I bought an SX strat because I wanted to start playing electric guitar and it was really cheap, I mean ridiculously cheap. But I really don't like the look of a strat. Just because it's too common? Maybe? Anyway, my way of changing it is to do a different pick guard and while I am doing it get the electronics looking great and when I have enough money, it will be ready for a set of pickups. (I am keen for some bare knuckle pickups and I am not even close to having the money... or skill... for another debate... :'( ) Anyway, on Saturday instead of taking up the reverb pedal challenge that I set out for myself (I'm a bit ADHD with projects), I stripped my guitar down and started fixing up my bridge a bit. Why you ask.
When I bought the guitar I was one saddle short and so CostaFonix was good enough to help me out with an extra saddle in the mean time, but I went and got a set of the mightymite pressed steel ones as a replacement, but those were a little wide and so the holes didn't match up with the bridge plate. So I took them off and gave them a bit of a file down on each side and they seem to be sitting really nicely.
Part 2
I had a really great looking telecaster scratch plate in mind and used that idea and adapted it for my strat. I started with a basic idea made out of paper. The idea doesn't cover two of the holes that are already there, so I will have to fill those in later, but that will happen when the time comes!!!
Once the paper was done forumite Psean helped me out getting a perspex template made up. We got the outside shape cut a little bigger than wanted and I took it home and filed it down to the right shape. I perspex will be a routing template and the old scratch plate will be used for getting the drilled holes in the right place. The perspex had a green sticker on it which helped with scoring the template lines before cutting.
As to the final scratch plate material and finish, I will leave you guessing. Just wanted to let all you inspiring people see what's happening.
PS. If I want to add a kill switch like Tom Morello from Rage Against The Machine, could I just use a dpdt toggle switch or would that make a popping noise when switched? Any takers on that question?
