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McCready Loaded Pickguard for Strat®

Regular price
£256.00 GBP
Regular price
Sale price
£256.00 GBP

Inspired by one of the worlds most famous 59' Strats, this is our take on the McCready loaded pickguard.

Super Easy, Solder-less Install

  • Obsidian® 'Vintage Plus' Wiring
  • Tonerider® PURE VINTAGE // OR
  • Obsidian® Custom Shop 'FIVE FIFTIES'
  • Fully Shielded 3 Ply Mint Green Pickguard
  • High Quality Obsidian® Knobs & Pickup Covers (Aged White & Parchment like the McCready 59' Strat)
  • Comprehensive Wiring & Pickup Upgrade

Custom Shop: Built to Order

Fast Build Time: Ships in 2-5 Business Days

Express Shipping Available: DHL Express

McCready Loaded Pickguard for Strat®
McCready Loaded Pickguard for Stratocaster using mint green pickguard and mixed aged white & parchment knobs & pickup covers.
McCready Loaded Pickguard for Stratocaster using mint green pickguard and mixed aged white & parchment knobs & pickup covers.

You Design It, We Build It...

McCready Loaded Pickguard for Strat®

Inspired by one of the worlds most famous 59' Strats, this is our take on the McCready loaded pickguard.

Super Easy, Solder-less Install

  • Obsidian® 'Vintage Plus' Wiring
  • Tonerider® PURE VINTAGE // OR
  • Obsidian® Custom Shop 'FIVE FIFTIES'
  • Fully Shielded 3 Ply Mint Green Pickguard
  • High Quality Obsidian® Knobs & Pickup Covers (Aged White & Parchment like the McCready 59' Strat)
  • Comprehensive Wiring & Pickup Upgrade

More Info...

The Wiring

Vintage Plus for Strat® Gen2

  • New 'Gen2' Model
  • Traditional '5-Way' Switching
  • Improved Tone Control Layout
  • Switchable volume control 'Voice'

The new Obsidian® Vintage Plus Gen2 for Stratocaster® has had a complete overhaul to ensure you have access to the absolute in best Stratocaster Electronics. The new upgraded harness retains the traditional five way switching, but improves the tone control layout, smooths out the tone and volume control response, and gives you two volume control 'voices' so you can get your guitar setup exactly how you like it

OBSIDIAN® LAYOUT

Tone & volume controls that make sense. For the 'Gen2' model we have assigned 'Tone control 1' to the neck and middle pickups. This leaves 'Tone control 2' as a dedicated bridge pickup tone control, for balancing the brighter treble in switch positions 1 & 2.

'VOICE' SWITCHING

Match the function of your volume control to your playing style. Match the function of the volume control to your playing style, with a 'Clear' mode and a 'Balanced' mode.

'CLEAR' MODE - Crystal clear tone at any volume level
'BALANCED' MODE - Roll off some highs with the volume control for a smooth transition between clean and crunch

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.

TRADITIONAL 5 WAY SWITCHING

The Obsidian® Vintage Plus for Strat® Gen2 retains traditional '5-way' switching with a high quality Oak® '5-way' switch.

Switch Positions:

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

The Pickups

Standard: ToneRider® True Vintage

This set is a classic 59 Strat mixture of a low copper wind around punchy Alnico V magnets, for that classic McCready chime.

Neck 5.9k / Mid 6.1k / Bridge 6.45k

More Info

Premium: ObsidianWire Custom Shop 'FIVE FIFTIES'

Handwound Strat pickups made for chime

The Obsidian Custom 'FIVE FIFTIES' set combines traditional Alnico V magnets and a low wind for a low output set that emphasizes clarity, with chimey Strat® highs. 

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 5.6k / Mid 5.6k / Bridge 5.9k

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.

Control Plates (for Jazz Bass)

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

  • Control Cavity Routing: Fits genuine Fender Jazz Bass
    Other guitars may need adjustment - Minimum // width 24mm - length 128mm - depth 30mm
  • Pickups: Electronics are made for standard two wire pickups. Other pickups may require modification or soldering.

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 18 reviews
83%
(15)
11%
(2)
6%
(1)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
D
Darin A. (Carnegie, US)
Only one criticism....

First, I want to start by saying I was very impressed with how fast my order made it all the way from NZ! When the package arrived I was very impressed an pleased with how everything was packaged. I love the look and sound of the the loaded pickguard/pickups I went with and overall I am very happy with my purchase. I would definitely purchase from Obsidian Wire again in the future! My only note would be to include item specific instructions for products. I had some trouble with my install when I ended up following the wrong diagram because I'm not technically minded at all, Once I had someone smarter than me point out I was following the wrong diagram, I was able to get everything working perfectly. Product specific instructions would have been helpful in my case.

J
Jeremy, Illinois USA (Heyworth, US)
Excellent Upgrade

I chose Obsidian so I could fix a Strat from my youth that’s been out of commission for 20+yrs. No one could figure out the issue, probably a fried board, so I replaced all the electronics with Obsidian just to save the trial and error headaches. It took some fitting due to my particular model, but Obsidian brought the Strat from my teen years back to life and it sounds much better than it ever did before. ...I should have done this years ago. You will not be disappointed with this upgrade. If I have any other needs like this in the future, I’m going straight to Obsidian first.

j
jason hoey (Atlantic Beach, US)
First time buyer

I am extremely impressed with the product. Plug and play. I will buying again soon. Jason Hoey

I
Ian Fishburn (Brisbane, AU)
Squier Upgrade

Easy install into my old Squier Strat. I will have to get another one for my American Strat now I've heard how good this sounds.

J
Jason L. (Berkeley Heights, US)
Only solderless if soldering was already done.

The quality of the pickups, pots, wiring and pickguard/knobs are all wonderful.

I ran into two things which caused me a bit of a headache.

First, this is designed and marketed as a swap in replacement, not to be put into a new guitar build. As that is what I was doing, the ground wire was not present so I still had to go buy wire to use for a ground and a soldering iron. After buying this specifically so I wouldn’t need to do that, feels like a bit of false advertising that wasn’t clear when I was buying.

Second, much less annoying but still something that caused my install to take days instead of minutes, was that the kit does not come with pickguard screws. Not an issue when you’re replacing an existing setup, but does not help for a new build.

Hi Jason - thanks for the feedback on this! Really appreciate it. We have made some changes to the product page to make it clearer for future.
Cheers,
Caitlin

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