Strat Loaded Pickguard

Categorized | Guitar Basics

Posted on 25 February 2011. Tags: fender, fender strat loaded pickguards, gypsy, loaded, pickups, pre loaded strat pickguards, strat, strat loaded pickguard, strat loaded pickguard install

Strat Loaded Pickguard

building a guitar from scratch?

For most decent guitars it can cost quite a bit. I was interesting in buying the parts separately and putting them all together. I see some guitar strat style guitar bodies with the tremolo and input jack going for $30 - $40 bucks. A loaded pickguard comes for maybe $50 bucks with some decent pick ups. A neck with the tuners going for about $70 bucks. Is it really as simple as buying the parts and putting them together to get a good guitar or is there something more to this I'm not seeing?

Strat parts seem abundant and everywhere so to get an actual Fender strat body doesnt seem too difficult and seems like a better idea than modding a bullet strat. So with my estimated projection of $200 dollars max could I really make a great player?
I was using this site for the parts for the strat

http://stores.ebay.com/The-STRATosphere/Bodies-/_i.html?_fsub=3&_sid=105525814&_trksid=p4634.c0.m322

It seems like a solid deal?

Hello there,

Assembling a playable guitar from parts is not an easy and not inexpensive. People part out guitars because they can get more money by selling it piece by piece than they can get for the guitar as a whole. I enjoy working with project guitars. It is a good want to customize your guitar. However, it is not cheap. If all you want is a decent quality stock guitar, it is always cheaper to just buy one.

I presently have over 2 dozen project guitars on going. None of them will cost under $200. That budget is not realistic. For instance, it is rare that you will get a decent quality, 1 or 2 piece alder body for $40. For ash, no way. $70 will only get you a Squier neck. Not a Fender neck. Probably won't even get you a licensed by neck. The guitar you build will only be as good as the quality of the parts you use. If you use cheap quality parts, you may as well buy a used Squier for $75. That is essentially what you will end up with after you spend $200 on your project guitar.

Also do you have the skills and understanding of guitars needed to make your project guitar playable. Do you understand scale length. Are you aware of string spacing. If you mix the string spacing on the parts you guitar is trash. The tremolo, nut and pickups all have to be matched string spacing to work. The scale of the neck needs to match the scale of the body. I point out these warnings, because if you do not know that stuff, you can waste a lot of money on parts that will not work on your guitar. Not every Strat style guitar's parts are completely interchangable with the parts of every other Strat style guitar. Even if all the parts are either Fender or Squier, does not mean with will fit together.

As for that link. I have done business with Matthew. He is trustworthy. He takes Fender guitars (mostly) and parts them out. He can make more money from selling a guitar piece by piece than he can if he sold the guitar as a whole. However, I have never bought a part from him that was not exactly what he said it was. Honest as they come. Many eBay sellers will tell you this part is Genuine Fender, when in fact it is cheap Squier or Starcaster. Some will pass of parts as being Fender MIM or Fender American when in fact the parts are not Fender and not even Squier.

If you can find a used MIM Fender Strat that makes a good base for your project. To get a good 1 or 2 piece alder body, you can expect to pay at least $75 for a bare body. Most Squier necks are not worth the money they sell for. If you go with a Fender MIM Strat neck, you might get a rosewood fretboard neck for $95. If you want a maple fretboard, $130 is more realistic. MIM pickups are cheap. $25 to $30 will get you a set. A good set of pots and a good selector switch will run you $18 or more. You can buy new CTS pots for about $6 each. A new CLR switch is about $13. The cap is maybe $4 for a decent quality one. A switchcraft output jack is $6. When you pick your parts try to get pickups that have their screws and springs. You can easily tie up another $6 in screws and springs.

There are lots of cheaper parts on the market. Why the are cheap is because they came out of cheap low quality guitars. Good quality parts are not cheap.

If you have the skills to assemble and fit your parts together, you can create a very good guitar. I have done several that sound great and play extremely well. But if you think you can mix and match parts from low end Squier Strats, Starcaster parts and no name Strat clones and come up with a high quality Strat at a very cheap price, you are quite mistaken.

Later,

The most recent Ebay auctions for Strat Loaded Pickguard are listed below. You can now search through the results and find great low prices on Strat Loaded Pickguard.