Custom Gilmour Black Strat® Inspired Pickguard Assembly Kit

Featuring Our Custom Fabricated 1 Ply 0.120" Acrylic Pickguard With The Rounded and Polished Edge

All The Components Included In This Basic Black Strat Pickguard Assembly Kit - Parchment Accessories Shown.

Basic Pickguard Assembly Kit Description

With our Basic Gilmour style Black Strat pickguard assembly kit you'll receive all the components shown above in the top photograph, all you have to do is add your choice of pickups, assemble, wire and solder it all up and your ready to rock-n-roll...  We do not perform any assembly or construction of this item, this is a DIY assembly kit where you'll be performing all assembly, wiring and soldering.

Each of the 5 pickguard selection options are our own custom manufactured 0.120" Acrylic 1 Ply pickguards with the Rounded and Polished Perimeter Edge.  They are available in black or white. For a limited time we also have a reverse angle bridge pickup black Acrylic pickguard, see full description below.

We offer a number of accessory color options for this kit. The accessories consist of the pickup covers, knobs, switch tip and tremolo arm tip. We offer the standard colors such as white, parchment, aged white, vintage white and black.  We also offer an option called "Combination", this combination option is the same as found on the Custom Shop Relic Gilmour Black Strat where the knobs are Aged White and the pickup covers, switch tip and tremolo arm tip are Parchment. To further accurately reproduce this Relic version we can customize your knob set with the Dark Green Letters and Numbers for an additional $30.00.  To get a feel for the combination accessory colors with the dark green letters and number check out our Black Strat #6 build project. To accurately reproduce the NOS version select Parchment for the accessory color.

Each of our 1 ply 0.120” Acrylic pickguards with the rounded and polished edge are custom hand manufactured in our shop specifically for each customer. They start off being cut out of a sheet of Acrylic with a CNC laser which creates the basic pickguard shape with all holes and cutouts. We then create the pickguards round-over edge effect by hand with a table router where the pickguard is affixed to a routing template where we trim the pickguard to it’s final size and create the rounded perimeter edge. From there the pickguards rounded edge is hand sanded with a fine sandpaper to remove any tooling marks left behind by the router bit.  The smoothly sanded rounded edge can then be polished with a special buffing wheel and a polishing compound used exclusively for Acrylic which creates the highly polished and glossy rounded edge.  The pickguards mounting holes are then countersunk, copper foil shielding tape is applied to the control region and a final polishing of the entire pickguard is completed.  It’s a fairly long process of 1 hour to create one of these unique pickguards, but we feel that final product is one that stands above the typical Strat® pickguard that have been produced the same way for over 50 years.  This unique rounded and polished pickguard edge is only available on our Black or White 1 Ply 0.120" Acrylic pickguards. Pickup and 5-way switch mounting holes are not countersunk and require round head mounting screws.

A significant feature of this kit is the recessed mini toggle switch.  It's a unique feature that is synonymous with Gilmour's Black Strat. We manufacture our switch mounting bracket from a sturdy piece of custom formed stainless steel that is strong and easily mountable underneath the volume and tone potentiometers.  It is not a permanent piece of the pickguard, but when installed becomes an integral part of it. The function of this recessed mini-toggle switch is to provide you with two additional pickup selection positions by adding in the neck pickup to the current selection of the 5-way selector switch. This includes the bridge and neck pickups selected together in parallel with one another which is similar in tone as a Telecaster and the second additional pickup selection is to have all three pickups selected together in parallel.

The pickup and selector switch mounting screw holes accept Phillips round head screws.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Our Acrylic pickguards are 0.120" thick (+/- a few thousands of an inch) so keep this pickguard thickness in mind when installing a 0.120" thick Acrylic pickguard on a Strat® with a 22 fret neck, make sure you measure the total amount of clearance you have underneath your 22'nd fret overhang and the surface of your body to ensure that there is enough room to accommodate the 0.120" thick Acrylic pickguard with at least a few thousands of an inch of extra clearance for breathing room between the top surface of the Acrylic pickguard and the underside of the 22'nd fret overhang. The vast majority of 22 fret necks and body combinations will work fine with our 0.120" thick Acrylic pickguards but we have seen a rare few that won't and will need some sort of adjustment for correct fitment. You DO NOT want to tighten down any neck where its 22'nd fret overhang makes contact with the surface of the pickguard, you could very well lift the fingerboard away from the neck by the leveraging forces of tightening down the neck.

