Prewired Strat Pickguard
$345.00 – $362.00
Don’t settle for some one-size-fits-all generic pickguard. Design your own with the finest-quality materials in the industry. Our Strat Prewired Pickguards are the perfect product for anyone who wants the Fralin Tone, instantly. We use the finest materials available: from CTS® Pots, AllParts® Pickguards, and CRL® Switches.
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Our Pickups, Your Personality.
Want to learn more about our Prewired Strat Pickguard? Here's all the information you'll need:
Prewired Strat Pickguard FEATURES:
- The ultimate “Build Your Own” Stratocaster Pickguard
- USA-Made pickups & electronics for superior quality
- Hand-wired with USA-Made vintage cloth lead for a traditional look
- Fully customizable – from appearance to function
- Features a variety of Push-Pull mods for a personalized tone
- Hand-assembled signed and dated by our pickguard craftsman
- 10-year warranty on materials and craftsmanship
Overview
At Fralin Pickups, we’re always trying to make you sound better. The Fralin Prewired Pickguard offers the best tone and highest quality available. We use our world-famous pickups with the best ingredients we can get. We hand-wire our prewired pickguard with painstaking attention to detail.
Furthermore, you can customize your pickguard exactly how you want it! With this Prewired Pickguard, you can have the famous Fralin tone and ease of mind. All you need to do is solder a few wires, screw it in, string it up, and you’re off rocking!
Sound & Look
Choose Your Pickguard
We use the finest quality pickguards available. These are standard USA-Made 11-hole Stratocaster pickguards. The following options are available:
We wanted to use the highest-quality, USA-Made pickguards available. We have Single Ply White (8-hole vintage style), 3-Ply White, Mint Green, Parchment, Black, White Pearloid, Parchment Pearloid, and Tortoise.
Choose your pickups
With our pickguards, you can choose any combination of pickups you would like. Load in a calibrated set of pickups like our best-selling Vintage Hots or Blues Specials, or mix and match!
Choose your Cover Color
Customize your look further with our Strat Pickup Covers. We have Black, Mint Green, Parchment (Aged White), and White covers available.
Wiring
You can customize your wiring as well! We’ll wire your pickguard to your specifications. Most of the time, you’re going to use 250K Split Shaft Pots, as these work well with our plastic knobs. If you’re using your own metal knobs with a set-screw, choose Solid Shaft pots. Confused? Check out our in-depth article on pots and how to choose here.
Here are some popular combinations:
- Master Tone with a Blender Pot
- Neck & Middle Tone and separate Bridge Tone
- Master Tone 1 (.02 Cap) – Master Tone 2 (Magic Cap)
Addons
We have a ton of add-ons available for your pickguard. Want a baseplate installed on your bridge? How about our Volume Kit? Need new pickguard screws? Just let us know!
Knobs:
Matching Backplates:
Complete your look with a matching backplate for your Strat. We have matching backplates for all of our pickguard colors.
Installation
Check out our installation guide below to put your new pickguard in! With 20 minutes a few easy steps, you can get your pickguard in your guitar and start rocking out with some of the best sounding pickups in the world! Follow the Installation Guide below, or watch the video:
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FAQs
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How long will my Pickguard take? One week on average.
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Can you wire it up without the Pickguard? As it turns out, No. You can transfer all the wiring once you receive it. It’s time-consuming and unsafe to ship it without a pickguard.
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Can I return my Pickguard? No. Since these are custom and made to order, all pickguard sales are final. Returns and exchanges are not available.
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What Pots should I use? Most of the time, 250K Split Shaft pots will work best. They are for guitars with single-coil pickups and plastic knobs. If you have metal knobs, go with Solid Shaft Pots. To order Solid Shaft Pots, please use the “notes” field on the checkout screen.
- Do you offer Pickguards in Left-Handed Configuration? Yes – we only offer them in the following 4 options: White 3 Ply, Black 3-Ply, Parchment 3-Ply, and White Pearloid. Please use the “Notes” field to request Left Hand after you’ve selected your options. Note: We can’t perform common push-pull mods on Left-Handed Pickguards.
