Project Plan

I've decided to rebuild my squire strat so I thought I'd blog the details for posterity's sake. My wife bought me this guitar for a wedding present, so I'll never get rid of it. Figured I might as well give it an upgrade. Besides I think it plays pretty good, it has a good neck. No use throwing it out just because it didn't cost a fortune.

So here's what I plan to do:
1. Replace the pickups. I was able to buy some Lace Sensors off of a guy for pretty cheap. Got one blue, one silver, and one gold. I found them on Craigslist. They were brand new, they'd just been sitting in this guys store shelf for several years.

2. Replace all electronics. I bought 3 CTS 250 pots and a switchcraft 5 way from wdmusic.

3. Completely shield the cavity. I found this wiring scheme on guitarnuts.com. Along with some of the other mods I'm doing. I bought a roll of copper tape from stewmac.

4. Rewire the controls to eliminate ground loops. This goes with the mod "Quieting the Beast" on guitarnuts. Sounds like the guy is an electrical engineer who just likes to tinker. The mod was highly recommended by other people that had done it. Figured I might as well give it a shot.

5. Move the bottom tone control from mid to bridge. This is really just one wire, but seemed to make since when combined with the next mod. Plus I think I'll like it better than the stock arrangment as I never used the middle tone anyway.

6. Place differing capacitors on the neck and bridge. At the recommendation of my teacher, Doug Holt, I chose two sprague orange drops. I'm putting a .047 on the neck and .033 on the bridge. That should let the bridge have a little extra treble bite to it.

7. Going to throw a pair of strap locks on while I'm at it. Got these and wdmusic again and I think they're very nicely made. They seem really solid.