Electric Guitars Spinny's first "full" guitar build project

[PapaRaptor]

Mark, you are well on your way to BGU Forum celebrity.

Or infamy!

 

[david moon]

Or infamy!

Maybe just notoriety- infamy seems a bit strong

 

[MarkDyson]

Just FYI, if you go to the top and click "Members", you will see "notable members" for number of posts, likes, etc. I am #6 for total number of messages, not that I was trying for that. Also that's over a five year period, around 500 per year. So Mark, you are well on your way to BGU Forum celebrity.

Interesting. Heh. Well, I do tend to go on when I'm revved up about something.

 

[MarkDyson]

I am waiting to see how Mark's blend pot on a series connection works out. Personally I don't think it will. Just like a screwing two garden hoses together ... doesn't matter which one you clamp down, the whole volume of water being passed gets clamped down.

In a shunt circuit, RR, the whole current goes through regardless of the setting. Rather than a hose, think of a hose going into a Y connector and from there into two parallel hoses. One of those hoses injects dye into the water, the other just lets it through. Both hoses meet again via a second Y so are merged back into one.

Now if the first Y has a baffle in it that you can rotate to direct the flow from one branch of the Y to the other, or some combination of both, then on the other end you will see the same amount of water coming out but it will be not colored at all, gradually increasing in color until it's all colored as the baffle gets to the other extreme position.

You are making an internal parallel bypass, a shunt, but from the perspective of the rest of the circuit that "black box" is just a widget spliced into the series.

 

[MarkDyson]

Maybe just notoriety- infamy seems a bit strong

And Mom said I'd never amount to anything.

Okay, she never said that, but still.

 

[MarkDyson]

The new pickups from Jim Wagner arrived yesterday. Still awaiting the shipping date of the body and neck from Warmoth. Most everything else is now in hand.

While I wait, this is a (very) rough Photoshop of how the final guitar will look (minus the knobs):

 

[deejaid]

I’m gonna throw this idea at you just to make you second guess every part of your build, but how about gold hardware? Gold trem and gold tuners would look sweet with that “fire”Burst.

 

[MarkDyson]

I’m gonna throw this idea at you just to make you second guess every part of your build, but how about gold hardware? Gold trem and gold tuners would look sweet with that “fire”Burst.

I expect you're completely right on that score. My personal bias is towards black and silver in everything, so I tend to steer away from gold appointments as a rule. They rock, they're beautiful, but I'm a darkness and chrome kinda guy.

 

[MarkDyson]

So, impressions of complicated control schemes and Rube Goldberg level wiring diagrams aside, methinks my current plan for this build is quite straightforward.

On the prime level, it's just going to be a 5-way Strat layout; to wit:

1. Bridge
2. Bridge/Neck in Series
3. Middle
4. Neck/Bridge in Parallel
5. Neck

The "sugar" as it were is also going to be straightforward:

• Master Volume with push/pull to select parallel/series for the neck humbucker
• Master Tone with push/pull to select parallel/series for the bridge humbucker
• Blend pot to bring in the middle pickup either in parallel or series with the two humbuckers

And that's the scoop.

 

[artyman]

Nice looking axe

 

[CVTOT]

Nice Mark. Look forward to the progress pictures and the sound clips after it's done.

 

[MarkDyson]

Quick update: just got the tracking number from Warmoth for the body and neck. Woo hoo!

 

[Rancid Rumpboogie]

Will be waiting to see how you manage to get the bridge and neck on in series ... and the bridge and neck in parallel with a standard 5-way switch and how that blend will work in series.

Here is a sound clip of the 10 pickup selections on my MIM Strat, never touching the volume or tone knob. This was with the Klein Epic Series '57s, not the current Zexcoils.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/uto5x9ankclmrcq/4-Speed Tranny, 3-Speed Rear End.mp3?dl=0

 

[MarkDyson]

Will be waiting to see how you manage to get the bridge and neck on in series ... and the bridge and neck in parallel with a standard 5-way switch and how that blend will work in series.

It's a challenge but one I believe I can meet. I'll be posting up some wiring diagrams as I work out the various parts of how it will all come together. Fair warning: if I feel I need to bring in a Super Switch instead of the standard 5-way, I will, so prepare yourself with some eye bleach.

