After all that I've decided not to hard-tail the Strat.  I got a good deal on a Fender vintage fat block trem.  Some silly bugger at a shop in Folkestone has reduced the price of the Strat too, by about fifty notes.  That's me skint for a while.

This is my modified Jaguar Short Scale bass b.t.w.  New Seymour Duncan pickups, a nice chunky Gotoh bridge and sundry gold bits and pieces.  The range of tones I can get out of her now is excellent.



Something similar will be happening to the Strat.

It's the same story with car parts, slinger. I'm currently importing a carbon fibre bonnet from the USA, crazy when you think about it.

I imported a fully loaded scratchplate from the USA after I decided that I preferred the simplicity of a standard Stratocaster.
The guitar was originally HSS, with a S1 switch and a passing lane switch, and there were a few things that over time I didn't get on with.


Anyway, I went with the Fender hot noiseless pickups in a brown tortoiseshell scratchplate, CTS pots etc.
I got smacked with about £50 worth of VAT, import duty and administration charges, which hurt a bit.

If you've not been hit you're lucky.
The European (EU) sourced components don't carry additional duty anyway, so I'll definitely be looking to the East for future purchases.

You bloody jinx. 

I've just been clobbered with a £20.80 surcharge on the pickups from America.  First time ever.

It depends by what you mean by customised
So something like a flying V is designed to convey a certain style or image
Something like a tremolo arm is there to create different aspects of sound
So they can fall into two groups functional and aesthetic

Gold plating is not something I'd actively seek out - it's impractical, as it invariably wears off over time.  Chrome is much harder wearing.
I've switched hardware out for practical reasons - I have locking tuners on both my pearl white strat and my candy apple red strat.  The locking tuners make restringing a breeze.

I switched out the complete scratchplate on the pearl white strat - it came with the same configuration as the one pictured above, and I eventually came to the realisation that I preferred the standard strat configuration, so I fitted a fully loaded scratchplate to give me that.  The original scratchplate now resides in a box unmolested, so if I decide to return the guitar to its original condition it's a simple task to do so.

I did fit a tip to the end of the tremolo arm, because I prefer to use tipped arms.

I also have a Squier Jazz Bazz.
I changed the bridge for a much better engineered one.
The original bridge was quite flimsy, and it was possible to get the bridge saddles to move.
The one below is a solid as a rock, and once set it does not drift over time.  Despite its looks it's no heavier that the original unit, and sustain and tone is improved.





So as you can see, I'm not immune to the customisation bug, but for me practicality is a driving factor.

Other guitarists customise their instruments to personalise them.
They switch out pickups searching for that elusive sound, thinking product X will make them sound better, when in reality it doesn't.  If they spent more time practising they'd get to sound better.  A poor guitarist with a great guitar ain't gonna sound good, whereas a good guitarist with a lesser instrument will always sound good.

I know that Jimmy Page has his Les Pauls wiring configuration customised to give him a broader pallette of tones to draw from.
David Gilmour's Black Strat has a separate switch to bring in the neck pickup when he's using the bridge pickup, and he has a 5 way pickup selector switch fitted to easily get in between pickup sounds.  It's possible for him to have all three pickups working at once, or the bridge and neck at once, which are sounds outside of the normal Stratocaster pallette.
The list could go on and on, so I'll stop

Hardtailing: Wassat then?

Eric does it and so did Rory.
Jimi didn't, and neither did SRV