Finishing Electronics: Custom Strat Part 5

After the pickguard and neck are attached. Still have to finish up the input jack at this point. Not the best photo, sorry.

Progress continues on my Warmoth Mary Kaye Strat.  I finished the electronics and installed the neck last night. I was a little rushed and had to head out so I didn’t get the best pictures, but here’s what I have.

An Unexpected Problem

After loading it up and setting it in place, the pickguard hung over the neck pocket by about a millimeter. I noticed this when I drilled the holes for the pickguard. I tried to slide it back, but the mid tone pot (and possibly the pickups, I couldn’t tell) had no give. So I decided to drill and deal with it later. Well, now it is later! After sleeping on this one, I decided to use my hobby knife and carefully “whittle” away the millimeter of pickguard over the neck pocket. This turned out to be a great solution. The pickguard was easy to work with, and unless you look closely (which you can’t because it’s hidden by the fingerboard, HA!), you’d never know I had to cut the pickguard at all.

A Word About the Pickups

The pups were the first piece of equipment I chose for this build!  I actually got them last year sometime.  They are Slider’s Vintage Classic 59′s: hand wound vintage SRV-style single coils made in Australia.  I discovered these through JP, aka Stratoblogster, and they’re featured in many YouTube vids.  They are amazing pups.  In the interim while saving $ for the rest of the pieces for this build, I installed them in my cheapie strat copy and they sounded amazing even in that guitar.  Slider sells his pups on ebay, but he’ll also build you a custom set which is what I got.  I went back and forth with slider and he really knows his stuff!  Mine are made with alnico 3 magnets vs. alnico 5′s.  As a bonus, they come with a light relic finish which I think looks cool on pups even though I’m not a fan of relic’ing guitars in general.

Installing the Neck

My neck is a Warmoth Pro neck, which has a side adjust mechanism on it.  Before installing it, Warmoth recommends that you straighten it out (it ships with a good bit of relief in it), so you can use the side adjust to fine tune the relief.  So I did that.  I picked up another good tip from mining the wisdom on UnofficialWarmoth, and that is to apply a little bar soap to the neck screws.  This helps ‘em go in nice and easy.  I’m tellin’ ya, if you’re thinking about doing a build like this, start there!  They’re super helpful and knowledgeable folks.

After I wired up the input jack (sorry no pics of that), I plugged the guitar in and did a tap test on the pups…PASS!  Next up, I’m on to the final pieces: the bridge and strap buttons and a new set of strings.  Then I’ll be tweaking the neck relief, action, and dialing in the pups.  I might even have this thing ready for next weekend’s gig!

Finishing Electronics: Mary Kaye Strat Project, Part 5

The Pickguard is done! All soldered and ready to be screwed onto the guitar.	A closeup of the wiring. I used a Sprague Orange Drop .022 tonecap. I have several different tonecaps, and may make some mods later. You can also see the star ground here, which I covered up with electrical tape later.	I’ve added copper shielding out to all the screwholes and she’s ready to attach.
The ground wire which gets soldered to the trem claw in back.	After the pickguard and neck are attached. Still have to finish up the input jack at this point. Not the best photo, sorry.

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