it seems to be coming out really nicely. I have the neck nicely cleaned up, and I really like the new PG. Really want to put it back together and rock out.

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I may have this thing figured out and not have to re-wire or re-do anything after all. I googled around and looked more closely at the specs and it lays out switching like this, in every place that I can find specs on switching.

Position 1. Full bridge pickup
Position 2. Two inside coils
Position 3. Full neck & bridge pickups
Position 4. Outer neck single coil
Position 5. Full neck pickup

SO, though my position two seems off due to the wrong coil being active in the neck, that is fixed by my swapping the pickup 180 around in the hole. I put it in there with both sets of wires toward the pots, but maybe this Dimarzio is set up differently. In any case, there is room with the wire I have and in the hole just to switch it around. AND, looking at position 4, it appears I am not supposed to have a coil active on the bridge in that position. Looks like neck only. So I should be good! I guess I can swap that pup around and put it all back together after all.
 
If I was sitting right there, I could probably help with your wiring. I'm sure you'll figure it out. As you said, you'll learn more along the journey. I wish more people were like that. I've learned more when shit didn't work right the first time than when it did.

That is a dead sexy guitar. I'll withhold comment on the tort though. :P
 
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