SX Strat Project

[Kai]

I have a year old SX strat, in mostly good condition. Its a cheap but good quality guitar and I’m thinking about replacing some parts and leaving the body. Any suggestions?

[Professor Woozle]

Hi and welcome to the forum! If the neck is OK then I'd be inclined to keep it, but replace the tuners and the nut - graphite nut would be my choice, and as good quality tuners as your budget allows, if you keep an eye on Ebay you might be able to get something decent (Schaller/Gotoh/Grover/Hipshot/Sperzel) second hand. The pickups and pots are the other thing to look at changing, there are plenty of options for ready-wired strat sets so it all depends on what you want in terms of sound/switching and how much you're willing to spend.

[Bizman62]

If the basics are OK you can fine tune the guitar as much or as little as you want to. A full setup job is where I'd start, making the guitar play as smoothly as possible. That's something that even the high priced guitars often need. You know, filing the fret ends flush with the fretboard and rounding them. leveling the frets, setting the action and intonation, all that stuff. Replacing the nut is not the first thing to do although if it's sticky you might want to. But often some reshaping and a couple of strokes with a pencil is all it takes.

Changing the electronics is another thing. If the pickups sound good to your ears, why change them? Same with pots and switches, if they don't rattle or pop why bother until they do require maintenance. If however, as @Professor Woozle said, there's options that you'd like to add, getting a ready-wired set might be a good option. Then again, some mods require moderate skills so adding a mini switch or a push-pull pot might do the trick as well and teach you a lesson or two.

The SX seems to have got some pretty good reviews so I wouldn't change it too much at once. If it ain't broken, don't fix it!