So-Cal replacement pickguard

[dannyr]

Looks fantastic! Congrats.

[quiksilver]

Looks great. Nice upgrades!

[Jacksonite]

I was trying to reach budman, so I could send him my flat black one so he could make a template, but i havent heard back from him...
I was going to also get some maple ones made.

[vondran]

That looks so much better.

[scotty]

I was trying to reach budman, so I could send him my flat black one so he could make a template, but i havent heard back from him...
I was going to also get some maple ones made.

I bet a Black Charvel would great with one of Budmans Plate metal pickgaurds.

[busdriver]

Meanwhile I ended up getting a Warmoth pickguard for my Socal. It's a pretty cheap solution and a perfect fit regarding the screw pattern. The pickup holes fit very good too


My SoCal mod is a set of Duncan P-Rails and miniswitch to switch between three of the four possible modes.

[shreddermon]

How do those pickups sound? I'm very curious to try those out sometime, especially with the switchable set-up like you've done. Coolly done.

[skorb]

nice job. what are those pickups like?

[ulijdavid]

I just cut three new ones for a friend. You can see the original H-S-S in the upper left corner. I cut the Hum-Single, Hum-Hum, and Hum-Mini Hum. I took his original pickguard and loaded into a CAD program and programmed the CNC to cut it. The pickguard he sent me was 0.060" thick. How did you get a b/w/b pickguard to fit under the fretboard extension? I could see the indention from the fretboard overhang on the pickguard fromthe one I had.

[busdriver]

How do those pickups sound?

I love these P-Rails. The humbucker mode is like a hot PAF and the single coil and P90 sounds are very authentic. Especially the P90 neck position and the single coil center position which is very close to one of these out-of-phase Stratocaster sounds.

There is this demo-video on Youtube, which is great, because it really shows what you get out of these pickups

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=fZhJXcSVnfs

[shreddermon]

Awesome vid. Thanks for that!

[AndyK]

The "real" pickguards make the guitars look 100% better!

That's one thing about these new SD's vs. the originals. The original Charvels didn't skimp on ANYthing. Sure, you get a guitar for $999. Then you have to buy a real metal knob, or a nicer pickguard, and a case. They should maybe have "student" models and standard models. The students could come as these $999 guitars are. The new standard models would have upgraded Floyds, pickguards, knobs, and hard cases - but wouldn't be priced as high as the custom shop guitars.

That way, if someone wanted to pay $1,199 (give or take), you had the option of getting a guitar that is closer to the 80's Charvels, without having to jump through hoops to get the new components and install them yourself.

Just a thought!

[zarl]

Anybody here who owns a So-Cal and replaced the pickguard? From where did you get your pickguard? I consider replacing mine to get another pickup configuration. I noticed the Fender ones fit regarding the screw pattern, but the pickup holes are a bit offset.

I ordered mine from Warmoth for a standard Floyd cut and just installed it. Here's what I found:

- The 11 mounting holes line up just fine.
- The cutout around the neck pocket is slightly narrower than the Charvel neck. But, a little sandpaper work and it fits fine.
- If you order a standard Volume-Tone-Tone strat control layout from Warmoth, the volume pot will give you problems. The body cavity route in the Socal is a bit different from a Fender Strat, with less routing in the control area. A standard CTS volume pot won't fit in the traditional location, so you either have to relocate it or do some minor routing. I used a push-pull pot for coil splitting on the volume. This pot is actually much smaller in diameter than a standard pot. However, it still barely fit -- I had to orient it just right to clear some metal tabs to get it to fit in there.
- The humbucker placement is tight in the SoCal body route, but works just fine.

[Dogbone]

That looks really sweet. I like the pearloid and the chrome

[skorb]

I ordered mine from Warmoth for a standard Floyd cut and just installed it. Here's what I found:

- The 11 mounting holes line up just fine.
- The cutout around the neck pocket is slightly narrower than the Charvel neck. But, a little sandpaper work and it fits fine.
- If you order a standard Volume-Tone-Tone strat control layout from Warmoth, the volume pot will give you problems. The body cavity route in the Socal is a bit different from a Fender Strat, with less routing in the control area. A standard CTS volume pot won't fit in the traditional location, so you either have to relocate it or do some minor routing. I used a push-pull pot for coil splitting on the volume. This pot is actually much smaller in diameter than a standard pot. However, it still barely fit -- I had to orient it just right to clear some metal tabs to get it to fit in there.
- The humbucker placement is tight in the SoCal body route, but works just fine.

interesting, and a nice job there.

I also got a Warmoth replacement guard. My 11 holes lined up fine, but my bridge p/u hole was a hair too low for the route on the body, but it just barely fits since the p/u sits so high.

it's the control-mount holes where I found it much easier just to order the guard with no holes and drill my own to match the stock Charvel guard. way easier than routing the body to match a plastic guard, no?