sixstring

Hi, this has probably been answered before, but I suck at searching so, can you point me in the right direction with this. I recently opened up my Squire Stratocaster thinking that I understood all this but I was completely thrown by the scary-ness of the 5 way pickup selector. I have no idea what the each of the 7 pins are for. Question 1. On a Stratocaster, there are 5 pickup selector positions. 2 and 4 are the supposed "in-between" positions as they were the result of the old system with 3 positions, one for each pickup. They were bake before break and so it was posible to balence the selector in an in-between position where two pickups were on at the same time. Later Fender made these positions clickable. Now it would be to my understanding that positions 2 and 4 would be two of the single coil pickups in parrallel. Now a humbucker, to my understanding, is two single coil pickups in series, RWRP. My question is, is it possible to wire my squire stratocaster in such a way that positions 2 and 4 are humbucking? Question 2. Is it possible to make a passive single coil pickup active? And what is the advantage? Thanks very much

I was thinking of perhaps having a pickguard made of wood on my project. Perhaps something like spruce or another tonewood. I was just toying with the idea. It would also possibly help when I paint it. What do you guys think, good idea or bad idea

Thanks for the advice guys . In response to what many of you are saying, I do intend to build only one guitar, It's possible I'll be proved wrong. Only time will tell. Where did you manage to get an 18 euro router from? All I seem to find is in the 100 pounds+ range. A dremel seems more in my price range and it does look like a very useful tool, except for hammering... I went on the dremel website and they gave me loads of facts and figures, all quite bemusing. Can anyone reccomend which model would be good for this sort of application? Tool renting... never thought of that. I'll see if their is a shop in my area. By the way, do you think a timber merchant would do a job like that if I had the res ot the neck pre-prepared?

I've been considering building a guitar for a while and recently I came up with a design that would be feasible with the tools I have. Unfortunately for me I don't have a router and I don't really want to spend the money to buy a tool that I'll only ever use once. The majority of the guitar I could do without a router, except for the truss-rod channel. This is a problem. I came up with an idea involving sticking two blocks of wood down side by side to make a channel. This unfortuanately will probably make the neck weak. Any ideas on how to make a truss rod channel or substitutes for a router?

I stand corrected You could make a guitar out of medium density fibreboard (mdf) but it wouldn't be asthetically pleasing.

Yes I know that, by the process of electromagnetic induction, sorry, my bad wording.

Ok, I've been thinking this through for a while and correct me if im wrong, I don't think that different wood actually affects the tone of the guitar. Think about it. In order for a wood to produce a tone, it has to vibrate. The only thing that can vibrate the wood on a guitar are strings. The strings on an electic guitar are thin and don't produce much vibration and therefore the vibrations have to be "picked up" by pickups. This then goes through circuitry and is amplified. The wood does not affect this at all. One could argue that wood is vibrated by the sound from the amplifier, but this still wouldn't affect the sound, as pickups generally only pick up elctromagnetic waves, which is why electric guitars have steel strings. I can only think that wood is purely for asthetics. However, I don't know everything, so if I'm wrong please let me know. Also, don't just say "you're an idiot, you're wrong", give me a reason how wood affects tone. I will happily stand corrected