Members colejustesen Posted July 27, 2012 Members Share Posted July 27, 2012 I really love my MIJ Fender Contemporary Strat that I picked up a month or so ago, but damn getting anything aftermarket for this particular model is pretty much not going to happen. I really wanted to get a new pickguard, but because of the funky trem shape I was not able to find anyone that had them in stock. So I sent a tracing of my pickguard to Greasy Groove in Canada to have them custom fabricate a pickguard for me. They are going to leave everything the same except route it for traditional humbuckers instead of the proprietary shaped humbuckers that it came stock with. After a shipping time of 23 days, they finally received my tracing today and will be sending me the pickguard within a week from payment (which I am expecting to be tomorrow). I also have a set of Wilde L500 pickups on order... I went with the L500XL and L500R models, which I am totally stoked about. Anyway, I figured I would share my current struggle with getting parts, but it seems like it is going to work out in my favor. TL;DR: Finding MIJ Fender Strat aftermarket parts blows Has anyone else ever had to deal with wanting to upgrade parts, but limited because of proprietary hardware on their guitar? Here is the guitar that I am doing this too... It sure is a great player, and I can't wait to get the improved pickups in this bad boy! Cole Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Bumhucker Posted July 27, 2012 Members Share Posted July 27, 2012 That's pretty slick. I'm a sucker for tricked out strats. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitarbilly74 Posted July 27, 2012 Members Share Posted July 27, 2012 yeah I had issues finding parts for older guitars in the past. Why did you sent the tracing via mail though? Why not just scan it and email to them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members the_gunslinger Posted July 27, 2012 Members Share Posted July 27, 2012 Yeah, pretty much had the same issue with the pickguard with my MIJ strat. The screw pattern is different than on normal strats, but I ended using a regular strat HH pickguard anyway's, and enlarged the pickup holes and bridge area with a jigsaw and a file(mine has a floyd rose). I figure its not a part of the guitar anyone is going to see, so I don't really care if it has a couple extra screw holes under the pick guard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members colejustesen Posted July 27, 2012 Author Members Share Posted July 27, 2012 Yeah, pretty much had the same issue with the pickguard with my MIJ strat. The screw pattern is different than on normal strats, but I ended using a regular strat HH pickguard anyway's, and enlarged the pickup holes and bridge area with a jigsaw and a file(mine has a floyd rose). I figure its not a part of the guitar anyone is going to see, so I don't really care if it has a couple extra screw holes under the pick guard. I thought about doing that too, but I really didn't want to put any extra holes in the guitar that weren't original. I had to refinish the neck because I was being a genius when I installed the Floyd Rose nut. I initially installed it top mounted and it lined up perfectly! But then I got this great idea that I should mount it from the bottom. So I drilled out the holes and countersunk them on the back of the neck. When I countersunk them, the bits chipped pieces of wood out around the holes and when I actually mounted the nut, it wasn't sitting flush and perfect anymore. I had to fill in the holes and start fresh, but unfortunately the wood filler didn't match the color of the maple. I opted to paint it gloss black (which was a project in itself - but super rewarding) and I personally think that it turned out really nice! This is what the guitar looked like before I started messing with it... As you can see it was pretty to begin with, but when I played it at the guys house I knew it had tons of potential! That is the main reason I sent of the tracing instead of trying to fabricate one myself... knowing my luck I would have just botched some screw holes; plus it seems to be fairly rare, so I want to avoid making too many extra holes if I don't need too... Thanks for the post! Any chances of seeing some pictures of your MIJ Fender? When everyone was posting up their Strats, I didn't see one like mine at all... Cole Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ss454 Posted July 27, 2012 Members Share Posted July 27, 2012 I got a sweet MIJ strat from a friend of mine in dire need of money but it's a basket case. He wanted to hotrod it so he sent it to a local place to have a humbucker added and decided to remove the locking nut (it has a trem just like the one above does) and add an LSR roller nut. The problem is apparently the "tech" was great at bolting on parts as long as they fit but didn't have a {censored}ing clue what to do when things didn't just drop in a line right up. First the LSR nut needs like an 1/8" shim to be tall enough. Even with the plastic riser and all the shims it's below the fretboard. Second the pickguard holes don't line up (I see this is a common problem). Third the pickups aren't wired up correctly and the idiot lost the imput jack and a couple other parts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members the_gunslinger Posted July 27, 2012 Members Share Posted July 27, 2012 My old foto flame. Love it, it's been my frankenstrat so to speak. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Miter Gauge Posted July 27, 2012 Members Share Posted July 27, 2012 WD makes custom pickguards and stocks a lot of parts: http://www.wdmusic.com/ also you could try StewMac: http://www.stewmac.com/?gclid=CKjS6uGTurECFWROTAod8WgAnA They seem to have a lot of interesting parts and tools for guitars. Finally, you might want to check out Allparts: http://www.allparts.com/ It's been a while but I've gotten some hard to find pieces from them before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members colejustesen Posted July 28, 2012 Author Members Share Posted July 28, 2012 My old foto flame. Love it, it's been my frankenstrat so to speak. I really like the look of this guitar! Thanks for sharing Cole Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members colejustesen Posted July 28, 2012 Author Members Share Posted July 28, 2012 WD makes custom pickguards and stocks a lot of parts: http://www.wdmusic.com/ also you could try StewMac: http://www.stewmac.com/?gclid=CKjS6uGTurECFWROTAod8WgAnA They seem to have a lot of interesting parts and tools for guitars. Finally, you might want to check out Allparts: http://www.allparts.com/ It's been a while but I've gotten some hard to find pieces from them before. I would never buy parts from All Parts directly (not because I don't like them) because there prices are way inflated! However, I forgot that WD Music does make custom pickguards... That would probably have been a lot faster to get, but oh well, I will be getting one anyway. I will remember this if there is a next time. Stew-Mac is usually pretty good, but trying to find parts for this particular guitar from any of these retail sites aren't viable options... For generic parts, they are good, but for the specific parts, they just don't have them available. Cole Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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