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Frusciante Loaded Pickguard for Strat®

Regular price
US$289.00
Regular price
Sale price
US$289.00

Inspired by one of the worlds most famous 62' Strats, this is our take on the Frusciante loaded pickguard. Super Easy, Solder-less Install

  • Obsidian® Custom Blender Wiring
  • Tonerider® CLASSIC BLUES // OR
  • Obsidian® Custom Shop 'FIVE SIXTIES'
  • Fully Shielded 3 Ply Mint Green Pickguard
  • High Quality Obsidian® Knobs & Pickup Covers (Aged White on Mint Green like an Aged 60s guard)
  • Comprehensive Wiring & Pickup Upgrade

Custom Shop: Build Time 6 - 12 Days

Ships From: ObsidianWire, New Zealand

Frusciante style loaded Stratocaster pickguard with mint green pickguard and aged white pickup covers and kbobs
Frusciante Loaded Pickguard for Strat®
Frusciante Loaded Pickguard for Strat®
Frusciante Loaded Pickguard for Strat®

You Design It, We Build It...

Frusciante Loaded Pickguard for Strat®

Inspired by one of the worlds most famous 62' Strats, this is our take on the Frusciante loaded pickguard. Super Easy, Solder-less Install

  • Obsidian® Custom Blender Wiring
  • Tonerider® CLASSIC BLUES // OR
  • Obsidian® Custom Shop 'FIVE SIXTIES'
  • Fully Shielded 3 Ply Mint Green Pickguard
  • High Quality Obsidian® Knobs & Pickup Covers (Aged White on Mint Green like an Aged 60s guard)
  • Comprehensive Wiring & Pickup Upgrade

More Info...

The Wiring

Strat Blender Wiring Mod - for your Stratocaster® 

PLAY YOUR NECK AND BRIDGE PICKUPS TOGETHER

The Obsidian® Custom Blender for Strat® is the solder-less, Strat blender wiring harness, with a Stratocaster® blender mod built in.

With a master volume and master tone control the Custom Blender Harness packs your traditional Strat® tones into a smaller space, leaving the third tone control free.

This becomes the blender control, adding the ability to blend the neck and bridge pickups in together. This is amazing for adding a range of musical mids to your lead tone (like the bell like effects David Gilmour gets in his signature Strat) or for adding some twang to your rhythm, just like you find in the middle position on a Tele®. When you need a complete wall of sound, you can even mix all three pickups together by flicking the five way switch to position 2 or 4

CRYSTAL CLEAR TONE

Retain clarity at lower volumes. To make your tone crystal clear at lower volumes we include an Obsidian® Custom spec treble bleed mod. This prevents tone 'muddiness' at low volumes by allowing high frequencies to pass along a separate path to your amp, rather than being stopped short by the increasing resistance at the volume control.

SMOOTH CONTROL

An even tone and volume control taper all the way from zero to ten. Obsidian® tone and volume controls incorporate carefully selected and custom-built components, as well as our own clever mods to smooth out the taper of your tone and volume controls, so you get a more even roll off all the way from zero to 10.

BLENDER MOD CONTROLS

 Switch Positions Blender Control ON (Position 1)

1: Bridge + Neck 2: Bridge & Middle + Neck 3: Middle 4: Neck & Middle + Bridge 5: Neck + Bridge

When it is time to ease back to your traditional switch positions, simply roll the blender knob off, and it will remove itself completely from the circuit. 

Switch Positions Blender Control OFF (Position 10): 

1: Bridge Pickup 2: Bridge & Middle Pickup 3: Middle Pickup 4: Neck & Middle Pickup 5: Neck Pickup

Control Layout 

Switch: 5 - Way Control 1: Master Volume Control 2: Master Tone (All three pickups) Control 3: Blender Control (Adds Neck or Bridge)

More Info

The Pickups

Stadard: ToneRider® CLASSIC BLUES

Medium Wound Hot Sixties Strat® Tones

The Classic Blues set nails the hotter 60’s Strat tones, whilst also offering the benefits of a calibrated wind for more even volume balance across all five positions.

Neck 6.3k / Mid 6.4k / Bridge 7.0k

More Info

Premium: ObsidianWire Custom Shop 'FIVE SIXTIES'

A medium output Strat® pickup set for clear chime to crunch

The ObsidianWire™ 'FIVE SIXTIES' set combines traditional Alnico V magnets with a hotter wind, for medium output, well balanced pickups. Excellent for a range of genres from pop to blues to rock.

Hand wound to order, using a scatter wind process for enhanced dynamics and true Alnico V magnets for classic Stratocaster punch. Completed with vintage style fiber bobbin, and premium wax potted cloth wire

Neck 5.9k / Mid 6.3k / Bridge 7.1k

More Info

The Look

Choose your favorite pickguard and knob combo.

Need inspiration?

