Ordered Seymour Duncan Invader Pickup, Have Some Questions About Installing.....

[Erik2005]

Hello,

I ordered a Seymour Duncan Invader pickup for the bridge of my guitar. My plans are (I found a guide with pictures on how to change out the pickups) to buy a new pickguard assembly that way if I want to change back for some reason later I can, my question is, the Invader looks about twice as wide as a normal Strat pickup, do I just cut out a bigger hole for the invader, or do they make pickguards that will fit it? Also my new assembly will only have the one Invader at the bridge, so if I have to order a Pickguard that has two pickup slots, will I need to cover the other slot?Will affect the tone of the guitar any if I leav it open? Thanks!

-Erik

[pstring]

I'm getting a fuzzy picture of just what it is you are trying to do, I take it that you have a stratocaster??? and you want to put a humbucker in the bridge position, you can get a new pickguard thats cut out for the humbucker, you will have to remove some wood from the strat body, Do you have any woodworking skills? or tools?, plan ahead and don't hack it up, if you don't think you can do it, find someone who can, or you may soon be playing air guitar. For the pickguard, you might want to try Warmoth or W-D Products, they used to have pickguards with any pickup combo you wanted. Expierence has taught me to plan out what I want to do, get the parts I need before I start, and take my time when I start, Good Luck

[Wishiwasjoe]

my suggestion to you would be, leave the other pickups and keep the switch on only the invader. It's a really hot pickup so it will so fine on its own, the other pickups won't effect the sound, and who knows? you may want to use them later. As far as the woodworking is concerned, unless you have the money for a new guitar DO NOT DO IT YOURSELF! You may just want to spend the money on a Tom Delonge strat and avoid the hassle altogether. It has the exact setup you want without the other pickups and a solid, one hole pickguard.

P.S. I'm not exactly sure, but guitar center may have a pickguard with a single humbucker hole. You could go check with them.

[Erik2005]

Thanks for replying,

For the first Q it is a Strat. Sorry i didnt make myself clearer last time, I should have re-read the post =), I was talking about cutting a bigger hole in the pickguard to fit the Seymour Duncan (last night I had looked around and hadn't seen any Fender Pickguards with a hole big enough, (found some after I posted). As of now I am thinking about just sending the pickup back to Musicians friend (they do have a 30 day return policy, correct? (it is unopened)) and just getting the Tom DeLonge Strat. The reason I bought the pickup is because I had wanted the T. Delonge strat, but for Christmas I ordered a $500 PA system and stands and mics etc, and thought I might save some money and just put the pickup on instead of getting the guitar, but I now realize it may be more hassle than its worth to install it (plus I think by the time I get the new pickguard, get the Pickup installed, and replace some old hardware on it it will be about half of what the T. Delonge cost). So I think im just going to go ahead and send the pickup back and get the DeLonge strat. I also want the unfinished neck, the older Mexican Strat has a finished maple (i think thats correct?) neck and my hand wnt slide well on it, it jsut kinda get"stuck" while playing it, while my friends Iceman ICX### (the value one) has an unfinshed neck and the difference is night and day. Sorry for the long post and thanks again for the replies!

-Erik

[PonyOne]

With a regular strat, you're lookig for single coil pickups. Seymour Duncan, DiMarzio, and a host of others also make humbuckers that are small so that they'll fit into a single-coil body without drilling.

http://www.seymourduncan.com/website/stratsdescr.html#HotRailsforStrat
http://www.seymourduncan.com/website/stratsdescr.html#CoilRailsforStrat
If you just move up & down that page you'll see the rest of their humbuckers for strat.

If you don't like the neck on your guitar, you can get a bottle of FingerEase and give it a good spray down n the neck & fretboard. That'll help. I always polish my neck and then spray it down ,and wash my hands off before I play to make sure the grease form the pizza I had doesn't mess stuff up.
I think you should hold off on getting a new guitar just yet. You're still a total beginner, and if you rush yorself with gear you're just gonna confuse yourself, and then you'll have a thousand in gear laying around. Just take the strat you have now, go ahead and get some new pickups, and a pedal or two, but don't rush yourself.

And if you do decide to get a new guitar, get something a little more versatile: an SG, Les Paul, Striker, Beretta, some kind of ESP or Jackson... you seem to go for the humbucker tone, you should try out an SG, I love mine and it sounds killer.