Hey guys. I was wondering what are some mods that you've done to your strats - cosmetic, electronics, functional, etc - that you found made it a better instrument or that you think is a must-have?

Hello!

My top 5 favorite mods (thought I best stop at 5!). Not in any particular order

1. Seven Sound Switching using either a mini SPDT switch, push / pull pot or a blender pot.

2. Fender S-1 switch and the Clapton mid-boost kit together (there is a thread for this)

3. Shaving the back of the neck pocket on the body to allow easy access to higher frets (like a deluxe)

4. LSR roller nut

5. Coil split tap on humbuckers with a DPDT switch (on/off/on) to select either front coil, both in series or rear coil.

The above (and others) have all been a featured on my various Frankinstrat / Partscasters and work a treat!.

Dispite my love for strat mods, If and when I have enough money to buy a Genuine Fender American Strat, I'll leave it stock.......honestly I will!

Enjoy!

Andy

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Pending Greatness

Figure this one out: I prefer 3 switches to 5 way ones and rewire the guitars so that while maintaining a totally stock look, I can combine the neck and bridge pickup if I so desire. I may fiddle with the tone pot designations too, depending on which pickup combination is in a given guitar. All the rest is, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

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You dig?

The only mods I do on a Strat are string changes,anything else is just gilding a lily.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

1. All time favorite mod and one I recommend to everyone--STRAP LOCKS!!!! Nothing sucks more than seeing your guitar hit the ground as you are playing it.

2. Replacing a pick-up to one more suited for my playing. I only recommend this when you cannot get the tone/sound you are looking for.

3. Asthetics:--Changing the pickguard and plastic pieces to another color (only if I get bored with the current color).

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RK

2007 Fender Highway 1
2012 American Deluxe
2015 MIM Dave Murray HHH
2010 Fender Blacktop
1987 Fender Avalon Acoustic
2012 Marshall DSL 15 watt head

i havnt come across a guitar yet were i feel like a pickup change or any other tonal change is necessary so, the only mods i have done are asthetic.

I do not go crazy any more. I am not as young as I used to be, but still the site of my (long gone) Jackson V hitting the school gym floor while playing was gut wrenching. Getting the guitar home and seeing the big chunck that broke off the corner was even worse. It only takes one time for me to learn.

Strap locks go on all my guitars ASAP.

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RK

2007 Fender Highway 1
2012 American Deluxe
2015 MIM Dave Murray HHH
2010 Fender Blacktop
1987 Fender Avalon Acoustic
2012 Marshall DSL 15 watt head

did you get the tone shaper?

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"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present."

oogway, kungfu panda 2008

The magnificent seven only because I have it set up on one strat. But I also really dig a humbucker in the bridge.

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"coretta" '71 tele thinline
"domino" '97 lonestar strat
"marie" squire strat
"lexy" jag-stang
"owa" martin 000

tone=fingers; fingers=tone

Absolutely not! IMO, that's yet another expensive, unnecessary gimmick. YMMV.

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You dig?

On my Strats I have changed the pups to either Fralins or Van Zandts,also changed the 57RI to have a tone control on the bridge pup and usually change caps to Sprague orange drops and try different values.
To my old ears,these guitars sound good out of the store and can be tweaked to sound different to suite your taste.But really,it depends on how much experience you have chasing "tone" whether it's worth the money and time...I remember in my early years(mid 60s) playing stock Strats and accepting their sound as good and not so good depending on the guitar.
One thing to add on this vintage thing...not all old Strats sounded so much better than the newer ones. ymmv
I also take some 0000 steel wool and smooth the back of the neck.

Hello Brian_Strat_215,

Locking tuners are about the icing on the cake for me.
String changes in only a few minutes and not too expensive
of an upgrade.

Cheers.

One of my Strats has Kinman pickups in it and for curiosity's sake I decide to try their K9 wiring kit. I absolutely LOVE that system. It uses a 5 position switch in combination with a push/pull fader control in the place of the lowest tone pot and then one master volume and one master tone pot. The system gives a total of 9 options, including running the neck and bridge together for Tele like tones as well as running standard positions 2 and 4 in both series and parallel. I can't remember what the 9th option is at present. I'll think on it for a bit.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

My favourite Strat mod is what I call the Direstraitsectomy - to clinically remove the 'dire straits' sound of the neck and mid together. Sorry, but i never liked it. The bridge and mid together, well that's a Howlin Wolf sound, and I love it... but the other one sounds instant AOR to me.

So I swapped the position of the bridge and mid pickup wires on the 5 way switch. Now I got

Neck
Neck + Bridge
Bridge
Bridge + Mid
Mid

The Neck + Bridge sound on a strat is fantastic, somewhere between a Tele and a Mustang, but I like it so much more than the N + M sound - which I've never missed.

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"...Compared to the flowers and the birds and the trees, I am an Apeman."

Methinks you did an SRV-ectomy. Knopfler used the middle and bridge together plenty.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.