So I bought a pre-wired pickguard for my frankenstrat from GFS with Neovin overwound noiseless singlecoils. I've been missing the strat sound from my lineup and this guitar has a decent Chandler neck from the mid eighties, as well as an original Floyd Rose. The body is junk but maybe someday I'll replace.
So I have a few things to work around:
1) the pickguard is standard strat trem sized, so I will need to trim some of the pickguard near the bridge as the Floyd Is wider. I don't want this to look like poop - what is the best tool for triming - tinsnips?
2) the Chandler neck has 22 frets and has a rosewood fretboard with an overhang. Getting the old pickguard/pickup assembly off was an exercise in unscrewing the neck pup completely and carefully working the pickguard out of the small gap between the overhang and the body. Also the screw holes do not all line up, so I am thinking the best bet will be to remove the neck from the body and then lining everything up before screwing and drilling new holes. Anything to watch out for in this process? I've never detached a neck from a guitar before. looks like the 4 neck screws are a bit pitted so i will have to be careful.
3) I will need to drill a wider hole between the body cavity and the cable jack cavity. The prewired assembly came with really nice sleeved leads for the jack but the hole in the guitar is not big enough.
Simple project is not so simple suddenly!
Any tips or advice appreciated.
Yikes! Guitar surgery--I love it, and hate it.
The pickguard thing is tough. We've tried a bunch of stuff... ultimately a router with a beveled bit is a great tool for this, however, very touchy and you have to go slow to avoid burning the vinyl. Tin snips might work but they are very rough and inaccurate, especially around curves. Sandpaper and a crapload of elbow grease is an option-start with coarse and end with very fine, around 800. I've used a scroll saw and I've use a drill bit. All work in the end but none ever look as good as buying it pre-drilled. Warmoth will accomodate pretty much anything--bridges, hole patterns, etc. But do whatever you can live with and remember ultimately the pickguard is the cheapest piece of that setup, if you mess it up just move the pickups and switch to a new one.
For the neck joint, if it's long you are often better off also routing the top edge of the pickguard to fit around the neck. Otherwise its neck loosening every time. Granted, you don't take off the pickguard often, but probably more often than you'd like. I've taken necks off and put them back on numerous times, it's easy. Use a screwdriver, not a power drill. As long as the pitting is only on the top, no worries--sometimes chrome or black chrome screws look terrible on top but fine inside the wood. I always put beeswax on any screw that goes into wood before I screw it back in... it both smooths the transition and seems to fill the gaps, prevents the "screaming wood" sound. Plus it smells great. Screws are available cheap. Again, Warmoth is my source--good quality, and they ship very fast, prices are pretty much in line with the rest of the world, besides the ultra-cheap retailers like GFS.
The screw holes being misaligned is only a minor bummer. Are they the right number, but just in different locations? Are there eight that line up but three that aren't there? There are slight differences between the 8-hole and 11-hole and import and USA guitars but since the body isn't something specific, it might be hard to even know what to order. If you don't care about the guitar too much, just drill away. Hopefully there are a couple of holes that line up to use as a guide. It's probably possible to get a pickguard that matches but who knows... there are as many drilling patterns as there are cities of a million + in China.
The body hole widening is tough too. We use a really long drill bit, I think it's 12" X 1/4"--the reason it has to be long is that the drill is huge, and you need a very shallow angle, so you need to be able to drill from well off the body. Go look at the long bits at a hardware store and get one big enough to fit the wires. You can fish the wires through the widened hole with a guitar string or similar.
Interested to hear your take on the Neovins--we had a mixed group here, our group was 50/50 on them, but that was with a Tele--never heard the strat ones.
That's a lot of great information and advice, thanks charger.
It's an 8 hole body versus an 11 hole pickguard. The body is no big deal so i don't mind drilling it. But I don't want to spend any more than i already have, other than maybe handing the whole thing to a tech to do for me. So messing up is not an option, lol. I'd rather spend money on other things than more on this (hopefully might have something new to talk about before the end of the month).
I will let you know how they sound as soon as i hear em. Might be a bit longer than I expected if i end up having to hand this off, as Dory is having rotator cuff surgery on her other shoulder this Monday and I'll be pretty busy doing nearly everything for a few months after.
haha, took the neck off and the floyd posts out... of course nothing really lines up :)
think I am going to punt to a tech at this point. it will be more than i wanted to spend on this, but oh well.
Do you have a Dremel Tool? You could use a sanding bit or a drywall type cutting bit to cut the pickguard. I'd clamp a metal straight edge to the pickguard, as a guide, to keep you from going too deep. ( ya never wanna go too deep) The guide will keep your cut straight so it doesn't look like I did it. LOW speed. Cut it. Don't melt it. I'd get a piece of similar material, like the old one to test on first.
You could also use the dremel to enlarge the jack hole, if it's not a big difference. I'm guessing it's just a small amount larger. A stone grinding bit the size of the current hole will enlarge the hole with a slight wallowing. The jack is actually held in place by the plate and any imperfection will be unseen when you put the plate back on. A big 'ol drill skeers me. LOL
Unless of course, you screw it up. Then you get the new body you wanted.
DM — Mar 07, 2014
You could also use the dremel to enlarge the jack hole, if it's not a big difference. I'm guessing it's just a small amount larger. A stone grinding bit the size of the current hole will enlarge the hole with a slight wallowing. The jack is actually held in place by the plate and any imperfection will be unseen when you put the plate back on. A big 'ol drill skeers me. LOL
I was assuming this was a hole inside the body, between the pickup area and the jack area. Thinking strat, though, it's probably something simpler.
Yeah, if it's 2 separate cavities deeper in the body that would be more difficult, though the dremel tools have a flexible attachment that would make it accessable.
I was assuming it was just the jack hole from the outside of the body into the first cavity.
Looking at a strat body photo, I think the flexible attachment would work. They have different ones. There is also a cordless right angle drill that would work.
I was unaware, but they have a right angle attachment for the dremel and the craftsman version, which I have. Good to know.
its a standard Strat body, it is the hole for the leads to go through to the jack.
And he doesnt have a dremel or any clamps, prolly not even a metal straight edge...
Sorry to talk on his behalf but he will be rather busy the next couple days given events he may choose to tell you about. hell, may already have in another thread, not is not for me to say.
Finally got this finished, ended up trying out a new guitar tech. He did a nice job, the pickguard cut isn't 100% perfect but it is smooth and you don't really notice what I am seeing until you look closely. He fixed a pretty serous bow in the neck and it plays and sounds great.
So far I like the pickups, but have only had about 20 minutes to spend with them. Will do clips when I can.
No clips??? then.... PICS!!! :)
cool Paul, glad it got back in your hands in good shape