Check out some of our favorite combos Here

The Install

Solderless Loaded Pickguard Install

Solderless Install

All Obsidian® loaded pickguards allow for a quick and easy solderless install using our own solderless Pro-Wired™ Electronics

Fitting

Loaded Pickguards (for Strat)

Obsidian® loaded pickguards for Stratocaster® are made to fit modern Fender Strat® bodies with 11 hole pickguards perfectly. Other bodies including Squier, import and after market type guitars may need adjustments to routing, or screw hole placement. 

  • Mounting Hole Pattern: Modern Fender 11 hole
  • Control Cavity Routing: Fits genuine Fender Stratocaster
    Other guitars may need adjustment
  • Cavity depth: Minimum 34mm (1.26”)
    7-Way wiring always require full depth cavity around tone controls
  • Pickup Cavity Routing: Check pickup compatibility before ordering. Humbucker loaded pickguards require full size humbucker routing.

Control Plates (for Tele)

Obsidian® loaded control plates for Telecaster® are made to fit modern Fender Tele® bodies perfectly. Other bodies including Squier, import and after market type guitars may need adjustments to routing, or screw hole placement. 

  • Mounting Hole Spacing: 150mm from center to center
  • Control Cavity Routing: Fits genuine Fender Telecaster
    Other guitars may need adjustment
  • Cavity depth: Minimum 34mm (1.26”)
    7-Way wiring always require full depth cavity around tone controls
  • Pickups: ObsidianWire Pro-Wired Electronics are generally made for standard two wire pickups. For different wire types select the Custom Universal harness. the Custom 4-Way harness requires a three wire neck pickup, or a solder join to add a new wire.

The Shipping

ObsidianWire Custom Shop Item:

This item is part of our Custom Shop range, built to order, one at a time in Christchurch New Zealand.

Build Time: 5 - 10 Business Days

We aim to build all custom shop orders within 5 - 10 business days (excludes weekends and public holiday). If we expect any delays we will let you know as soon as possible.

Shipping: Ships direct from Christchurch, New Zealand

All custom shop items ship direct from Christchurch, New Zealand. Please allow extra time for International shipping. Check for additional info on our shipping policies below

Shipping Policies

Customer Reviews

Based on 2 reviews
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M
Matt Fragale (Matthews, US)
Really great

TL;DR: Everything went great and the guitar sounds amazing now. 1000% improvement over the cheap Amazon loaded pickguard I replaced with this.

Used this loaded pickguard as part of my second attempt at rebuilding an inexpensive guitar. I originally used an el cheapo Amazon loaded pickguard and it sounded... I dunno.... not musical. The cheapo Amazon thing had good reviews, so possible I did something wrong or maybe just got a dud, but I couldn't make it work well. My expectations of it were about as low as my confidence in building this thing, but the switch didn't seem to work correctly and the tone controls didn't seem to work well either. It didn't seem like it was working correctly on top of not sounding good. Felt like maybe a ground problem, but I couldn't see anything obvious. Lesson learned about cheap Amazon stuff, I suppose.

Soooo I did more looking around and found these Obsidian Wire loaded pickguards. Watched a lot of videos and did a lot of reading of reviews and such and pulled the trigger.
Loaded this up and wired up the output and the ground wire. Did my set up on the guitar and just wow. It sounds amazing. I mean, obviously choice of pickups is important so if you think you'd be happy with the toneriders as I was, then you can't go too wrong with this set up. Just out of the box, it was perfect. Installation is a breeze and all the bits included are high quality and the pre-wiring is perfect. If you have specific pickups in mind, then I imagine just buying the electronics would also be helpful. Wiring so much cleaner and simpler than doing all the soldering. Not to mention easier to change stuff out if you want.

Also, the description is very specific about what guitars it will fit into. I used this in a 2008 Starcaster by Fender, which was probably purchased from Target for $150 including an amplifier. It was the big box store version of the Squier line, back in the day. The body is not quite full depth, but the routed out control cavities are full depth and this fit fine. The only adjustment I had to make was to fill and re-drill a few (like 4) of the pickguard mounting holes and trim 1mm off the guard where the bridge meets it to allow the vibrato to pivot without contacting it. However, I also replaced the vibrato with something aftermarket so it may have fit the original stamped piece. I don't know since I didn't' try. Otherwise, everything fit perfectly. So, you know... if you have something non-standard, do the measurements and with a little patience and perhaps a power tool or two, you can probably make this work.

On a side note, excellent communication from the company when I had a question prior to shipping. They were helpful and friendly and answered my question in a timely manner. Much appreciated! Great company to deal with and I wouldn't hesitate to purchase from them again. Thanks, Obsidian people!

L
Lenin Silverio (Fremont, US)
Awesome company, Great Service!

ObsidianWire is an awesome company with great customer service and a very helpful staff.
When I modify or build another guitar I'm definitely coming back.
Do yourself a favor and check them out!

Pro-Wired™ Pickguards & Control Plates

  • Solderless Install

    Quick & Easy install using with Obsidian® solderless wiring

  • Custom Built

    You choose the specs, and we build it for you, right here in our Custom Shop.

  • Pro-Grade

    World class components and build quality for world class tone and durability