How To Upgrade The Wiring On A Stratocaster 

Michigan here.. this video has shown me a much more straight forward way to solder my guitars. It also has shown me just how important using cloth wire is. Now I feel obligated to re-solder all the guitars I have for sale to make sure they are the best I can make them.

Painfully as I watched this I realized that what was missing was the history of Steve Vai and Ibanez Guitars.. Now unless you are playing country , classic rock like Pink Floyd or want to be the next Yngwie Malmsteen just put it away and the Story of Ibanez comes to light.. Vai joined Frank Zappa and had a Strat and as he played it got modded and it was great for Jazz fusion and I believe he used it with Alcatrazz with a Humbucker upgrade but then David Lee Roth was the future and he had a friend make him customs ,he played the strat but it wasn't enough so he ended up with Ibanez guitars and they gave him the RG550 and it did the job but now it was about comfort and style and after a few years of collaborations the JEM was created .. The strat went on the shelf and The JEM was the wave of the future.. Now upgrading any guitar is great if your plans are to keep it as your primary but if you want to increase speed and comfort pick up a RG 350 or 450 and they can be upgraded to the point of no return and you will have a JEM except a few small pieces for only a couple hundred dollars... Goto DiMarzio and check out pickups and your wiring can be just like a Strat or like a JEM and you can more than versatile now you can play Rock,Jazz , Nu-Metal, whatever you desire with one guitar and a few simple upgrades and even a inexpensive 350 with basswood body will give you a bigger imagination for $400 and a good guitar tech and that strat will be in the closet collecting value as you work the hell out of that Ibanez RG guitar... And any questions you can read the story of Vai and needing a little more tone from the strat which led to the JEM being born ... Cheers.....

i think the bridge and neck are reversed on the selector switch?

Great video. I've had my '65 Fender replacement pups for about a year and now ready to tackle this project.

Tons of great info on your video. Kudos to you!👍👌

you soldered the neck and bridge pickups in the wrong spots on the switch.

Thats really clear and helpful, thankyou. Have you done a similar video on a semi hollow yet? I may upgrade the pots on my Grestch Electromatic

I hope to check out a set of your pickups at some point if I can afford them.

how to upgrade a strat not so much modifying since its pretty standard, you know we wanna see you go through actual MODS! neck and bridge, all three pups on, phase switches, neck blender!!!

Saw the mistake!

Making the work day better one video at a time. Thanks

My Squier Affinity Strat in Antique Sunburst now has a Fender 3TS Body, a Vega TRem, Texas special PU`s, a black Pickguard, Mojotone wiring, Locking Tuners and when the new Neck will arrive, I can put all remaining Squier parts together again and start from new... It will become a seafoam Body and a VegaTrem again...

Since the early eighties I've tried dozens and dozens of pickups gravitating towards old 60s Gibson T-tops... I really need to break down and get one of Dylan's DAF sets or at least a bridge pickup. I'm really curious

I can't seem to fully wrap my head around switch wiring without diagrams, can you confirm or deny whether it would be possible to wire a 4-way Oak Grigsby switch to an HSS Strat essentially just leaving out the normal position 2? So position 1 - bridge humbucker, position 2 - middle single coil, position 3 - middle and neck single coils, position 4 - neck single coil.

i looking for wiring mod for neck and bridge pickup active together just like tele on 3rd position replacing mid pickup

What about when you screw the pickguard to the body and there is a bulge ie the pickguard is not flat. What could be thw problem apart from the pickup wire under the pickups?

Pretty sure the switch is wired backwards . Ive definitely done that myself

Kreiger style blasting yyz while I start soldering hot to random places to see what it does

Think you reversed the neck and bridge wire to the switch....?

I have a partscaster that's just begging for this

I've put a roasted neck on my tele, and a Gibson Humbucker.... and I got rid of the tone pot.... god bless Leo Fender

The best electronics for a strat are 2 vintage-style single coils and a hot bridge humbucker, with individual volume controls for the humbucker and the single coils respectively, as well as a master TBX tone control. If you're a purist, swap the humbucker for a tele bridge pickup and wire the individual volume to the neck pickup instead

Interesting that you grounded the pots together like a Les Paul. Do you recommend a ground wire between pots for a Tele as well?

They really were! Agreed

next time around could you explain why the bridge pickup tone pot is wired different than the neck/middle pot?

How much is a complete loaded Highway pick guard with boat jack plug and play

How do you measure the orange drop polarity?

They were made to have the volume control modded and moved out of the way of my strumming hand. Thats a painful place to put a volume control. You thin they would have made a model with it moved so that the rest of us could buy one. Thats like half of the guitar players that play with an open hand, not all balled up lookin like you have a cripple hand. Give it a try Fender, we dont hate your guitars just the volume knob

Backwards neck bridge pup wiring

Hi Dylan, Wiring mistake - eh! Happens to all of us. You fixed it - good. Only other important thing I saw you get a little wrong is whenever you solder and then trim ANYTHING, always go and re-touch the solder. The reason is because when you trim you can cause a mechanical force on the joint that breaks it and down the track when it fails completely you have a dry joint. Dry joints are sometimes frustratingly hard to find but dead simple to fix. Save yourself the potential headache later. Cheers from Australia.

I like Loaded Strat Pickguards. If you ground your Tremolo Claw to the ground on the Jack, and use a "Quick Connect" from it to the Pickguard, you can swap Loaded Pickguards without any additional soldering. This is a great way to totally reconfigure your Strat in about 10 minutes.

Great video. Leo was innovative in the modular production of his guitar designs. Fenders and fender style guitars are great for modding and repair. One of my main basses is an old P-J Chandler body and DiMarzio neck with a counter sunk original Badass 1 bridge. I shoved a second j pickup between the bridge and bridge j pickup. So its a J-J-P setup. Built that in the late 80s. Now I need to refret it cause the frets had one too many crown and levels. Its a fun bass and looks like hell but plays and sounds great. But ain't that what its about? Cheers

Thanks for the explanation of mil-spec. I too was fooled by the implication that it was somehow better quality.

Thanks for the video! I’ve only wired one strat, but this video will make the next one a much more efficient process. 👍

I always learn multiple things from all your videos. I'm going to need a loaded Tele pickguard/controls plate, but I need to get back to you when I know exactly what I want. So stand by for more order info later. Love your content on all your channels. It's national take your Lamy Safari ED to work day tomorrow.😆

Great video, fun stuff. Keeping that brain clutter free!!!

Love the Kershaw Dividend.

Great tip on the direction of the pot terminals.

Thanks for this.

Very neat and orderly. I like it.

great vid Dylan