Pickguard

Today was my birthday, and Mrs. Stratoh4x0r gave me a canvas painted in the shape of a pickguard, to use in my project.  I'd bought a cool clear plexiglass pickguard from stewmac, and she did a  great undersea theme which fits beautifully, or anyway fit beautifully after some fiddling.

And here it is!  I ordered an aluminum pickguard shield from GFS to put between the canvas and the body.  This is good for shielding yada, yada, but will also help to keep the canvas nice and flat. I also ordered some stuff from allparts

• Black pickup covers
• Mint green knobs and switch cap
• Black screws
• Green switch cap (as an alternative to the mint green)

The Mystery of the Two Lines


But what are those two mysterious lines on the left of the body?  Foreshadowing.  I was starting to look at how the neck fits.  The strat-talk thread I mentioned earlier has a suggestion that one put in the neck for fit, then install fishing line in place of the E strings to ensure the strings are in the right place on the neck.

The suspense is palpable ... so let me tell you that the neck seems to be lining up fine.  One thing I found troubling is this: I measured the distance from the 12th fret to the saddle, with the saddle as close to the nut as possible.  I'd expected to get a little less than 12.75 inches, half of 25.5, which is the scale length of a strat.   But it was longer - not by a lot by definitely longer.  I'll have to look in to this, though my American Standard seems to be this way too, so I guess it's ok.

I don't know when I'll get to install the neck, but I hope it's before next weekend.