Hardware & Electronics

With the body finished, work began on the hardware. I reinstalled the neck, carefully aligned the bridge
and drilled the bridge posts. The bridge, which also came off my old guitar, uses the Floyd Rose style
adjustment posts. I pruchased new posts in black to compliment the black-and-chrome hardware look.

I went with a black jack plate with black screws. Note the hole I drilled by the bridge pickup rout.
That's there to install a ground wire to the tremolo hardware.

Flipping the guitar over reveals the tremolo. I don't use a tremolo when I play, so I would have preferred
the guitar had been a hardtail, but the body already had the trem rout, so ya might as well use it.

The strap buttons are also black with black screws. I used a small felt pad between the button and
the body to protect it from getting scratched. It's a common practice -- Fender does it -- so I did, too.

Here's where the guitar really gets custom. I ordered the pickguard without a pickup selector because
I wanted my pickups to be individually switched. This gives you seven pickup configurations instead of
five. Well, actually eight, if you count turning all the pickups off. I carefully spaced the toggles and
since the pickguard had protective plastic over it, I used a silver Sharpie to align them.

Flipping the pickguard over, you can see the new DiMarzio 250K pots for the controls. I pre-soldered
them to accept the grounding wires that will come next. Another custom feature of the guitar is the
volume-volume-tone configutation of the pots. Strats have volume-tone-tone. The first volume controls
the neck and middle pickups, while the second volume controls the bridge pickup.

Next, I installed the pickups and the wiring. The neck and mid pickups are Lace Sensor 'Light Blue'
pickups, which have a warm, bluesy sound. I had originally planned to make the guitar a S-S-H
configuration, but the body was routed for an angled single, so I went with a Lace Sensor 'Burgundy'
pickup at the bridge, which is hotter and crunchy, like a humbucker. Good enough for me.

Righting the pickguard reveals the installed pickups. I went with black pickup covers. I wanted the
guitar to have a lot of black on it, with just a splash of chrome here and there. I felt that would really
be the best compliment for the beautiful look of the mahogany.

To finish the electronics, I wired the ground wire to the tremolo. I included plenty of slack wire to
allow me to easily pull the pickguard away from the guitar, in case I need to in the future. No chance
of the wire getting pinched in the springs, because I don't use a trem.

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