Strat moding

Hey blokes. I'm going to start moding my store bought strat and I'm wondering the best way to remove the wiring without cutting them

hey Exc Rider, buy a soldering iron and heat up the existing solder joins and when the solder goes soft carefully pull the wires out of the lug holes. Might be worth looking at new pots and switch if you are upgrading the wiring too

Take a trip down to Jaycar and grab both an iron and a solder sucker or solder wick to remove the old stuff.

Head over to YouTube and have a look at some vids on "high performance soldering", your average Joe melts from the top and this is not the correct technique especially when putting the new stuff in

One of the good things about Strats is that all the electronics are on the scratch plate.

If you're planning to mod, I guess that means you're thinking of replacing the pickups - instead of removing the ones you have, buy a new scratch plate to go with the new pickups. New pots and a tone cap aren't very expensive. So build yourself a complete new scratch plate, so you can swap it out with the original in a flash. The only thing you will have to do is desolder the ground wire that connects the bridge/tremolo block to the scratch plate, usually the body of one of the pots.

As Dave says, if you haven't soldered before, you need to do some research and practice. And then practice some more. And then practice again. Soldering is one of those things that is easy to learn but difficult to master. However, as you're not building a satellite, you don't need to do the NASA course. But you do need to ensure that you make proper joints that aren't "cold". YouTube will show you the way. If you can afford it, buy a temperature-controlled iron. If you're planning on making a habit of modding, it will be money well spent.

Good luck!

As suggested by Dave above, solder suckers make light work of desoldering.

There are a few different types but I have this one

https://www.jaycar.com.au/metal-desolder-tool/p/TH1862

Money well spent...

I'm replacing all three pickups and tone heads. The scratch plate has to be custom cut, a standard srat plate doesn't fit. Still thinking about changing the design slightly.

I have a temp controlled soldering iron and have a bit of experience, having a dirt bike helps :p thanks for all the advice as well I really appreciate it

As long as you de-solder the two wires going to the jack socket, you can take the whole wiring harness off a Strat just by undoing the pot nuts and pickup screws etc. You can then de-solder the other wires away from the pickguard if you are worried about damaging the pickguard with heat.

However, I often find it better to re-wire everything with the components re-attached to the pickguard. I use vintage-style solid push-back wire, which is easy to bend into shape and wire everything very neatly - which is not as easy to do if you use a cardboard template to mount the hardware on first before transferring the whole harness to the pickguard.