Here's the deal with my old Squier Strat:

The neck's fine but the body is breathing its last. Numerous botched repair jobs (it was my first guitar after all) have left worn-out screw holes, a poorly-functioning trem and the whole thing is one of those Bullet strats so the body is less-than-full-size anyway.

My plan is to take the neck and two of the pickups and fit them to a new body. Assuming it matches up (since Squier string spacing is narrower I'm not yet sure if the fretboard is wide enough to accomodate standard Fender string spacing) I'm thinking about going for a humbucker in the bridge.

As I understand it, the standard strat wiring assigns a separate tone knob to the neck and middle pickups with a master volume and no tone control on the bridge pickup at all. Since a humbucker has a different eq curve I'd prefer an arrangement that assigns one tone control shared by both the neck and middle pickups, leaving the other tone control to act on the bridge humbucker only. The volume knob would then work as normal, i.e. a master volume control.

I don't know if this is commonly-done on HSS strats, or if it's even doable. I'm assuming it would involve soldering the tone pot wires to the 5-way selector switch differently, but I'd like to hear of anyone else who's tried this.

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Guitar rig: CIJ Fender Jazzmaster/CIJ Fender Mustang -> TU-3 -> RV-5 -> OD-3 -> custom IC Muff -> PS-2 -> DD-3 -> RE-20 -> LS-2 -> Fender '65 DRRI & Mesa/Boogie F-50

Bass rig: Fender MIM Jazz Bass -> TU-2 -> RAT 2 -> Sansamp BDDI -> RV-3

"...So now you know the true secret to great tone: all the espresso you can handle."

I'm sure it's posssible. The general idea of a tone pot is a capacitor (and a pot, of course) in parallel to the pick-up(s). Since you want them to work only on some of them at a time you have to place them before the switch.

so far for the theory... I can't provide a suggestion for a circuit diagramm though. Sorry.

Definitely do-able and quite easy if you're into that sort of thing. I'm not - I had a tech do it. Mine is a typical SSS strat and I still have it that way. I think Eric Johnson and a few others do too.

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Crustaceo ergo sum

Connect the volume pot to the jack, connect the neck/middle tone pot to the switch where it connects to said pickups, do likewise with the bridge tone control. That should do it.

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crew

Selling BOSS FW-3. I live in Brazil, mind you, so prepare yourself for $30-ish for shipping and waiting. Local pickup available, along with beautiful beaches and cheap bitches.

Mixing Squier and Standard parts is opening up a can of worms. The stripped screw holes are usually easy to fix, especially in wood. Use tooth picks and wood glue. The trem can probably be repaired and set up. You might consider a Hot Rail. My go to guitar is a an old Japanese Squier. I put a new guardplate, pickups, and electronics on it years ago. The pole pieces don't line up with the strings perfectly on the bridge pickup, but it is centered. Still sounds better than most Strats to my ears. Most suppliers will sell you a pre-wired guard plate with the pickups and electronics installed for just a bit more than the pickup set you choose. That's what l did. It took a little fiddling to make it fit, but once together I haven't touched it for 10 years exceptvto change strings and clean it.

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Stage Guitars: '80s Thin line LP Custom, '70 LP Standard, '83 Squier Black Headstock Strat w/ Dan Torres pickups, '59 Black Danelectro DC, sometimes others.

Pedal Board: Nady UHF 10 -> TU2 -> Rocktron Big Crush -> 70s MXR Phase 100 -> Cry Baby -> Bad Monkey -> Early '80s Rat -> Early '80s Ibanez CS 9 -> Ibanez DE 7 -> Behringer Dr 100 Stereo Reverb

Stage amps: '63 Blonde Tremolux w/ two original 2X10 cabinets with a '60 Ampeg Rocket/18 watt VTB Marshall clone/ Epi VJ into a Mashall 1965A

Thanks for the replies so far guys. It's good to know that it's at least doable.

As far as the rest of the guitar's concerned, it really is a write-off. The trem is a two-screw pivot thing that doesn't hold in tune, the body size means that no standard pickguard will fit and I've only really kept it for sentimental reasons. Assuming it fits a replacement body, the neck (and the replacement pickups I fitted a few months back) are the only parts that are salvageable. Assuming I can find two-prong machine heads that fit...

Added to this is that old Squier vs. standard Fender compatibility issue that olddawg mentioned, which makes me inclined to simply bolt the (very nice) neck onto a standard Fender body!

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Guitar rig: CIJ Fender Jazzmaster/CIJ Fender Mustang -> TU-3 -> RV-5 -> OD-3 -> custom IC Muff -> PS-2 -> DD-3 -> RE-20 -> LS-2 -> Fender '65 DRRI & Mesa/Boogie F-50

Bass rig: Fender MIM Jazz Bass -> TU-2 -> RAT 2 -> Sansamp BDDI -> RV-3

"...So now you know the true secret to great tone: all the espresso you can handle."

But.......

With the amount of money you will be spending to create something decent to bolt the neck onto, you could just buy a whole guitar.

Just my $.02

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I'm just two people short of a threesome.