dpm99

I think that's a good plan. I was just curious.

He's using 1M pots on a strat with single coil pickups?? If he's currently setting his tone pots at 4-5, and you're putting in 500K pots to warm it up, why not go with the traditional .047 cap? Whatever you do, I think he'll be happier with this than the old configuration.

It sounds like you know a bit about this already. I'd encourage you to just learn how the switch works and develop a diagram on your own. Here's the switch: That's the 3516 from StewMac. Think of the zeros like inputs and everything else as outputs. The simplest way to do this would be to think as each coil like an individual pickup. The problem there is that you'd end up with parallel wiring on your humbuckers - not series. I'm not sure how to get series out of that configuration. It may be possible, but it makes my head hurt, and right now I've got to go join an acoustic top. Good luck!

5. Because your mom was over there. 4. To get to the other slide. 3. Somebody said it would improve the tone. 2. It was sitting in front of a Gibson factory. Narrow escape. 1. Because...it was stapled to the chicken. Of course.

+1 Then again, maybe you shouldn't be listening to orgmorg. He'll build a guitar out of anything.

Oh, there ya go! Thanks, orgmorg. Yeah, I'm a big fan of the Whiteside bits, but theirs was almost $90.

I think this one is the winner at a mere $31.95. http://www.amazon.com/Grizzly-C1191-1-22r-Roundover-Shank/dp/B0000DCZ3R/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=I1C5TAULQN640G&colid=2FPAP9KB1RYMB I'm pretty simple, and I'm just building for myself at this point anyway.

Well, if David Myka does it that way, that's my new way of doing it!

Thanks guys. It seemed like it would work, but wanted to hear from someone with a little more experience. David

I've always done my necks the traditional way - spokeshaves, rasps, chisels, and a lot of sandpaper. But I was thinking about this the other day. I prefer a really fat neck - about 1" thick, with a C profile. And I was thinking I could just shape it with a 1" radius roundover bit. The biggest problem I think I'd run into is that at the nut end, even with a 1-3/4" nut, it's not 2" wide, so there'd be some cleanup work. But it would get 90% of the job done in just a couple of minutes. Anybody ever tried anything like that? Have I missed any big potential problems? Thanks.

Personally, I'm not a big believer in shielding cavities. It's a controversial topic, for sure. I prefer to shield the wires instead (not the ground ones though). As for that Bigsby, let me just explain the principle. It's not actually the bridge you want grounded as much as the strings themselves. Since the strings make a conductive connection with the bridge, that's a good place to ground them. It would help to know specifically which bridge you're trying to use, but as long as there's a conductive connection between the strings and the central ground point, you're good. If that's working, the tremolo will be grounded anyway, because it's connected to the strings too. Let me just offer one more suggestion as well. Take it or leave it. One thing you could do to avoid an extra switch is use a 5 position blade switch (a Strat switch) instead of a 3 position blade switch (a Tele switch), and wire it as follows: 1: Bridge pickup only 2: Bridge and neck pickups 3: Neck pickup only 4: Neck pickup and piezo 5: Piezo only You eliminate the possibility of the bridge pickup in combination with the piezo, but imho, the neck + piezo is where the money is anyway. Visually, there will be no difference, except that there will be one less toggle switch. You just have to use a Tele switch tip. If you decide to go that route, and need any help with wiring diagrams, anyone here (including me) would be glad to help. David

Not exactly. It's a complicated wiring diagram, and who knows what happened? I can't help, but I can sympathize. When this happened to me not too long ago, I took everything apart and started over, testing at each step with test leads and a tuning fork. David

Have you tried updating the operating system?

Personally, I like Breedlove guitars. They're similar to Taylors. Make sure you plug in to an acoustic amp and hear the tone that way. It's not necessarily similar to the pure acoustic tone, and if he plays a lot on stage, that's the tone people will hear - not the unplugged tone. David

I got here late, and am not sure the OP is still watching, but splitting a signal with a DPDT switch is pretty simple, as long as you know the place in the signal you want to do it. It sounds like you need it to go right before your pickup selector switch. I believe the simplest way to do it is as follows: A more elegant solution, however, would be to avoid the DPDT switch altogether and used something called an "open circuit" stereo jack. The way it would work is when you plug in whatever cord you're running to your pickup selector pedal, it would automatically cut off the output to the other path, and when you unplugged it, the output to the other path would resume. It's like when you plug your headphones into a radio and the radio's speakers shut off. I'd diagram it, but different switches work differently. Anyway, that's what I'd do. It's more idiot proof in a live performance (a good thing), and avoids the extra switch on the face of your guitar. David

