Hello everyone! I bought my Fender Squier Bullet Strat a few months ago and I also shielded the cavities. I was thinking about buying this pre-made pickguard from Amazon
It also has a humbucker installed but I am a little afraid if it will fit. Have anyone ever installed a humbucker to their strat?
Also, another question I have is related to the shielding these pickguards come with. I tried using a multimeter to check the conductivity of the "shield’ under my pickguard but the multimeter doesn’t “beep” at all, I guess it’s not a conductive material? And if it isn’t, how is it shielded then?
Welcome to the community.
I cannot answer the question on shielding but depending on the depth of the HB on that guard you may have to make some adjustments, so check the specs and measure your cavity depth.
I changed my old Affinity from SSS to HSH some years back, It was a tight fit and I had to drill some counter sinks for the pups height adjusting screws. The write up of the project is in my Learning Log which may help but you look to be taking an easier route !
Fit in terms of depth of the body or in terms of width of the pickup cavity?
Seeing that you have already taken the pickguard off of the guitar it should be easy to visually confirm whether the body is routed for humbuckers or not. If it looks like the one in the pic below which is clearly routed for SSS, tough luck. But you may still be able to mod the body, I’m not sure though.
In terms of depth, I think it’s the affinity that has thinner body but they still load them with humbuckers so I’d guess you’re alright for depth. I also don’t think that humbuckers are thicker than single coils so still for depth you should be fine.
If you really want a humbucker at the bridge you can also go for a single-coil-sized humbucker.
I’m not very knowledgeable in that but I’d make sure I’m using the multimeter with the correct setting for continuity setting. You can always strip the pickguard and shield it yourself I guess. And while at it, shield the pup and input jack cavities too.
Thanks for taking the time to help. Fortunately, my cavities aren’t made for single coils only. I am not sure though about how deep they need to be in order to fit a humbucker.
Also, yes I just finished shielding the jack cavity.
Without knowing the depth of the humbucker in the new setup, it is hard to say, but there was also
Wine in the comments on Amazon for the product you linked who put it in a Squire Bullet.
The shielding on the pick guard may be coated. You would need to either scrape through it in two spots or find a screw hole. If you are uncertain, and went to all that trouble to shield your cavities, just pull off the pickups from the guard and put another layer of your shield on it.
What is wrong with the pickups you have? If this is a cosmetic change, you might save money just buying an unloaded pick guard. There doesn’t seem to be anything special about the one you linked, but I can’t read German.
Well, it is more that I’d like to have a humbucker pickup but I don’t really wanna touch my pickguard. Anyways, I added one more layer of my shield under the pickguard. I didn’t know that I could buy a single coil sized humbucker, that’s probably what I’m gonna do but they are a little expensive.
But check your pots and caps. No point whacking in a HB using the existing gear, as it will be spec’ed for single coils. BTW the middle pup on Affinity is one of these
I think the difference between a humbucker and a single coil is that the humbucker is 2 single coils next to each other so I don’t immediately see why depth would be a problem. I suppose you can measure the depth of the cavity and compare it with the specs of the pickup, bearing in mind that the pickup will never be flush with the pickguard (i.e. it will never be all the way down).
Make sure to solder a wire between the jack and pickup cavities.
