Aged Pre-wired Scratchplates

[Nolly]

Yep, it's for the relic strat :) I'm not sure about the cutout, but I've asked Tim to put an aged nickel covered Crawler in there so the hole would have to be opened out if it has the rounded edges.

[Philly Q]

I'm thinking Crawler too, strangely enough!  :D  But it'd be aged cream, open coils.

[Nolly]

Ah yes, well the Crawler is a staple choice in a strat! I like the idea of it looking like someone has pilfered the bridge pickup out of a beaten old Les Paul. Should sound fantastic, though I'm also considering a VHII with 250kΩ pots so the singles are as full as possible. Then again the Irish Tours are hot enough to live comfortably with 500kΩs.

[Philly Q]

.... and I also have (and have had for a very long time!) a white VHII and some Irish Tours which are due to end up in a Strat some time!  :lol:

So will it be Crawler/IT/IT, or are you keeping the original neck and middle BKPs the Strat came with?

[Nolly]

It'll be a whole new guard with Crawler/ITs. The idea is to have a "modular" system going where there's a stock of prewired guards all ready to go that can be swapped in a matter of minutes for further BKP demos and trade shows. Since Tim has an essentially identical twin to mine, we've got some interesting ideas involving the two :)

[PhilKing]

I'm a big HSS fan, I have lots of different ones, HD/Tril/Tril, Crawler/P91/P91, VHII/MM/MM, MQ/Slowhand/Mini Hum but my favourite is Stormy Monday/Sultan/Sultan.   I don't know if it is the AII magnets (I've had Tim make me a set of AII Mother's Milks which sound great too), or if it's just magic with that guitar (which I do like too).

You should get your VHII into a guitar - that's also a great sounding bridge pickup in a Strat.

[Philly Q]

You should get your VHII into a guitar - that's also a great sounding bridge pickup in a Strat.

Part of the problem is I ordered it in white!  I can't remember my thinking at the time, I think I was going to use a tortoise scratchplate on a white Strat body (since sold).

But white pickups look weird on anything other than a white guitar.... unless you use a white scratchplate, of course, like most of the Strats in history, but I don't like Strat pickups to be the same colour as the scratchplate!  I prefer that bit of contrast.

I'll find a use for it eventually....

[cpwiebe]

a few more pics, the first one showing a thin sheet of copper for shielding.The pickguard is aged cream and the coils are aged white but there isn't much difference between the two.At the moment I can't afford to purchase a few calibrated sets of pickups so I opted for three distinctly different sounding ones. Sinner in the bridge, slowhand in mid and 59 slabboard in neck, all zinc platted,hope it works out well.Is it safe to take the plastic cover off and mount them as open coil, because they look cool in that aged rusty black? Here's a link to a site that has really helpfull tips on strat wiring,shielding, etc..http://www.guitarnuts.com/index.php

[cpwiebe]

two more

[AndyR]

Is it safe to take the plastic cover off and mount them as open coil, because they look cool in that aged rusty black?

I wouldn't do it myself - those bare wires on a strat pickup look awfully fragile.

[Philly Q]

Is it safe to take the plastic cover off and mount them as open coil, because they look cool in that aged rusty black?

I wouldn't do it myself - those bare wires on a strat pickup look awfully fragile.

Yeah, and I've heard stories of high E strings actually catching under the top of an uncovered Strat or Tele neck pickup - which wouldn't do the coil much good.