Something you may want to consider before you start replacing the
bridge - that distinctive spanky strat sound comes partly from the
springs resonating with the strings. Removing the tailpiece, at least
to my ear, really deadens the tone. What I've done is leave the
tailpiece intact, but blocked it (with a cleverly cut door shim) so
it doesn't move, and lost the bar. I also tightened the spring claw
down a bit. However, the previous poster is right, the best overall
Strat mod (other than perhaps shielding it) has to be locking tuners!
That, and a well-adjusted pivot tremelo, will eliminate any tuning
problems without the hassle of locking nuts ala Floyd Rose, and still
keep your Strat playable as designed. A hardtail bridge sounds OK, it
just doesn't sound much like a Strat (to me, at any rate). Hope I
didn't confuse the issue.

William

--- In guitarmakersforum@yahoogroups.com, "newneep" <neepwulf@a...>
wrote:
> Hi, I was concidering customising my Blaze strat copy by putting on
a
> new neck, rewiring my pickups (and removing the middle one since
it's
> never used). One particular add-on I was considering is got me
> thinking. I was thinking of replacing my fulcrum bridge with a les
> paul style bridge and tailpiece. I was just wondering if it's
> possible to do so or whether I should just change to a fixed
bridge.
>
> thanx
> Neep