Strat trem dust cover

phil_b

Far be it from me to find fault in a classic design but I still think the big white square plastic cover screwed on the back of my strat looks just a little naff.

I know a lot of people just leave them off 

But I wondered if the cover could be inlaid so it is flush to the back of the guitar and painted to match the body. I know it won't make a real difference as an instrument but I just wondered if it has been done 

Woodenhead

All the guitars I own recess the trem cover so they're flush, tbh, I didn't realise Fender guitars didn't do this.

Funkfingers

Plenty of Charvel and Ibanez guitars have the vibrato spring cavity cover plate recessed to be flush with the rear of the body.

Core PRS rear cavity plates are recessed. On S2 models, they are not. Omitting one stage of routing operations must save a couple of minutes on every guitar.

Headphones

Surley it's a benefit having the trem cover proud of the back?

It's the main contact point with the body, so reduces the damage to the guitar finish.  With it flush, the finish gets scratched first, and often starts more noticably at the junction between recessed plate and body.

It's a good desgn feature, not a flaw.

ICBM

The odd thing is that for me, recessed trem covers look wrong... but so do non-recessed control covers (which just look cheap) - sometimes even on the same guitar!

A PRS with both recessed looks OK, but in general I prefer the control cover recessed and the trem cover not, if there are both. Logical... no .

phil_b

Headphones said:

Surley it's a benefit having the trem cover proud of the back?

It's the main contact point with the body, so reduces the damage to the guitar finish.  With it flush, the finish gets scratched first, and often starts more noticably at the junction between recessed plate and body.

It's a good desgn feature, not a flaw.

That is a good point