Here is a sound clip of the 10 pickup selections on my MIM Strat, never touching the volume or tone knob. This was with the Klein Epic Series '57s, not the current Zexcoils.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/uto5x9ankclmrcq/4-Speed Tranny, 3-Speed Rear End.mp3?dl=0

Great sounding stuff, man! I'm not dissing your masterpiece, and I've enjoyed studying it; I just want to concoct my own magic potion rather than copy someone else's.

 

[MarkDyson]

So this is how the shunt circuit looks. It's basically a pickup with a built-in attenuator so you control how much it adds its signal to the circuit via the blend knob. Use a no-load pot so you can make sure that at zero (10) the pickup is 100% out of the circuit.



If it looks a lot like a dedicated volume pot, that's because it works the same way except instead of shunting to ground it shunts to the pass-through. That's how you keep it from choking a series path.

I enclosed the assembly in a box to underscore that outside that box the rest of the guitar sees this as just another 2-lead pickup and you can insert it into your wiring harness any way you would with just the bare pickup itself; there's no difference.

 

[MarkDyson]

Okay, so...next phase of this crazy-ass rig....

First, some design philosophy (or blathering, or whatever):

I'm viewing this as a dual-humbucker guitar that happens to have an extra single-coil pickup I can blend into the mix when I want it. The extra wrinkle is I still want to be able to have that one flying solo, so I can't just do a 4-way Tele rig plus a blend.

My plan is close to that, but just different enough.

Now, switching options. The most complicated I want the actual controls ever to be is a 5-way blade plus some number of push-pulls (the fewer of those the better).

That sums up my design constraints.

Desired functionality (via the 5-way blade):

1. Bridge only
2. Bridge/Neck in parallel
3. Middle only
4. Bridge/Neck in series
5. Neck only

Other functionality:

• Blend the Middle into positions 1,2,4,5 in either series or parallel with the other one or two pickups (depending on the selection).
• Each Humbucker can be flipped between series and parallel mode.

Approach: like I said, this is essentially going to be a 4-way Tele with benefits. The standard 4-way blade is almost there, but lacks the center position I want. The 5-way has the positions, but lacks enough lugs to keep this from getting stupid. Ergo: 5-way Super Switch it is. Sorry, RR, but it's really not all that complicated when you compare it to a 4-way blade; just one more lug and you get two of them in one switch. I can ignore the Humbucker internal switching for now, that's trivial and doesn't need to clutter up the main design. Blending in the middle pickup would also be trivially simple except I want to do it either series or parallel.

I'm going to start by ignoring the middle pickup completely and just focus on getting the neck and bridge going. It's basically just a straight copy of the 4-way Tele mod with positions 4 and 5 shifted down one lug to make room for position 3.



And that's it. If you ignore the lower half of the Super Switch, it's just a 4-way switch with an extra lug and the order of the right side reversed. Now I have the center position to wire up, and I can either do it on the upper half or use the lower half to keep the wiring from getting too cluttered, depends on how the final circuit falls out.

 

[MarkDyson]

The desired functionality of the middle pickup relative to the 5-way blade:

1. Blend in (S or P)
2. Blend in (P)
3. Don't Care
4. Blend in (S)
5. Blend in (S or P)

Specifying just P or S in positions 2 and 4 are just in concert with how the other two pickups are already connected. In practice it probably makes sense to use the same hookup for all four positions where it matters. Having B/N in series and M in parallel, for example, probably isn't a bad thing and trying to come up with a special case when both other pickups are selected is most likely a needless complication. Best just to bring in the blend circuit the same way in all cases.

 

[JPsuff]

This is reaching an anticipation level akin to the first launch of the Space Shuttle.

 

[MarkDyson]

Heh. If you liked that, you're gonna LOVE this!

The key to my getting the middle pickup to behave as desired is recognizing the above setup, handling all the cases for just the neck and bridge, is now just another black box. The middle pickup assembly is also a black box. Now you just connect those two boxes in series or parallel as desired and Bob's yer uncle:



Now that I've designed the three use cases that involve the middle pickup I can work on the proper connections for the rest of the Super Switch to handle them.

 

[JPsuff]

Are you SURE this wouldn't be easier?