I am considering buying a Standard hss strat because i like the idea of a mixture of humbucker and single coil pickups, however I really don't like the way the open coil humbucker looks on this guitar, is it possible to buy just pickup covers and fit them over the originals? e.g. something like this http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Chrome-electric-h ... 5ad33e3d98. Or would i have to buy other pickups to replace the originals? my idea is to have a chrome covered humbucker and a couple of lipstick single coils, i think it will look tasty

It depends on the pickup but you can buy covers. However, you will get a lot of microphonic squeal if you don't install them properly (and you should pobably pot the pickup to make sure it doesn't have that squeal).

If you're going to replace the single coils with lipstick tube pickups anyway you might as well get a covered humbucker with an output that balances well with the output of whatever lipstick tube pickups you buy and change the whole set. In fact I would start from scratch with a new pickguard and upgrade the pots and switch while I was at it; then you have the original pickups if you choose to sell the guitar later.

Okay thanks for your time, i just pictured a strat with a chrome humbucker in the bridge and lipsticks in the middle and neck and thought it would look pretty sweet, do you agree? and if i was to change the pickguard i think it would have to be a tortoise shell

I think you want to make your Strat looking like this:



The pictured guitar is not mine. It's one of the numerous customized Pluses built by Jeff "Xhefri" Reich for many years. This natural ash-bodied beauty sports two Chrome Dome singles in the neck and the middle and a splittable humbucking Red Lace Sensor "Dually" with chrome pickup covers in the bridge wired into a MuzicTech mid-boost circuit.

Here's another similar guitar in Blue Pearl Dust:

yeah thats exactly what i meant, how much is one of those roughly?

You should visit Xhefri's site. Be prepared to spend some time, though. There is a ton of information to absorb!

http://xhefriguitars.com/page2.html