Main Description

Craggy Mod Plate for the Fender® Stratocaster®

A twist on the "classic" Fat Strat® plate, streamlined down to turn it into a bit more a no nonsense rock machine.

We've ditched the middle pickup slot, we've offset the volume and tone pots to get them out the way

The logic runs as follows.

Your average 3 pickup Fat Strat® is fantastic - but, for us, its a little on the bloated side.
Its pretty normal for see them wired with a super switch, so position 2 automatically coil taps the humbucker, and wires in it parallel with the middle pickup, giving a sort of Pseudo pos. 2 tone - which is great - guitar sounds a bit like a traditional Strat® again.

Problem is - its not a tradtional Strat® is it? The pots are likely the wrong resistance (500k to accomodate for the humbucker in the first place), the bridge coil isn't a single coil, and has very little in common with a traditional single coil (at best, its 4.5K of 42 AWG sat on a bar magnet rather then (at worst) 5.7K wrapped around some alnico poles

So, rather then trying to re-invent the wheel and make a Fat Strat® so something its not really comfortable with, we think of it the other way! Keep it simple, keep it versitile, and dont try and mimic the traditional.

The intention with the Craggy mod is this - you stick a 3 way switch in there. You run it like a Telecaster® - Bridge, Both, Neck.
Your bridge is your rock pickup - its big, its brash, its aggressive, its your typical uncovered humbucker
Your necks something a little more traditional, if or when you want cleans, or chords, or creaminess, and thats a standard single coil.

Volume pots miles out of the way of your strumming hand, and you've only got one tone knob.

Obviously, this is only how we think of the thing, and it is only a pickguard, so theres nothing stopping you pushing the boat out with the controls - but thats what we've had in mind when we've designed the thing.

beyond that, its business as usual - modern spec mounting, avallable in a nice range of colours and plys, and capable of taking all the high end electrics you'd expect.

Fender®, Squier®, Stratocaster® and Strat® are registered trademarks of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, Ibanez® is a registered trademarks of Hoshino Gakki, Ltd and Axesrus® has no affiliation with FMIC or Hoshino Gakki, Ltd.

A Closer Look and what to look out for

Fender®, Squier®, Stratocaster® and Strat® are registered trademarks of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation and Axesrus® has no affiliation with FMIC

Moving Holes?

Right then - this has been in the offing for a while now, so probably worth explaining whats going on with the pot hole options!

We're, slowly but surely, switching all of our pickguard stock over to "No pot" versions - and that means we can drill them out to order - so if your in the mood for switching over to master tone, master volume? Just Volume? No holes? Or just moving the volume pot out of the way so you dont keep hitting the thing? You can - its an easy job, so its all done at no extra cost, and it gets you dangerously close to custom pickguards without the supidly long lead times and eye watering costs!

However - theres a few little caveats that are worth noting.

Returns

Lets get the elephant in the room out of the way first eh?

Once pickguards are drilled - theres no going back - so worth being aware that once its drilled, its yours.

The product page will have loaded up with a "standard confirguation" pre-selected, but that doesn't change the fact that the plate exists, on the shelf, with no pot holes drilled in it, and we will be modifying it to meet your specifications, so it is non returnable or refunable.

EXCEPT - when a plate is ordered without any pot holes drilled. This, obviously, means the plate is unmodified, and as such, returnable/refundable (assuming you have no tmodified it yourself)

So, its really worth using all the resources here to make sure its exactly what you want before commiting to buy the thing! Theres spec diagrams under the tech spec tab, theres photos of all the colours under the "Colours explained" tabs - your as well informed with what your getting as you can be (and again, if in doubt? Just buy the thing without the pot holes and drill it out yourself - 10mm drill bit and a cordless drill - easy job - we'll even tell you where to put the holes)

Why cant i do it on all colours?

Put simply? Because some of the plates are already drilled out - we're switching the entire stock over as we get new plates in, but as you can imagine, its not exactly a quick process. Anything where you can customise, you'll be faced with the drop down menus to select what you want (and the picture updates to show what your getting) - anything you cant customise, will revert back to "standard" and show the "Please Note - The selected colour/material is currently not available for customisation" message - you can still order the plate, but you cant move the pot holes unfortunately.

