Desoldering

Here's the guts of the old pickguard, with everything still connected.



The desoldering of some of the old components was a pain, especially the ground connections to the pots. There was a TON of solder on those bad boys. I enlisted the help of my Stepdad since I had never desoldered anything before, and it took about an hour but we got all the old pickups disconnected from the pots and 5 way switch.

The parts

2000 Fender MIM Strat - Black
Two Fender Custom Shop ’69 pickups
One Seymour Duncan SSL – 5 pickup
Warmoth black solid gloss pickguard
SPDT Toggle Switch
PC Back Plate for Toggle Switch Bracket
DiMarzio Copper Shielding Tape

I’m not sure exactly what tools I’ll need in the process, but I’ll add the tools to this post as I go along.

The beginning...

I’ve wanted to replicate David Gilmour’s famous black strat for quite some time now and finally decided to jump in after I got my tax refund. Thanks for giving me my own money back Uncle Sam!

Anyways, I figured I would chronicle the process for other amateur guitar builders out there. Hopefully it helps some people, and if not.. oh well.

I want to give a shout out to a few websites that have been crucial in my learning about assembling guitars, David Gilmour, building pedals and are just a bunch of cool and well informed people.

www.gilmourish.com
www.buildyourownclone.com
http://zychal.net/forum/index.php
http://www.stratcat.biz/black_strat_project.shtml