Worth Tweaking A Cheapo ?

[D. Shelton]

Originally Posted by T Wescott

I took out the guard, removed both the bridge and neck pups and switched places, no solder. I also flipped the (now) bridge pup and reverse wound the wire(more string to pickup signal) once again no solder.
The five way switch is now opposite to normal as I didn't move it. All the way up is now bridge(normally neck and tone controllable) and down is neck(normally bridge and no tone knob, normal on stratocasters)
As the neck position is naturally warmer the tone knob is unnecessary.
Hence the trading places. I do this to every strat I've owned, WAY more tonal control.
Btw 26g wire is hair thin.

AW, maaaan, the average human hair (.004") is 4x thinner than 26 ga.(.016").
Now I don't know if I can trust anything you're telling me

But since I don't know any better , I'm going to pay attention . Now I have to open this baby up so I knw what the heck you're talking about ....

it seems liek a suitable first set of tweaks , and I appreciate the input!

[T Wescott]

Originally Posted by D. Shelton

AW, maaaan, the average human hair (.004") is 4x thinner than 26 ga.(.016").
Now I don't know if I can trust anything you're telling me

But since I don't know any better , I'm going to pay attention . Now I have to open this baby up so I knw what the heck you're talking about ....

it seems liek a suitable first set of tweaks , and I appreciate the input!

Turn of phrase. any hoo you'll find it fits. I think I ended up with 8 feet leftover from 100. (btw I typo'd my post it's 100ft not yards)
In either case, it's worth the tinkering, especially on a 90$ guitar.
My only issues are the neck,(que warmoth) and I need to clean the pots as they crackle some. I use a bit of lighter fluid to do that. No fire though

[D. Shelton]

Well, first thing I saw was the pairs of long bar magnets (ceramicy-looking)
glued to the backside of each pickup. No wire to re-wire . But hey, I'm no longer a virgin . Why did I wait till now to do this ? Coulda started 40 years ago

So, Westcott, what's your take on getting new pickups?
Switching these ceramic bar ones out like you describe?

As mentioned, I have no lofty goals with this beast. It
will serve as an exotic tone generator at first , with most actual
guitar playing being done on acoustic . But who knows?...

[wrathfuldeity]

turd polisher here...most things on electric can be easily done and re-done, and a cheapo is a good place to start learning setup and doing electronic mods. The result is you will learn what you like in a git...and eventually have a git that is set up to your liking. Out of 10-12 gits over the past 5-8 years I now have 3 turds (mia peavey predator, carvin dc135 and harmony h165) that were insanely inexpensive, that are set up to my liking and are not going anywhere during my life time.

my sequence:
set up action and intonation
adjust pick up height
examine electronics, shield and mod
nut and tuners

but start with the most obvious things that need adjustment, replacements and then mods

I've refinished, glued up a snapped off head stock, replaced any/all electronics from pu/switches/caps, saddles, bridges

[D. Shelton]

Originally Posted by wrathfuldeity

turd polisher here...most things on electric can be easily done and re-done, and a cheapo is a good place to start learning setup and doing electronic mods. The result is you will learn what you like in a git...and eventually have a git that is set up to your liking. Out of 10-12 gits over the past 5-8 years I now have 3 turds (mia peavey predator, carvin dc135 and harmony h165) that were insanely inexpensive, that are set up to my liking and are not going anywhere during my life time.

my sequence:
set up action and intonation
adjust pick up height
examine electronics, shield and mod
nut and tuners

but start with the most obvious things that need adjustment, replacements and then mods

I've refinished, glued up a snapped off head stock, replaced any/all electronics from pu/switches/caps, saddles, bridges

I'm already headed in that direction . The twanger cost $80 ; pod farm will be $100 and way more than I'll know what to do with for quite a while . Looks like any bonehead with a screwdriver and half a brain can do setup (especially if a bonehead has already set up his acoustic) . I think that for what I'll be doing in the forseeable future , I can even live with a skinny neck/fretboard.
I will leave the rocking and rolling to people who've been doing it for decades (as I listen) .Post-Rock Experimental dimensions, here I come --->

[T Wescott]

Look on reverb. Search loaded stratocaster pickguard. Have fun.
Sorry my mod won't work on your affinity.
You can still do the trading places thing I describe, it's easy and you have tone control in the bridge afterward.

[D. Shelton]

Originally Posted by T Wescott

Look on reverb. Search loaded stratocaster pickguard. Have fun.

You can still do the trading places thing I describe, it's easy and you have tone control in the bridge afterward.

Yeah, might as well while the lid is off . Cool ....
(but rotate the "now bridge pickup" or keep it's orientation ? )

Also, does "loaded" mean modded, or simply ready to insert?

(moments later)
This popped up, and is going for peanuts:
Near mint condition loaded pickguard pulled from a 2013 Squier Affinity Strat. I replaced the mini pots with full size Alpha 250k pots and put in a .047 Orange capacitor. Just connect your ground wires and input jack and you're ready to go. 3-ply black/white/black pickguard is in great shape.

[T Wescott]

Originally Posted by D. Shelton

Yeah, might as well while the lid is off . Cool ....
(but rotate the "now bridge pickup" or keep it's orientation ? )

Also, does "loaded" mean modded, or simply ready to insert?

(moments later)
This popped up, and is going for peanuts:
Near mint condition loaded pickguard pulled from a 2013 Squier Affinity Strat. I replaced the mini pots with full size Alpha 250k pots and put in a .047 Orange capacitor. Just connect your ground wires and input jack and you're ready to go. 3-ply black/white/black pickguard is in great shape.

Loaded just means pre wired with pups. Also make sure you've got the right amount of mounting screw holes(mine has 11) before you get a loaded guard. Some have 10.
And flip the(now) bridge pup so its reverse what it was in the neck.
Have fun.

[RedJoker]

Originally Posted by Paleolith54

I'd recommend the opposite on this guitar: use it as your lab for learning to do basic set up on your own. Neck relief, string height, intonation, etc are easy to learn. Anything more, IMO, would be a waste of money.

That's exactly what I did with my Squier Strat.

Originally Posted by wrathfuldeity

turd polisher here...most things on electric can be easily done and re-done, and a cheapo is a good place to start learning setup and doing electronic mods. The result is you will learn what you like in a git...and eventually have a git that is set up to your liking. Out of 10-12 gits over the past 5-8 years I now have 3 turds (mia peavey predator, carvin dc135 and harmony h165) that were insanely inexpensive, that are set up to my liking and are not going anywhere during my life time.

my sequence:
set up action and intonation
adjust pick up height
examine electronics, shield and mod
nut and tuners

but start with the most obvious things that need adjustment, replacements and then mods

I've refinished, glued up a snapped off head stock, replaced any/all electronics from pu/switches/caps, saddles, bridges

I learned how to do a setup and intonation on mine. The nice thing about electrics is that they're modular and anything can be easily reversed. I then replaced the nut and nut trees with a tusq for about $10 and added two more springs on the tremolo. (I don't use it so the extra springs help it hold tune better.) I got some fret sprout last year but hit the ends of the frets with a file and now it's super smooth.

After all that, I've had some friends that are professional players comment on how well it plays. A few said I should replace the pickups but couldn't say that they truly heard anything different, just that they would. So I haven't done anything with the pickups yet.

I've learned a ton, am not afraid to make adjustments, spent very little money and now have a very easy playing strat. Definitely worth it!