Mounting a pickguard on a rear-routed Strat body

[burgundy]

Warmoth often seem to put a rear-rout on their most beautiful figured maple tops. I get why, so that you keep as much of the wood grain showing as possible - but specifically if I was building a Strat, I'd like a pickguard. They just don't look like Strats to me without them. They can look great, but like different guitars.

Does anyone have any experience placing a pickguard on a Warmoth rear-rout? I'm aware of some of the potential issues, but I'm sure by no means all. I gather the standard control holes they drill for rear-rout won't align with a pickguard, so that would have to be improvised. And that the added thickness of the pickguard could mean a need for longer pots and 5-way switch blade. But I'm a beginner so I'm vague on all of it. Any thoughts?

 

[KKorina]

Cool post, as I think others have thought the same thing.

I did put a strat pickguard on a rear routed body, but there were no control holes drilled to begin with.

To my knowledge, the standard vol/tone controls on a rear routed body line up with an added pickguard. I agee that longer pots would probably be needed (I used longer pots, as thats what I had on hand). The big problem would be the five way switch, as a std switch would not be long enough. I routed a little rectangular cutout in the wood to accomodate a 5-way switch. Pickguard hides it fine.

 

[burgundy]

Cool post, as I think others have thought the same thing.

I did put a strat pickguard on a rear routed body, but there were no control holes drilled to begin with.

To my knowledge, the standard vol/tone controls on a rear routed body line up with an added pickguard. I agee that longer pots would probably be needed (I used longer pots, as thats what I had on hand). The big problem would be the five way switch, as a std switch would not be long enough. I routed a little rectangular cutout in the wood to accomodate a 5-way switch. Pickguard hides it fine.

Thanks for the reply. So no other problems? I'm thinking I'll just order the body with the pickup holes cut and nothing else, and figure out the rest from there. Just so no corners can't be un-turned later.

Btw does your name indicate you're a big fan of korina? The body I'm looking at is a black korina Strat with maple top, and the plan is to stick a 24.75" conversion neck on it, either one-piece pau ferro or all-rosewood.

 

[Ace Flibble]

I've not done a Strat, but I have put a Thinline pickguard on a rear-routed Telecaster. I simply took a drill and hacksaw to the top and very clumsily removed the wood around where the controls were cut in the pickguard, being careful to not cut out any wood that wouldn't be covered by the guard. That way I could use standard switches and short shaft pots, as they only had to fit through the normal pickguard, as if it were top-routed, even though I actually fit everything via the rear.

It's not like anybody is going to be lifting up the pickguard and inspecting your work, so to hell with it.

 

[stratamania]

Transparent pick guards on a rear rout might be worth a try. Take a look at some Musicmans they have done this.

 

[burgundy]

Transparent pick guards on a rear rout might be worth a try. Take a look at some Musicmans they have done this.

Thanks, but those aren't for me. What I'm planning on using is one of those slim, bevelled, 3-ply ones you get one American Strats now, with the little sliver of white between two black sheets.

 

[stratamania]

Solid colours would make it easier than transparent and give more options. In fact the rear route would also give some good access options with strings intact too.

 

[VinceClortho]

I put a clear Strat-style pickguard on a rear routed Warmoth body last fall.  The end result was great though, as you'd expect, there are some challenges.

First, Warmoth's rear drilled standard strat control pattern has the same spacing as you'll find on a Fender Strat, but they are drilled in a slightly different position (down and a bit askew).  This means a stock strat pickguard won't work if you have Warmoth drill the holes.  It won't work even if you want to use an undrilled standard size pickguard and drill it yourself.  The lower 'horn' isn't long enough or wide enough to allow for lowest 2 knobs. 

If you drill the holes in the body for the controls yourself to try and use a standard, drilled strat pickguard, I still don't think it'd work due to how close the lowest knob is to the edge of the body and how the control route is cut.  I think Warmoth drills their strat controls slightly askew the way they do so that the control pot is far enough away from the edge of the body to allow for the mounting of the rear control cover plate.

The easiest option would probably be to get an undrilled body and an undrilled pickguard.  This way you could be assured that all the controls would fit both inside the body and the pickguard.

The second problem is the combined thickness of both the body (inside the control cavity) and pickguard has to be taken into account so you can physically mount the control hardware.  The thinnest clear acrylic that I could find was .080".  Using this, I had to thin the wood of the body a little bit inside the control route so the pots and selector switch could be mounted.  I did this with a Dremel and a grinding stone attachment.  Took probably 10 minutes.  Stock 3 ply pickguards are .090" I believe.  These would probably still work OK with some thinning to the body, but I'd seriously consider a thinner, singly ply guard.  The 5 way switch is the biggest issue because if the body/pickguard combo is too thick it won't properly engage the first and fifth position.  The really cheap 5 way switches (not the super switch) have a longer lever that works just fine with the thicker guard but they limit your wiring options.