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What if I don’t see exactly what I want? Use the “Notes” field on the checkout screen to type in any special requests – we’ll try our best to accommodate you. Not all custom wiring options are possible.
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What does a Magic Cap do? Our Magic Cap is a very low capacitance tone cap. It doesn’t roll off highs as much as it seems to boost the mids. This really works well on the bridge pickup only.
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What does a Blender Pot do? Our Blender Pot takes the place of Tone #2, and it allows you to blend between the Neck and Bridge. You can get all 3 pickups on, and Neck and Bridge combinations with a Blender Pot.
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What does a Baseplate do? A Baseplate is a steel plate that adds a little bit of bass and power to your bridge pickup.
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Why don’t I see Ground Jumper wires between all my parts? Our pickguards have a metal shielding that connects the metal parts together – we don’t need to use jumper wires.
Prewired Strat Pickguard Questions And Answers:
Have a question about our Prewired Strat Pickguard? Leave it here! We will answer your question within 24 hours.
CUSTOMER REVIEWS
144 reviews for Prewired Strat Pickguard
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In love
I’ve floated around using vintage / worn/faulty, and cheapish / mid range pickups for years. I always blamed myself for the poor tone. Sure, I can always improve, but I finally decided to go for a real top-end pickup set. I bought these based on my listening tests, and my guitar now sounds so amazing. The balance between the pickups, and between the strings, is perfect. My other guitars now suck. I’ll definitely be buying Fralin pickups for my others as I can afford them!
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Vintage Hot prewired pickguard
I couldn’t be happier with my prewired pickguard purchase. I had a MIM strat that wasn’t quite giving me the tone I was seeking. Ever since I swapped these pickups in I haven’t been able to put that guitar down. I got the treble base plate, as well as the blender pot to explore more sounds as well. Now I can get great tones from all of pickups now where I used to only use the neck pickup with the stock set. I’m still exploring and figuring out what I like, but the dynamics are really stellar on these pickups and give back what you put into the strings.
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Amazing. Took my Strat to another level. Love them!
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Excellent Pickups
I put these in a 1990 MIJ ST54 just great sounding pickups, the guitar came to life, they have the classic strat sound, no brittle sound, just the right amount of bite, and smoothness, they overdrive heavenly, I love these pickups !! Great customer service, and communication, if anyone reads this and their thinking about a new set of pickups, I promise you this is the place, I’m so glad I made this purchase
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Good, but would do things differently next time
Overall, I like the tone of the pickups at full volume. They came nicely packages and within a reasonable time considering COVID. They have nice vintage tone, somewhat similar to the Fat50 Custom shop pickups, albeit with a different midrange. I was a bit disappointed that the guard did not come cut for the truss rod adjustment of the Elite Strat. At this point, adjustment wheels are quite common. When I emailed asking the best way to cut out the space, I received a disappointing, “I don’t know” as reply. If I order again, I would NOT get the treble bleed option. The tone [at lower volumes] is overly bright. It acts much like my Deluxe Reverb in that at lower volumes, the treble boost causes the amp to be too bright. Not until you get to 5-7 does the real range of the amp come through. Same for Fralin’s treble bleed. The guitar takes on a completely different tone as the volume is turned up. The best treble bleed I’ve played was with GregKoch’s signature Fishman pickups. The circuit there is very balanced. The guitar tone is the same regardless of the volume position. Unfortunately, it’s simply not the case here. The loaded pickguard option is a nice one. Overall, I would buy another but omit the treble bleed. Advice to the fine folks at Fralin – add an option for truss rod adjustment wheel cutouts.
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Loaded Pickguard with Real ‘54’s
As you could imagine these came and sounded just as incredible as one would hope… even better actually. I had to call the store and thank them and then immediately order another. Couldn’t be happier!!! Incredible quality and worth every penny
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Mmmmhmm. I bought a set of Vintage Hots for my best Strat, I and love them. There is an online video of Lindy playing Vintage Hots, and he is playing the part of “Third Stone from the Sun” –that is exactly the sound I wanted when I bought these pickups, and it is the sound I got. Totally satisfied.
