thanks for the info, im prob gonna go with a solid wood block and cut it myself (my dad is a retired carpenter so he'll be doing alot of the helping in the cutting). but ill still definitely still check out the site!

and your prob right about using alder instead of mahogany. i wanted to use mahogany to thicken up the sound but you might be right about gettin too far away from the strat sound. i'll prob debate it over in the coming weeks. maybe ill go to guitar center and compare a mahogany strat with a standard alder one.