Mounting paf types in a Strat

Slammintone · Post by **Slammintone** » Sun Feb 17, 2008 12:48 am

I picked up a new humbucker/single/single pickguard for my American Series strat today along with a 500K ohm vol pot and a SD '59 humbucker to get some nice growling tones out of that axe. Mind you that the AMerican Series strats have Humbucker/single/Humbucker routings under the guard. This is not new to many of you nor me. I spent the better part of an hour and a half wiring up the new pickup and pickguard to the Strat and low and behold I can't screw the damn guard down because it seems the depth of the routings are about 1/4" to 1/3" too shallow!! Is there specific fender types of dual coil humbuckers I'm supposed to use or do I break out the chisels and whatnot and make the routing deeper so I can finish the job?? Thanks and forgive my ignorance in the matter but heck, you see strats with humbuckers all the time, what gives?

Slammintone · Post by **Slammintone** » Sun Feb 17, 2008 2:38 am

Problem solved, I just shortened the mounting screws a tad over 1/4" each and clipped the tension springs a like amount. The pickup is just about bottomed out in the routing with the screws just 2 threads or so into the pickups holes and the pickguard seats perfect with a decent pickup height of barely over 1/5" above the pickguard. No damage to the guitar at all. Now I have to wait till morning to see how she sounds. Thanks anyhow.

fillmore nyc · Post by **fillmore nyc** » Sun Feb 17, 2008 8:33 am

See? And I was gonna suggest getting out the jackhammer and the chainsaw and tell ya to start removing wood, man!!

(Glad you got 'er under control!!)

Slammintone · Post by **Slammintone** » Sun Feb 17, 2008 12:31 pm

Thanks for the kind words. I was starting to feel like a real numbnutz for a minute! I'd already put a SD Little '59 into the regular strat pickguard back in November and although it provided much improved smack in the low end I felt the mid to mid/high range was a bit too pronounced, almost like a Brian May tone. The regular sized '59 has scooped some of that upper midrange off and generally cleaned up the midband while providing even more punch and character to the low end. It's also louder, more organic sounding and smoother in the high end than the little ceramic magnet single coil sized version. I might try the little '59 in the middle position today and see how that does.