Just to add a couple more ideas, I recently installed a 2w amp in my wife's bass. One problem I had was a built in gain that I wanted accessible but more or less invisible. I made a hole in the back of the guitar, got one of those pots with extremely long shafts you cut off, cut it, cut a slot for a flat head screwdriver, and put a plastic cover over it (on the back) with a small hole to access the pot if necessary. She likes it clean anyway. You could do something like that with a volume pot for the headphone amp. Alternatively, you might consider bypassing the volume pot entirely for the line that goes out to an external amp, especially if your son is like a lot of people, who leave their pots set at 10 all the time. Some people report more tone/sound/level/voodoo with pots bypassed. My experience leads me to believe that's not consistently true, but can be, depending on the system. There are lots of options. Good luck. I'm curious to see what you decide. Make sure and report back! David

Woah! Even just in stereo that's weird! Not bad weird, but weird. Can't imagine what it sounds like in hexaphonic sound.

Congratulations Dave. You should be proud.

Unfortunately, no. I did it all after my wife and baby went to sleep over a few nights, on the living room table with a chisel and a soldering iron. I just can't bring myself to put a router to a finished guitar like that. One slip and I'm in a mess I might not be able to fix. Besides, I can't use the router in the living room watching the Science Channel.

I realize this post could just as well go in the "In Progress and Finished Work" forum, but it's nothing worth showing off really. Just a couple late nights that added up to a good story. For Mother's Day, I decided to hot rod my wife's bass. She likes to sit on the living room sofa, play in one key and sing in another. One of her strings might be a half step off. She refuses to grab an amp, so she can't hear herself play anyway. I should also add that for that reason, she's never practiced much unless she's had something coming up. I wondered if I'd be able to add an onboard amp and speaker to it, and along the way upgraded a few other things as well (pickup, bridge, etc.) Pictures are below, if you're interested. The key elements: Squier Bronco Bass (Affinity Series) GFS Lil Killer pickup (10k) Guitar Fuel SD-2W mini-amp circuit 2" HiWave BMR12 full range speaker A cute little sticker from Cafe Press You might not think that little speaker would work, but the trick was making enough space for it, especially since the body was only 1.5" to start with. I ended up hollowing out everything beneath the pickguard to within 1/4" on the back, and cutting a large channel through to the speaker cavity, which itself was as large as I could make it. (I'll be adding some acousta-stuf soon too.) Surprisingly, it works pretty darn well. The lowest notes lose a little bit of volume, but not enough to be a real problem for living room practice. It has minimal controls. I took the tone knob off because it just confused her. I'd often find myself walking over to her and turning it up, only to have her reply, "Thanks. I wondered why it sounded weird." Now it has one volume control for the passive output, and one for the active output. (The mini-amp makes for a pretty decent preamp too. I actually like it more than the passive channel.) When you output from the active channel, it disconnects the speaker. The reason I'm telling this story and showing this project is because of something my wife said tonight. She loves the bass so much that it pretty much lives on the couch now. It hasn't even seen the inside of the case since I gave it back to her. And tonight she suggested I make these and sell them to people. I said to her, "Sweetheart, not everyone would like this as much as you do. The reason you like it so much is that it was put together specifically with you in mind by somebody that knew what you needed." My point is that while most people will never know the pleasure of having a custom instrument, it's a really cool thing when you do. I thought if anybody would appreciate that, it would be you guys. David

If you can repair the template, why can't you use it to make another template?

I think I tried something like this once, but can't recall how well it went. If you use router rails, and you prob up the ends of the rails, so that the router doesn't actually sit on your work, you can do it. It's a mess of a set up, but hey.

Thanks. The amp's pot is one of those on/off volume pots. I spoke to the manufacturer about it, and he doesn't think it'll load down the passive circuit when it's clicked off. (That takes care of the battery problem too.) Nonetheless, I've decided to go ahead and use a push-pull for the passive volume, just in case there is a big difference in tone, even with that amp circuit turned off. I'll set it up where the passive line is always on, but the active line can be switched out of the circuit by pulling up on the volume knob. That way my wife can ignore it unless it's a necessity. I appreciate your advice and help with the switching output jack nonetheless. David

That's brilliant. I didn't know about those, but it seems simple enough from what I've read. I do this, right? My understanding is that the volume pot wired to the circuit board clicks off the power when you turn it to zero. Wouldn't that effectively be doing the same thing, or is this different? Thank you for your reply! David

I think I may have answered my own question. It occurs to me that most of the devices I listed just interrupt an electrical connection. Can I just do this? Or will it give me problems?