The control holes on my body were drilled stock by Warmoth so I ended up having Terrapin Guitars in Oregon make me a custom transparent pickguard (shown below).  I simply traced out the shape, pickup, knob and screw hole positions I wanted on a piece of paper and Terrapin digitized it and cut it out.  They did a fantastic job and everything lined up perfectly.    NFI of course.

 

[line6man]

Ask Warmoth to top+rear route it. IIRC, they have done it on occasion with Jazz basses.

 

[Updown]

Warmoth's rear drilled standard strat control pattern has the same spacing as you'll find on a Fender Strat, but they are drilled in a slightly different position (down and a bit askew). 
This means a stock strat pickguard won't work if you have Warmoth drill the holes. 
It won't work even if you want to use an undrilled standard size pickguard and drill it yourself. 
The lower 'horn' isn't long enough or wide enough to allow for lowest 2 knobs. 

Yep ... that is correct  :icon_thumright:

Ask Warmoth to top+rear route it.

+1
That is the best and only solution.

 

[DslDwg]

Don't know how clearly it will show up.

I've had this idea myself, so I've looked at some different options.

If you look hard at this Tosin Abasi model Ibanez, it's basically what Ibanez has done.

You can see that the switch is not mounted to the pickguard and the pickups aren't either.

Basically just there for aesthetics.

 

[Ace Flibble]

and only solution.

It's really not. As I said, I've done this myself with a rear-routed Tele and a plain hand drill and hacksaw. Took ~8 minutes and didn't require paying Warmoth one of their typical upcharges. :icon_thumright:

 

[Updown]

:icon_scratch:  Yeah but thats a Tele you did that on.

The OP is asking about a Strat. Different kettle of fish.

 

[line6man]

There are two ways to do the top+rear route yourself.

The proper way: Make a MDF template of a top-route cavity, or find a place to buy one, and then use a pattern follower bit to route out the top.

The easy way: Get a Forstner bit, or two, and drill out the top. This method costs about ten dollars and takes five minutes.

 

[tangent]

I've done this myself, and everything VinceClortho says above is accurate.

However, he is speaking in the context of using a clear acrylic pickguard.  If you are using an opaque pickguard and don't mind modifying the body a little bit, you can use a standard size pickguard with the standard warmoth rear route control layout. 

As Vince mentioned, the holes on the body/pickguard will not align and even if they did the body+pickguard thickness  slightly to much to use with standard components.  (Note that the 5 way switch does align, only the volume/tone control positions differ between warmoth rear/top route).  So basically the solution is as Updown mentioned, a top + rear route. 

I would highly recommend creating your own top-route though, just in the area of the controls.. rather than have warmoth do a standard top route which would remove way more wood than necessary.  Just route a small channel through the body so the pots/switches etc can mount direct to the pickguard.  I did this using a small bosch colt router but you could easily do it with a dremel or drill press with forstner bits, etc..

Note that if you do it this way you cannot actually remove the pickguard as a whole assembly like on a normal top route, since the pickups will be wired through the body channels; however, if your goal is just to have the aesthetics of a strat with the convenience of a rear route, then this is a good solution in my opinion.  I will be doing all my strats this way in the future.

 

[tangent]

I already had an image of a standard pickguard over the warmoth rear route controls so I made this mockup real quick that shows what I'm talking about in the previous post.

First image is the original image, on the second one I  drew black dots to indicate the position of the warmoth rear route holes under the  pickguard, and the white line shows an approximation of the channel I routed out .

 

[Jumble Jumble]

This is kind of the backwards version of what you're trying to achieve, but the principle would be the same. I wanted to add a rear access hole to a top-routed strat. The method I used could be just as easily done the other way round, so long as you're using an opaque pickguard.

Firstly I drilled a hole down through the back of the guitar, through the front cavity. I then threaded a coping saw blade through the hole. Next, I reattached the frame of the saw to each end of the blade, and was able to use the saw in the normal way to cut out the desired shape. I had to adjust the angle of the saw blade to the frame several times, but of course that's not hard.

Here's the result:

There's no reason at all why you couldn't use the exact same method to cut a channel for the pots and a gap for the switch. Just lay the pickguard over the guitar, mark the locations of the holes, remove the pickguard, draw a suitable shape, and then drill and saw as described.