Building a Fender Strat from scratch! Part 4

Installing a Clapton Mid Boost Preamp in a stock strat body
I'm on a roll now. This rotary tool is my new best friend!
So the issue with the Clapton electronics is that it is designed for a specially-routed strat body. It doesn't drop-in to an American deluxe body. There are resources on the net that help: here is a brilliant page with fantastic instructions that I used as a starting point.

Here's a pic of the problem. The pc board is just a few mm too big for the available space.
Rotary tool to the rescue!

I again used the sanding drum to open up a few mm in the cavity to accommodate the pc board.

The results are fantastic. A few extra mm and the board slides right in! Easy enough to find some non-conductive cushioning, and an anti-static cover for extra protection.


Next problem: space for the battery. The Clapton strat body has an interesting solution, but I am not ready yet to put the rotary tool to the test of routing out space somewhere else. I opted for the old "cram the battery under the pickguard wherever you can get it to fit" trick. Mentioned many places, and I used it successfully in the past with active EMGs. (BTW, I will never use EMGs again).

I spaced everything out on the pickguard to make sure it would work. No problems.
I originally had a superswitch for this project, but there was no way it was going to fit. I ran to the closest music store for a regular switch (I didn't have any spares of a high enough quality). All they had was a single wafer double-pole Oaks-Grigsby switch. As it turns out, it was exactly what I wanted! Here's why...

A standard five-way switch for strats has the following pickup options:
Neck / Neck & Middle / Middle / Middle & Bridge / Bridge
On previous strat-ish projects, I put the Neck pickup on a toggle so I could add it to the Bridge and get tele-ish tones. I knew the superswitch would eliminate the need for the toggle and give me the the following options:
N / N & M / N & B / M & B / B

Well this double-pole switch does it too! It took me hours of trolling on the net to find this wiring diagram, but it was worth it! I now have the pickup config I want with no added switches.

Next up: soldering!

Building a Fender Strat from scratch! Part 3

Been a while, I know...I was sick for a while with walking pneumonia, then on vacation. So here's the scoop.

Hammering in the Wilkinson bridge bushings:
First I used a drill with a 3/8" bit to ream it out a little bit, used a piece of tape on the bit as a depth marker. I was very careful not to do too much, I wanted the bushings as tight as possible: string vibrations from the bridge pass through the posts and bushings into the body of the guitar. I used the cardboard backing and a few pages from a notepad to cushion the hammer against the bushing, and carefully banged away until it was nearly flush with the body. At that point, I used the old Fender bushings, again separated by paper as cushioning, to get the Wilkinson bushing to counter sink in the body. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures, I was impatient to get this project finished!
Here are a couple of close-ups of the bushings (and the posts and the bridge).

Once the bushings and posts were in, it became apparent that the cavity for the bridge does not accomodate the Wilkinson as a drop-in. I knew that ahead of time though. One of the great features of these Wilkinson VS100 bridges is the mechanism that holds the trem arm is super cool. However, it also needs a little more space to move freely in the bridge cavity than the stock Fender whammy. I started out with sandpaper, enlarging the bottom of the cavity. That wasn't gonna work. Take too long. I bought a rotary tool, or a "Dremel", and used the sandpaper drum. Wow. I wish I had that thing years ago.

For anyone working on guitars, you gotta get one of these things. Mine is a cheap "Jobmate" from Canadian Tire and I love it. $30. What would have taken me HOURS by hand took 2 minutes, and it is perfect!

Anyway, I added the claw, springs, posts and it's all ready for strings. Next up: Figuring out how to fit the Clapton electronics into this stock strat's body!