Musiclily Basic Loaded ST-HSS Pickguard with Ceramic Pickups 3Ply White

Rarely write reviews but have to for this product. My black burst squier affinity strat (perfect condition) fell 2ft vertically onto floor while sitting. After this the bridge selection would not make any sound when strings played and was buzzing, and the other 4 positions had bad humming. I looked around online but couldn't find any obvious explanations/solutions. My only soldering experience has been replacing a telecaster switch and whilst I took off the pickguard and tried to follow a wiring diagram I could not resolve the issue. I first considered buying a new guitar and just selling the body and/or neck as I imagined a tech visit would be costly (bought the guitar for only appx £200 2 years ago). I searched for "squier replacement parts" which didn't bring up much for my electronics skill level, and the same guitar now costs appx £265. Then I luckily came across "loaded pickguards" which led me to this product. I easily soldered 1 ground wire to the trem claw and the other ground + live wire onto the wires that were left coming off of the input jack - could have removed these previous wires and soldered new ones directly onto input jack but this was easier for me. It was a bit of a challenge to get everything tucked in so that the pickguard could be screwed down but the holes alligned perfectly. I actually prefer the sound of these pickups over the stock affinity squier ones, especially the bridge and neck positions. I hope given how cheap this was no sound problems arise in the future but for now this was an absolute bargain and literally saved my guitar - looks & plays good as new.

It is what it says. Needed to be trimmed to fit properly, easy enough to do. Added new life to my old guitar. Good sound from the pickups, improvement on old ones. Very happy with this mod.

First off, having done this replacement the Musically loaded SSH pickguard works. I'm only using a 4 watt practice amp but with headphones the guitar sounds as good as it ever did. I have a few observations on using it in the Sunn Strat and why I have it as 4* not 5* The pickguard didn't fit the original holes, only one aligned. I expected this by comparing the photo with my guitar. I didn't expect the hole next to the bottom pot to hit a void though. So be warned... The overall build quality is much less sturdy than the original. The pickguard plastic is more flimsy, the wire and insulation is MUCH thinner. On the plus side this means it's still easy to thread the two wires through to the jack. The sun had a two in one wire. The screws holding the pickguard on are MUCH larger, compared to the Sunny's tiny screws. This means they protrude above the countersinking unlike the Sunn's. So in theory, it's possible you might catch a knuckle, in practice it's not happened after an hour or so's punk playing. It doesn't look as neat as a result though, and I prefer the really small screws. I couldn't reuse them as they were tarnished. I had to use my old screw head bolts from the Sunn to hold the humbucker in place as the new ones were too long to fit in the void and this seemed easier that drilling out new cavities. This seemed a little weird, As I can't imagine wanting to position the pickup anywhere near that low...? It also means I have two tarnished screws on and otherwise sparling install. On the plus side the pickguard covered all the old holes only revealing a small flat area that had previously been hidden. A small price to get the guitar working again so cheaply. The photos of this item are excellent and the wiring diagram is both essential (for me) and easy to follow when it came to soldering it into place. My photos are of what I replaced purely to elaborate on my comments. Without this product at this price another strat copy may have simply died, as it wasn't worth spending more than this on it, so thanks Musiclily. (And no I don't work for them). I took the opportunity to redo the setup, following the fender online school advice on adjusting the truss rod to sort out a slight hump in the neck, and setting new string heights, it now plays as well as it did it the 1990s. This was a pretty straightforward mini project that took a few hours, what with restringing, cleaning etc... Well worth having a go if you are thinking about it. I'm glad I did.

Gift happily received no bad comments

Had to return this item. Visually it looked very good. I was trying to refurb an old 'Strat type' guitar with a great action for my grandson to learn on. Unfortunately, the pickups did not align properly, The old guitar has a non standard neck and bridge I think. I have purchased Blade type pickups to solve the issue.

It's ok, the humbucker isnt great but at least it gives an unused squire some usability. The fit wasn't perfect, my squire strat bullet has the correct spacing but this didn't fit snug, it has a slight buldge on the center because of where the wires sit and also the height of the pickups were a bit off, took a bit of force to get them level. I think it's good for the price but I wouldn't buy it again, theres better options out there.

The end result is good and the sound of the guitar is much improved. There was a lot of modifications to make to the guitar so that the new pick guard and pick ups can be fitted. The end results were worth the effort.

I bought this for a project guitar I was putting together - I didn't want anything at all expensive for an untested/untried rig. I didn't actually use the frame as I had created my own but it was easy to remove the component parts and then refit. The wiring and soldering seems to be ok and I didn't have to make any adjustments. There isn't a jack with this but bought one separately and was easy enough to solder the connections. Works well and for the price I am happy enough with the sound quality.

I bought this loaded pickguard because my HSS Strat's humbucker worked intermittently and I couldn't diagnose the problem. I figured it was cheaper and easier just to replace all of the pickups with this kit. The installation was very easy and the only issue I had was the screw holes not completely lining up. I found out it's because my guitar is made in Japan and it's different from Mexican/American Strats. I still made it work however. The new pickups sound better to my ears. I find myself using all 5 of the switch positions, when I only used 3 at most on the originals. The humbucker can't be split or adjusted with the tone knob, but I didn't use that much on the old pickup to begin with. Overall, a great value.

I bo't this Musiclily pre-wired pickguard for installation into a guitar I refinished. I'm very pleased with how the project worked out. The original pickups in this project were 3 single coils, I prefer at least one humbucker in a 3 pup guitar. The new pups perform perfectly well, I have nothing negative to say about them. The PG screw holes did not all line up perfectly but there's no way on earth we can expect them to!! No matter, I drilled as required and the empty original holes are covered anyway. Musiclily stuff has always been great for me.

I bought this to put into my cheap strat copy, it had a white pickguard and the kids called it the Santa guitar, and I'm to metal for all that. Anyway. Arrived fast, well packaged. For the price good quality parts, solid solder joints. Be aware that you might have to drill new holes and fiddle with cables to make it fit. I'm very happy with how it turned out. I'll be replacing all the chrome hardware with black alternatives from Musiclily eventually.

i bought this for my "experiment" guitar, great quality, had to swap out he screws on the humbucker because the well wasnt deep enough but u doubt that would be a common problem

Ho ordinato questo battipenna precablato per migliorare il suono della mia Squire Bullet, ad un prezzo così conveniente ho fatto un grande salto di qualità ed i pick-ups spingono veramente bene! Risultano più cristallini e corposi rispetto ai precedenti di serie. Sono molto soddisfatto dell' acquisto e li consiglio a chi vorrebbe fare un upgrade alla propria chitarra di fascia economica. Il montaggio è stato anche abbastanza veloce essendo pochi cavi da stagnare, grazie.