I'm just an amateur "customizer" I guess you could say, if that's the correct terminology? But anyways, I have a Agave blue MIM Stratocaster (fell in love with the color when I saw it, later learned it's pretty rare and discontinued, double sweet) it had a faded almost minty pearloid pick guard on it when I bought it, rosewood neck, and I just wanted a more bluesy look and feel to the guitar, I dug how it sounded, but wanted something a little extra.. ( I do custom painting on motorcycles whenever I can ( business in my town is like in the negatives right now) I built 2 of my own, and with everything I buy I always feel there's ways I can make it better, and more appealing to me, and other people always dig what I do as well ) So I wanted to add a telecaster pickup up by the neck right under the neck pickup, and a small on/off toggle switch so I can turn it on or off whenever I please ( I want a telecaster, but can't exactly afford to buy one right now, so why not just add a lil to what I got, so I bought a Fender Tex Mex neck pickup I got off Ebay for like.. 30$, sounds great, real Fender product not a knockoff, I know it's not "American" but it's good enough for a poor guy playin' the blues for now I guess..) and I think it sounds swell I still have to figure out how to wire it successfully to the tone pot, would also like to add it to an additional volume pot but I want a like mini knob so it doesn't busy up the guitar too much.. I don't even know if I'm getting everything out of the pickup, so right now it's just full unadjustable tone, I drawn a diagram if anyone would like to help I'm all ears.. I mean.. eyes.. eyes and ears.

Also, got the guitar relatively cheap and didn't know until I pulled the pg up that it was loaded with Fender Custom Shop pickups, don't know what ones, but I'm guessing vintage ones because the wires are cloth wrapped. Maybe Fat 50's? They sound nice.


The picture sucks, the lighting in the room was bad, in the garage is worse, I finished at night, so I'll get a daylight image for ya tomorrow if it's not raining. I had to chop up the inside of the strat, I should've done progress shots but wasn't thinking clearly, but I chopped it up nice with a Dremel and a cutter bit I bought for the job, did the job, I should buy a router next on my to do list as I want to start building my own guitars from scratch..



This picture is the wiring I drew up in paint, and I know it's nothing great but it's pretty much all there..



Now my question, like stated above is how could I get the most out of it, and it would be real cool to say, turn off all the other pickups and just leave the tele on, and vise versa, right now I just have the on/off switch in it.. it's got 3 prongs on the bottom to hook up to, so I hooked the white wire to one of the far side prongs, and the black wire I soldered to the volume pot where all the other pickups are soldered to, I'm no electrician so I don't know if I did this correctly, I don't even know if it's fully On if it's on or not? Any help is much appreciated.. or as my strat would say mucho appreciated!

Fender, if you use my idea I'd appreciate some compensation, as stated before, I'm poor

Thanks alot! I'm new here, but like what I've read/seen.

G'day JBG, I can't help you with the tech stuff, but well done so far with the mods. Mexican Fenders are great to mess with, high quality and inexpensive.You will get all the information you need on this forum, as well as many opinions. My own "naked'' MIM build has raised a few eyebrows. Those Tele pickups are pretty versatile, I put one in my acoustic resonator. Keep on customizing mate.....and playing the blues.

Add a Tele bridge pickup near the Strat bridge unit and a 2nd toggle switch.

In your place, I'll use two Duncan APST-1 twangbangers in the middle and neck positions and a Joe Barden T in the bridge rather than altering the pickguard for a 4th Tele neck pickup.

Hey thanks boxbang, yeah I'm very happy with the build quality of the Mexican strat I have, it stood up to my buddies 1000$ American almost to the t, everything was the same, besides the color and his maple neck and his is way lighter. And he's got Texas Specials and I've got some Custom Shop one's I can't put my finger on but they're pretty nice.

And Chrome, I was looking for a poor boy modification because I always loved the warm tones of the telecaster neck ever since my buddies dad let me play on his 72 thinline I just always dug that pickup, and it don't look half bad to boot either! So far I'm happy with the look of it, I was wanting to add a tele bridge pickup to the bridge, that may be my second addition because then I can turn off the strat and just turn on a telecaster and people would be like whoa, wait a second, that sounds a bit like a tele but it's not? Gypsy mind tricks!

