In my search for something more traditional sounding I decided a Strat style guitar would complement the rock animal the Hondo Les Paul had turned into. In retrospect this one would have been cheaper to buy off the shelf - *but* - its worth the effort for both the realisation that a USA Strat is different to a Mex Strat, which in turn is different to a Japanese Strat, or a Korean or Chinese Squier Strat.
One change I do make is to run the the bridge pickup through the lower tone control. The above uses 500K pots with this wiring variations and is very bright and Strat-y, the guitar below is voiced with 250K pots and the mid and neck shared the upper tone pot - its a richer sounding lump of ply for sure, also don't let the Jay Turser neck put you off- if you find one that is not warped they are superb!
The first problem once you get an Affinity Strat body and neck is the body width. At 40mm or less you are stuck with narrow width string spacing (not necessarily a bad thing, Mexican Strats can have the same spacing), but the problem is the block depth. The tremolo block is the metal lump that rocks inside the guitar where the springs attach and have the strings inserted. On the cheaper trem units these are made from some kind of metal that doesn’t really have any major sonic qualities. While a certain amount of cork sniffing snobbery is involved, your block metal to a point will affect your sound slightly, just as your strings do, just as the wood density of the body will. You can get blocks made, and I’d recommend http://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/kevinh3324 if you do but you have to decide if its worth it.
This is my last partscaster, a Squier SE, bit with alnico V pickups, the wiring as above (250K pots, bridge/mid shared tone pot). It has a Mexican trem with a custom short block. It sounds and plays surprising well.
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