A David Gilmour Inspired Strat - Redux

A little over two years ago I put together a parts-caster using the EMG DG20 pickup set. This set of pickups was used by David Gilmour starting in around 1985 at the Live Aid concert. He'd continue to use the active pickups through about 2005 when he would return to the Black Strat and it's traditional single coils. When I first got the EMG DG20 together, it sounded good - by itself. Unfortunately most of the Gilmour sounds and pedals I'm trying to emulate are from the earlier albums, and the active pickups didn't stack well with my amplifiers and effects pedals. So given I have many guitars and this one wasn't being played - I had two options. I could try and sell it (the market for parts-casters as a unit is not good), or I could pull out the active pickups and re-wire it with single coils. After some unsuccessful attempts at the former, I settled on the latter, and I'm very happy I did!

EMG DG20 Partscaster Build

Fender electric guitars - especially the Stratocaster and Telecaster - by virtue of their construction lend themselves easily to modification. The necks bolt on, and in many cases the pickups are housed within the pickguard itself - so any modifications required fit a new pickup or even a totally new style of pickup don't require the skills of a high-end luthier. This fact quickly led to the birth of the "partscaster" - any Fender guitar that has had parts swapped, or even guitars built from parts from the outset. 

Prior to this build, I owned one Stratocaster - an overall black one with cream pickups - and yes it looks a lot like "The" Black Strat. As I'm (obviously) a David Gilmour fan, I also wanted to have a strat with the EMG active pickup set he started using in the mid-1980s. That being said, my existing strat is a special edition, and I kind of want to keep it stock. I therefore started looking for a way to build my own "partscaster" centered around the EMG DG20 electronics.