Anyways, going to figure out how to wire it correctly cause I found out, I disregarded the out on the on/off switch so my pickup hasn't been going through.. so time to take her apart once again

Also; I just wanted to add a 4th pickup to my strat just for something of my own, I got tired of looking at the same 3 pickup layout, and I'm a big Hound Dog Taylor fan and always dug the look of 4 pickup guitars, shoot, I may even add a 5th! Who knows

finally got some good pictures

I would go with a master volume/master tone for the original pickups and convert the bottom tone control to a tele pickup volume straight up, no tone control.

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The design of each element should be thought out in order to be easy to make and easy to repair.
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I really really like that idea man, didnt even think of that. Thanks

Howdy!

Nice Strat! I've not see this sort of mod before and am intrigued.

+1 on the blend pot, but if it were me I'd replace the Toggle switch for a DPDT switch (on/on/on) and wire the Neck pup and the Tele pup to that, so you'd be able to select the following just off the DPDT switch:

DPDT Position 1 = Neck pup
DPDT Position 2 = Neck and Tele pups in series (like a Humbucker)
DPDT Position 3 = Tele pup

This would give the following Switching options once the DPDT switch is wired to the Five way:

Position 1 = Bridge pup
Position 2 = Bridge & Middle pups (parallel)
Position 3 = Middle pup
Position 4 = Middle pup in parallel with any of the three DPDT options
Position 5 = Any of the three DPDT options.

If this is something you would like to carry out on your guitar, let me know and I'll sort you out with a diagram.

Hope this helps!

Andy

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Hey andy, I do like that idea, but I'm having even whackier ideas haha, see, if I were to use that dpst switch you speak of, then one of those pickups would always be on, even throughout the 5 way switching, which is not what I'd like as I do like using my strat for what it is, a strat cause I love those strat sounds, but I also love tele sounds! So my next project after I work on a house tomorrow is get a capacitor (FLUX!) and hook it to the other tone pot that was working more as a blender pot, because I feel my tele pickup might only be working at half tone? but if i hooked it to the pot I'd be in full control. (if you can send me that diagram too because I've got jumpers and such, and would like professional help) See, one setting I would really like to achieve, is have a switch that has it so I can use like

pos 1; tele + 5 way strat switch
pos 2; just tele pickup
pos 3; just 5 way strat

(if you could make me that diagram that'd be awesome as I'm going to look for one of those dpst switches tomorrow at hobby shops)


I'm kind of wanting to put one of those tele humbuckers where I have this one hooked into (next strat project for sure)

but thanks! I like to pride myself on originality which I feel this strat is offering, it was just an idea I had in my head that I really wanted to play with, and it's just cutting plastic and wood, nothing too complex. All my friends seem to really dig the guitar too, I'm an artist, so it's kind of in my nature to add my own touches, i mean, I own it so I can do what I please with it ya know! And it's not like a vintage american strat.. just a MIM

another funky idea is adding a 5th pickup to the rotation, I don't know what just yet, but I'd like something very bluesy, and not strat-y.. who knows, I'm always open for ideas I'm just poor, or if you'd have any spare pickups lying around I'd put them to use!

Very cool. How do you like the tone? Almost like having a Dually in the neck. Some people wire two pickup that are side by side with an on/on/on mini-switch that gives you the front pickup, both in series, or the back pick-up. I did one like this as you see below. One guy told me I should do one with 3 Duallys and 3 mini-switches, but I think that might be over kill!

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www.xhefriguitars.com

Damn man, you make that one? Is it all tele neck pickups? How's that monster sound??! Yeah I love the tone it adds to the guitar, it's def different. That is a funky guitar man! N I thought mine was a bit off the charts. They're just endless possibilities with electrics.

Those are Lace Sensor Chrome Domes made for Strats. The same company makes the Lace pickup that were used on the Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy signature Strats all through the 1990s and on the Fender Start Plus and Ultra guitars. Each one is really an independent single coil pickup that are strapped together and then are called a Dually. Yes I built that one.

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Xhefri's Guitars
www.xhefriguitars.com

Nice Strat.

SOLID!

that is a thing of beauty maybe you could post a wiring diagram...do you think it would work with tele neck pups?

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