rewiring a strat

ive been thinking about putting low output 60's pick ups in my strat and when i do so im gonna have all the wires redone any wiring kit and pot(mine are really unresponive when i want to do swells) reccomendations and any do's or donts when i take it to the shop, id try this myself with a squier but since its my number one im going to have a guitar tech do it

don't take it to a big box store, those guys won't do any better of a job than you will. If you aren't changing it from stock I would recommend opening it up and looking at the assembly before deciding to replace everything. Whats in there for wire and a switch might be fine and you will just need better pots and the new pickups. Why not just drop those 6 items in then? I would say that tis not worth rewiring unless you are going to go fancy with soemthing solid core like the evidence audio wire or go true vintage with the solid core push-back cloth covered wire (which I seem to always use ebcause I got a lot of it for free from angeltone pickups thank to a big year of custo pickup orders and also testing for Ken.

Personally I don't like Alpha pots but I've used them and they work okay. Not the soothest taper and they just feel chintzy, I dunno. I like CTS and Bourns for guitar controls and you KNOW I am a guy who works those volumes and tones so I'm not BSing you. The stock CTS pots are more than fine. Bourns are cheaper usually but the cheapest ones aren't as smooth as CTS. There are better pots than stoc audio taper CTS for this purpose (or some are special order CTS pots or sorted ones, guitarists are crazy and the little guitar specialty electronics websited will stock anything they think they can sell at an upcharge), but to be honest its diminishing returns. So much of good volume and tone swells is about knob weight versus the pot smoothness and taper and a strat is not the ideal knob style for great swells to begin with. Get a decent pot but after that make the best of it. Tele knobs, gretsch knobs and Gibson speed knobs are the ebst for smooth adjustments and special effects in my experience. Put any of those on a CTS audio taper pot and you're good to go. Gibson top hats, strat knobs? not as good. Strats are the worst because theya re the lightest and those pots are suspended to a flexible sheet of PVC (nitro cellulose is a little stiffer, but not substantially so until its old and cracking). Anything light with bad grip? easy to get it moving but even with the smoothest pots from like RS guitar works and Specialty Guitar you are looking at a knob that requires too much strength to keep moving steadily while playing. suspend those, small, light plastic knobs knobs on a PVC pickguard and I feel like it doesn't matter what kinda pot you chose, you never get optimum performance. If the knob floats too low it rubs and if its too high its easy to get the pickguard flexing and fighting you in ways you barely feel but definitely HEAR

for your strat I would be looking for a heavier pickgaurd material, nitro, bakelite etc....or back it with a decently thick metal sheet for shielding, that wills tiffen it though. Foil won't but there are products that will... I would also be looking for ehavier knobs, I might even consder going with a more logical shape. Honestly, heavy knurl tele knobs can look good on a strat. Go ahead and stick with split shaft since you can screw a knob into a split shaft but you can't push a plastic knob onto a solid shaft....