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Vintage hot pickups are just what I was looking for!
These pickups have made my Strat (50th Anniversary Am Dlx) finally sound like a Strat! The SCN originals that came in the guitar were sterile as hell. The pre-wired guard is shielded very well. Barely any hum whatsoever. Very impressed. The ‘bell-like tone’ I get through my DRRI is sublime, and the ‘quack’ on positions 2 and 4 is perfect. Love these pickups and they’ve made me start playing again after several years of barely picking up the guitar.
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Mmmmhmm.
I bought a set of Vintage Hots for my best Strat, I and love them. There is an online video of Lindy playing Vintage Hots, and he is playing part of “Third Stone from the Sun” –that is exactly the sound I wanted when I bought these pickups, and it is the sound I got. Totally satisfied.
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I recently purchased a split pole pickup. Can it be installed with 2 Blues Special pickups prewired. Also, what would be the recomended and optional pot comfigurations?
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Swamp ash body, chunky one-piece maple neck, Fralins vintage hot, or 54’s….hard to beat that… Thanks a lot.
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Great product
I’ve purchased two of these. One with Real 54s in the neck and middle with a Vintage Hot in the bridge and another with Blues Specials in all three positions. I also added the steel baseplate in both bridge pickups along with volume kits and push pulls for the master tone and blender pots. Both sets sound fantastic and different enough in character to easily justify buying both. With proper shielding, they have very little hum but provide incredible single-coil tones. Customer service was great too, Lindey himself called me in reference to both orders to make sure they had it the way I wanted. First-rate service and the best tones available! Will definitely buy pickups from them again.
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I recently built a hardtail Strat and purchased my first Fralin Prewired Pickguard, with Vintage Hots in the neck and middle and a Blues Special in the bridge, along with a Blender Pot option. My entire experience from using the website to configure the pickguard with options to the delivery was top notch. The pickups sound truly incredible. Glassy, articulate, punchy, clarity … are words that come to mind. I was going after a build of Nile Rodgers “Hitmaker” and would like to say it’s right there. And how have I lived without a Blender Pot? The option to add in or take away the neck and bridge pups on demand makes my new build completely versatile. Thank you Lindy and team for a great experience and such a high quality product.
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Fralin Pickups — so good…
This is the third loaded pickguard I’ve purchased from Fralin in the past five months. I have the Real 54s, Blues Specials, and now the Vintage Hots — making three pretty good guitars great. And now it’s hard to decide which to play. Wanting something a little more straightforward, I actually replaced the multi-dimensional S1 switching on an American Deluxe with the pure Fralin goodness of the Blues Specials. But the MIM Pearl Seafoam with the Real 54s quickly became my favorite guitar. And now I’m torn — because the Torino Red American Standard with the Vintage Hots and the mint pickguard is in a class all its own. I am no luthier and was a little reluctant to do the work myself (really just soldering — though I copper shielded the Torino) but after calling Fralin about the extra tone caps I received I really came away knowing this was going to be straight forward, fun, and rewarding. Looking forward to actually doing the wiring myself next time. Thank you Mr. Fralin!
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Installs in minutes, pickups sound great! This prewired was the ideal drop-in replacement. A couple of touches of solder and done in about 15 minutes. The pickups are the reason to get this. They’re perfect. Simply perfect.
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Split blade blues on warmoth
I sought advice from Tyler, I was unfamiliar with frallin pickups and he advertises his jazz lessons. I was looking for a jazz tone and was led to the split blade pickguard, blues with 500k volume and tone with a blender pot. Install was easy, no buzzing, clean tone, very satisfied. I hope to build a t style next and plan on using frallin pickups again. -
It’s like I have a new guitar.