Obviously, plates that are already drilled, and uncustomisable, CAN be returned for a refund.

What is Pickguard Style/Mount?
Rather then having multiple product listings on the site to cover "minor" variations within pickguards (especially in the more specialist stuff!) - we're just building them in as options within single products - so with common plates, like an Modern Strat? You can pick between left and right handed versions - more niche stuff? Like the Locking Trem plate - thats got loads more options in there, right down to pickup options (HBSCSC, SCSCSC and HBSCHB) - just keeps the site looking tidy, even if it does hide a few of the options a little deeper. Easier to dig deeper then have to trawl through 10 pages of completely irrelivent plates though!

Hole Postitioning

This is, despite my best efforts - dull as dish water! I'm describing the space between holes here, so dont expect anything life changing - but, worth having the details, and i'll try and include a few little tit-bits to watch out for. Just remember, that the holes are drilled out to 10mm, so they'll take Alpha, CTS and Bournes pots.

And in closing - Pickguards, once drilled away from the standard hole plan, come under the remit of Custom work and as always, if you've got any questions what so ever, please feel free to get in touch with us and we can talk through all the finer details of your proposed build.

Optional Pickup Routes?

Right then - this is a bit "officially unofficially" at the minute, and this section will get a re-write at some point i imagine, but, lets see if i can explain this without too much waffling!

We're starting to offer "customised" pickguards - we're taking existing plates, and we're routing in additional pickup options.

Currently, its limited to single coils, but will, eventally, be expanded to offer a few more options.

It is intended to "fill in the blanks" for routing options that aren't currently being fulfilled by the factory made plates, but, are fairly simply modifications (so, a HH plate very quickly becomes a HSH plate, a HB Bridge only becomes a Craggy mod... you get the idea)

What are we doing?

I really cant stress this enough - these are "customised" pickguards, NOT, "CUSTOM PICKGUARDS" - we are taking an existing plate, and we are simply routing in a single coil.

We cannot change the outside shape, we cannot change the screw positioning, we cannot route in Humbuckers or P90s or anything else - it is, currently, limited to single coils.

Additional pickup? Additional cost!

I apologise in advance for this being a little "zesty" - I've been asked to "customise" plates FOR FREE, more times then i care to remember,and i'm always very upfront about why it aint happening, but, as you can appreciate, it wears a little thin after a while, so, i'm sorry if I sound a bit grumpy here.

This is being done by hand, on a VERY small scale, after hours, in a shed. It is labour intensive, slightly difficult, comes with an inherent risk of damage to the parts, an inherent risk of injury, and, frankly, its not exactly a fun job. Its dirty and dusty and it takes longer to set up and clean down then it does to actually do the routing.

Its not something I, or anyone else of sound mind or body, should be doing for free. Please be aware, if you want a pickguard that requires "additional pickup routing" - there will be an upcharge.

The site will show the upcharge above the drop down options.

"If I buy <This plate with "optional pickup"> isn't it just <This plate>?"

It will, potentially, be possible that, yes, you could buy a "customised" pickguard that is available as an off the shelf/mass produced one. I've tried by best to avoid any cross over (so, the Craggy mod has no additional pickup option, because that would make it into a HSS plate, which is available as standard)

As this grows, and more pickups are added, there will, almost certainly, be more sitations where this "bug" can happen though, and i'll get in touch with anyone who falls foul of it to sort it out.

Returns and Refunds?

Because these plates are, essentially, custom built due to the pot hole positioning being variable - they come under the remit of Custom work as laid out in our terms and conditions.

The product page will have loaded up with a "standard confirguation" pre-selected, but that doesn't change the fact that the plate exists, on the shelf, with no pot holes drilled in it, and we will be modifying it to meet your specifications, so it is non returnable or refunable.

EXCEPT - when a plate is ordered without any pot holes drilled. This, obviously, means the plate is unmodified, and as such, returnable/refundable (assuming you have no tmodified it yourself)

So, its really worth using all the resources here to make sure its exactly what you want before commiting to buy the thing! Theres spec diagrams under the tech spec tab, theres photos of all the colours under the "Colours explained" tabs - your as well informed with what your getting as you can be (and again, if in doubt? Just buy the thing without the pot holes and drill it out yourself - 10mm drill bit and a cordless drill - easy job - we'll even tell you where to put the holes)

"Colours" Explained

Ok, even i'll conceed that this isn't the most thrilling of toics at this point, but there is actually plenty of confusion when it comes to the "off white" pickguard colours, so seeing as we're ticking off pearls and tortoise shell varients, we might as well address the parchments, mints and creams too.

