Excuse the meh photos, but my pup Tippy should make up for them. Did my first ever mods and went all-in with a complete replacement of everything on a SSS Bullet Strat. Here's what I did:
-SSL-1 Vintage Staggered in the neck -SSL-1 Vintage Staggered RWRP in the middle -SH-6b Distortion in the bridge -CTS 500k push-pull tone pot to coil split the Distortion -CTS 250k pots for the other tone and volume -Fender five-way switch (to replace the Squier import switch) -Copper shielding on the pickguard and control cavity -Abalone pearl pickguard -Treble bleed circuit on the volume pot
Next round of upgrades will be tuners, attention to the frets, etc, though this guitar already plays just as well or maybe even better (IMO) than my Player Telecaster. The Distortion is perfect for my typical black metal, and coil splitting gives it tons of versatility for the other genres I like such as shoegaze, emo, and more.
Wow, this pickguard is trippy. Love the color scheme you have there.
Thanks! I wanted something unique but not way out there, so this design gets you the classic look of pearl/tortoiseshell with a unique color palette I don't recall ever seeing before.