Bought these in an effort to be more satisfied with my strat tone. I have a 2019 American Professional Strat and never loved the stock pickups. The neck is too wooly. The bridge is too thin. And the middle I’ve found practically unusable and basically only good to add quack to position 2 and 4. I was impressed with the description and sound of the Steel Pole 42s so wanted to give them a try. I also opted to add a blender knob since I like the in between sound of a tele over that of a strat in position 2 and 4. I have to say I love these pickups and they’ve really changed my opinion of my strat as a whole. I was considering selling this guitar but now that they have a set of Steel Pole 42s it’s become my main guitar. As opposed to the stock pickups, these pickups have a more even sound across all positions. The bridge isn’t thin. It’s trebly but still full and rich. The neck is probably pretty close to my ideal tone. The middle pickup is a little quacky but in a usable way. I think what I like best is every position retains the same character but just changes the tonality. The workmanship is stellar. My only complaint is that the stock pickups were shielded better so these are a bit more prone to single coil noise. But it doesn’t impact my enjoyment of them. I couldn’t imagine a better set of pickups for the same price. -
Real 54s were the ticket!
Beautiful tone has revived my love of my Strat Elite. Much better sounding than the noiseless pickups it came with. Got good advice from the folks at Fralin. Note: if you have an American Elite Strat, you may have to use the stock pick guard because it will have the notch for the truss rod adjustment wheel. -
New Pickups in a Vintage Fender Strat
Lindy, I’m very happy with my new pickups. The tone is fantastic, and the workmanship superb. In fact, I will be ordering another set in March.
thanks – Jeff -
Fully Customizable Loaded Pickguard!
I was so happy to find that not only could I get the pickups I wanted, but to be able to select the options I wanted with regard to pots and mods!My plan all along was to wire the pickguard with as a master tone/blender combination. I was actually dreading it, as I am pretty good with soldering, but not great.
Having the pickguard created ready to install was a huge relief! I have been using it for a couple weeks now and love it.
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Customer added no additional comments
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Blues Specials – Second loaded pickguard, both filled with creamy goodness! I could not be more satisfied
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Love, love, love the TONE!!
I have an amazing 2012 America Strat that came with Fat 50’s. They were great, sound was very vintage, but just lacked a little something. This year I splurged and ordered a loaded pick guard from Frailin with Blues Specials installed. The guitar now has amazing tone and is super articulate. You can hear every detail the guitar produces through these pickups. Every time I play, someone asks me what pedal are you running to get that tone. My reply is: it’s just these Frailin pickups a Tube Screamer and my Deluxe Reverb. Definitely add the bass plate to the bridge pickup, gives it a little more midrange, and the tone mod is a must as well. Thanks Lindy and team for the attention to detail!! These PU’s are amazing. -
Absolutely amazing
I made the change to the Blues Specials when my friend commented on the overly bright tone of my Fender Texas Specials in my Strat. I have to say these pickups have made my MIM Strat come to life. These pickups are so dynamic and make every note ring out with amazing clarity and tone. These pickups sound so dynamic through my Orange Tremlord 30 tube amp and just as amazing through my Orange 10 watt solid state amp. I am a now converted Frahlin pickup user and already planning to upgrade my PRS CE 24 with a set of Unbuckers.
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NOTES ON COLOR:
- Please note that while we strive to provide the most accurate color representation possible, different computer monitors, manufacturer dye lots, and other circumstances may prevent the color from matching perfectly.
- Since we cannot guarantee color matching, we cannot provide a return to you if you are unhappy with the color matching of our Prewired Strat Pickguard.
HARNESSES:
- Our parts and wire lengths are designed to work seamlessly with our Prewired Strat Pickguard. Due to various guitar and instrument designs, we cannot guarantee that our parts will fit properly, and due to this, we do not offer Wiring Harnesses.
I recently purchased a split pole pickup. Can it be installed with 2 Blues Special pickups prewired. Also, what would be the recomended and optional pot comfigurations?
Hey Bruce,
I’m a bit confused on your question. Are you referring to a pickup we are currently making, or one that you currently have? If we’re still making the Split Blade / Split Steel Pole, we can stop the order and get a Prewired Pickguard in the works for you. If you currently have the pickup, you can’t send it in for pre-wiring at the moment. Regarding the Pot Values, we recommend 250K pots, and the Vintage or High Output Split Blade models will match nicely with the Blues Specials.