Basic Black Strat Pickguard Assembly Kit Component Option Selections

• Pickguard - Your choice of 1 of the following 5 custom manufactured 1 ply 0.120" Acrylic pickguards with the rounded and polished edge. Pickup and selector switch mounting holes are not countersunk and require round head mounting screws. Copper foil shielding in the control region only.
  • Black 1 Ply 0.120" Acrylic, Standard 11 Hole
  • Black 1 Ply 0.120" Acrylic, '57 Vintage 8 Hole
  • Black 1 Ply 0.120" Acrylic, Standard 11 Hole - Reverse Angle Bridge Pickup (Limited Edition)
  • White 1 Ply 0.120" Acrylic, Standard 11 Hole
  • White 1 Ply 0.120" Acrylic, '57 Vintage 8 Hole

• Accessories - Pickup covers, knobs, switch tip and tremolo arm tip options. Your choice of 1 of the following 5 options::
  • White
  • Parchment - Select this option for NOS Black Strat style.
  • Aged White
  • Black
  • Combination - Select this option for Relic Black Strat style (Aged white knob set with parchment pickup covers, switch tip and tremolo arm tip)
  • Vintage White

• Knob Style - Your choice of 1 of the following 2 options:
  • Standard - Gold letters and numbers for the white, parchment and aged white knob set and white letters and numbers for the black knob set.
  • Green Letters and Numbers - Custom option where we customize the knob set - $30.00 additional.

• Tone Capacitor - Polyester Film Orange Drop. Your choice of 1 of the following 4 options:
  • 0.1 uF
  • 0.047 uF (Gilmour Style)
  • 0.033 uF
  • 0.022 uF (Modern Style)

• Tremolo Arm - Custom manufactured 4-¼" Gilmour style length. Your choice of 1 of the following 2 attachment threading options:
  • 10-32 - American Strat's®.
  • 5mm - Import Strat's®.

Fixed Basic Black Strat Pickguard Assembly Kit Components - No Option Selections For These Items

• Custom manufactured stainless steel recessed mini toggle switch mounting bracket.
• SPDT mini toggle switch for neck/bridge pickup selection modification.
• Three CTS 450G series vintage style low rotational torque 250k audio taper split shaft potentiometers.
• CRL 5-way selector switch.
• Black Strat® wiring diagram with neck/bridge pickup modification.
• We will provide you with the Black Strat® specific wiring diagram via email after order placement (when your order is invoiced).

Select Your Basic Pickguard Assembly Kit Options

Knob Style:	Standard Green Letters and Numbers +$30.00 USD
Pickguard:	Black Acrylic Standard 11 Hole Black Acrylic Vintage 8 Hole White Acrylic Standard 11 Hole White Acrylic Vintage 8 Hole Black Acrylic Standard 11 Hole - Reverse Angle Bridge Pickup
Tone Capacitor:	0.022 uF 0.033 uF 0.047 uF 0.1 uF
Tremolo Arm Threading:	10-32 American Strat 5mm Import Strat
Accessory Color:	White Parchment Aged White Black Combination Vintage White

Price: $231.25 to $261.25 Per Kit  (Your price depends on knob style selection)

The following depiction and descriptive information is for those selecting the dark green letters and numbers customized knob set.

Due to characteristic inconsistencies in the molding process of these knob sets as Fender® is having them manufactured, often we find small flaws in the surface, usually around the skirt and most often adjacent to the letters or numbers as depicted above. These flaws are very small indentations or very small curly grooves in which the replacement color has a tendency to settle into and is very difficult if not impossible to be removed. So it is possible you may notice these small color blemishes next to some of the letters or numbers and it is simply a characteristic of the knobs and is not something we can work around, but we do our best to minimize the effect.  Even as the knobs originally come from Fender® with the gold lettering and numbering these imperfections are filled with the gold color as well, but since the gold color is not dark like the replacement color so there is very little contrast between the knob color and the gold, so it essentially goes unnoticed.  If you happen to notice some of these characteristics in your particular knob set, take a close look at these areas with a magnifying glass and you’ll see exactly why the replacement color can’t be removed from these small recessed areas.  Even in the Fender® Custom Shop RELIC Gilmour Black Strat® these characteristics are present.