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Just for the fun of it, I always wanted to build a Strat style guitar that had some cool, on-board lighting effects. So, with a little time on my hands this winter, I found an inexpensive Strat style guitar on ebay that had a clear acrylic body that I thought would be a good candidate for the project. So the devious psycho-Strat plan was set into motion .

The first thing I did was to gut/rebuild the existing electronics and replace the pickups with a set of Fender Custom Shop Texas Specials that I had laying around from a previous project. Next, I routed a slot in the body for a 9 volt battery that will be used to power the on-board lighting. Finally, I installed 4 multi-color LED's, wired up the associated switching, and re-dressed the fretwork .

The multi-color LED's are capable of 6 solid colors and one random flashing mode. Here are photo's of the finished project psycho-Strat with the first photo showing how the guitar looks in normal room light followed by 3 of the 6 solid colors in semi-darkness:

AMAZING! Is that cool or what? Beautiful job, Vec!

That is really cool Vaugn, I've never seen a psychedelic guitar like that before; great idea! How about making the dot markers glow in the dark too?
(Actually, a few years back I wrote to Fender with my wacky idea about glowing dot markers...but I guess it was too wacky cuz I've never had any reply from them...or even been rewarded a free Strat ...

Very cool! Rickenbacker had a lighted psychedelic guitar way back when - they go for huge prices now. You now have a guitar that you can change the color to suit your mood ... nice!
Dennis

GattonFan wrote:You now have a guitar that you can change the color to suit your mood ...

I can almost hear an audience calling out requests...not for sound adjustments like "more reverb!!" etc., but ...for COLOUR!!

In one of Tommy Tedesco's books, he mentions doing a session for a producer who asked him to "play it more green"...with that guitar he could've done it!

This may sound strange but, if I'm just fiddlin' around my den, I've noticed that changing the color setting of the guitar's lighting seems to affect how & what I play. Psychologists say that color affects our mood and, based on my chameleon psycho-Strat, I think I agree with that. Red seems to bring out more aggressive playing, blue & green seem to mellow, yellowish/amber seems to bring out happy. Funny how that works. Now, if I get the time to tinker with it, it might be cool to see if I can get the lighting to vary with what I'm playing.

Cool strat, but I think you have way too much time on your hands

woodchuck30 wrote:Cool strat, but I think you have way too much time on your hands

Yup...got laid off from my job a few months ago with the crap economy and I don't want my hands to become the devil's workshop...so I sit around coming up with silly guitar ideas and try to flesh them out .

I'd really like to purchase another Hallmark Custom 60 but, for now, the creative juices seem to be flowing...and they just manifest themselves in silly guitar ideas .

Not to get off topic but I know it sucks to get laid off. I got laid off around this time last year then got called back 2 months later with a promotion and a raise. Then 3 weeks ago I had to lay off 3 of the 5 guys on my crew.