So lets get stuck in

Now, to before we get further into colours, i've got a few bones to pick over when it comes to Mint Green, so, if you'll indulge me, i'll try and explain why Mint green is so "hit and miss"

First things first, you've probably spotted that the Mint A and Mint B "real" photos look a bit... false, right? Thats because they are I'm afraid - Cameras really struggle to capture the difference between the colours. Essentially, the camera just corrects the image to something that looks like a fairly washed out Mint A, regardless of the actual colour.

So, before i get lost in this, heres the unedited images of Mint A and Mint B, and i think we can agree that the camera has made a meal of things. They both look identical.

Now, this is useless from my point of view, because it doesn't show the difference, so, you'll have to trust the edited photos above, and, honestly? The swatch image tied to the colour select drop down, gives a very accurate match to what the plates look like in the flesh.

But, i'm showing you this because you must consider, that if I'm having this problem, you can bet everyone else is too, so, a word to the wise? Dont trust photos of guitars with mint pickguards! I can search online now, and i can see 10 subtly different shades of mint pickups fitted to Fender guitars - but i know that Fender always use Mint B (Except Fender Japan) . Its a trick of the camera, and there aren't that many variations of Mint Green - I think, in the 20 years i've worked here, i've seen 4. (B, A, a very bright "snot" green, and a "not unpleasant" green that was close to Mint B, but a shade brighter)

Pearloids Explained

Pearloid plates are similar to the tortoise shells, but theres a little less subtly between them, and they dont really have anything overly interesting in their history - as far as i can tell, they're always been PVC, and the variations in colour and pattern are pretty easy to follow.

Pearloid plates do have a few of their own little quirks, so, i'll do a little more detail here too.

Tortoise Shells

You’ve probably noticed with the pickguards, we do A LOT of different variations in tortoise shells – and even then, we barely scratch the surface when it comes to completing the line-up.

Basically, Tortoise shell, originally, way back when, when it first started (long before the electric guitar was a thing) was just that – pieces of a tortoises shell, fixed together into a shape, and polished until semi-transparent (some of the early acoustic pickguards were actually made this way)

Now, obviously, none of us want to see a return to those practises, but seemingly, everyone liked “the look” – so with the advent of plastic in the early part of the 20th century, science found a cheaper way (it wasn’t until the seventies when trade in hawksbill turtle (the main source of Tortoise shell) shells became illegal!)

The first “plastic” Tortoise Shells were made from Nitrate plastics, usually Celluloid – and, frankly, it’s pretty gorgeous! Its semi-transparent, it’s got a sort of leopard skin look to it, and it soon worked its way onto guitars (again, most acoustics)

The problem is – Celluloid plastics are astonishingly flammable – they have a low point of combustion, and once they’re burning, they don’t go out until the fuels gone, or they flame is deprived of oxygen. As you can imagine, no one really liked working with Celluloid. It was risky to use (cutting = friction = heat) it was dangerous to store, and it wasn’t really suitable for the job at hand ( it changed colour when exposed to sunlight, it warped, it shrank, it was generally, pretty badly behaved!)
Never the less, it did eventually find its way onto electric guitars by the late 50s and early 60s, but was soon replaced for something more suitable and much safer.

Nowadays, you see Tortoise shells in either Polyoxymethylene (more stable as a material, but still very flammable) or PVC (which is fairly bomb proof, but does give off toxic fumes if burnt)

Now, getting to the modern day – Tortoise shell comes in 5 “variants” for us (ignoring the Celluloid offerings, they’re still out there, and great for historical accuracy, but just be VERY careful with them – not only in buying them/storing your guitar once its fitted, but also in actually sourcing the stuff, we’ve yet to find a factory who will even consider making a plate with it (too big a fire risk) and even when we do, its very cost prohibitive (more expensive to buy the things then we could ever dream of selling them for!) – there are guys out there making them though – but as a rough guide, expect to pay upwards of £150+)