scott from _actual time_

Hardware is gone, thanks.

I've got some unused speaker cab hardware I don't need that I'll give away to anyone who'll pay the shipping. It's all in like-new condition; never used, most of it still in the original bags. -16 chrome metal corners, about 3" on each side -8 black metal corners, the same size and shape -2 square black jack plates, recessed, about 4" x 4", with two holes for mounting speaker jacks -4 large black rubber feet, about 2" diameter All that stuff should fit in one of those Priority Mail flat rate boxes, so for $11 shipping within the US, the whole lot is yours. I also have half a roll of gray fuzzy speaker-cab carpet, about 50" wide and i'm guessing 4-5 feet long. It's much lighter, so $7 shipping will do. PM me if you're interested. Paypal only, please. Thanks.

Thanks very much for the thorough reply! I will give Dynamic a try.

I'm looking for an online router bit resharpening place that I could mail my dull bits to for resharpening. My bits are pretty dull, so I'd rather not try to sharpen them myself. I'm located in the US. Does anyone have any recommendations or any experience with particular shops? Thanks.

i've designed several H/H and H/S/H superswitch wiring schemes with all sorts of coil-cut combinations. i doubt you'll find a schematic anywhere because few companies make them for these kinds of combinations--i get several emails a month from people asking for mine. your suspicions of whether it's even possible are well-founded. the problem is that many of the different coil-cut combinations in a scheme like this use different wires going to the hot output of the switch in different selector positions. dual volume controls are usually wired by having the pickup hot wire go to the volume pot first, then to the switch. but if you've got two or even three different wires from the same pickup that are hot in different switch positions, you can't send them all to the same volume pot, and you can have three volume pots. so the only way i can think of to approach it would be to design the wiring scheme to gang as many of the hot wires from the same pickup together as possible onto the same switch pole, then run that pole's output wire as hot to the volume pot for that pickup. but that logic runs counter to how those switches work, which lends itself to connecting wires from different pickups to tabs in the same switch pole, not just wires from the same pickup. so short answer, it may very well be impossible. but only inner coils and outer coils is not super-complicated, so draw it up and find out.

that is the same as one of the custom wiring schemes i designed, so if you'll PM me your e-mail address i can send you one of my diagrams. any 24-pole superswitch will work. actually, you need the magnets to have opposite polarities like that for any two-hubmucker guitar that has any combination of one coil from one pickup and one coil from the other. but if the only combination of both pickups has both running as full humbuckers, like pretty much all Gibsons since the beginning of time, then it doesn't matter.

the wiring in your pics is not correct because all the Ibanez two-humbucker guitars with 5-way switches use a special 5-way switch, and the switch in your pics is not it. check the Ibanez wiring diagram for your guitar to see what i mean. the switch in the pics looks like a stock strat-style 5-way. all of those neat middle positions in the stock Ibanez wiring require that special 5-way--they are not possible with any normal strat-type 5-way. so your guitar probably does have the neck pickup wired as a single coil, and the sound is not how the pickup should sound as a full humbucker. so you should ask your tech what happened to the stock switch. if you need a replacement you could order from Ibanez, but that takes ages. the only other way to get those switch combinations is to use a 24-pole superswitch (widely available from several different manufacturers) and lots of wire jumpers. (the Ibanez wiring diagram for the RG2027 shows that wiring scheme). the P model Megaswitch from Stew Mac has 4 of the same switch combinations, if you want to try that.

no problem! i've done lots of crazy wiring schemes to give combinations of different humbucker coils. none of them sound exactly like a Strat, but they're all neat and different.

i've done lots of two humbucker installs like this. you have several choices: --mount the neck pickup back-to-front. if it has a logo on it or one coil of screw poles, it will look weird this way. you will also have to change the wiring, reversing the hot & ground wires, and maybe also swapping the series link wires for the hot & ground (if the middle switch positions sound out of phase). --install the pickup normal, and just accept the fact that the switch positions aren't going to give the best coil-cut combinations. so instead of outer coils or inner coils, it would be bridge outer + neck inner and bridge inner + neck outer. they will all hum-cancel, but neither of those sounds as distinct as both inner or both outer. --my favorite solution: pop the magnet out of the neck pickup, rotate it flat 180 degrees, then put it back in. this changes the magnetic polarity so you can install the pickup normal but still have the proper middle switchs positions and still have them hum-cancel. you may have to change the wiring to get the phase right, but at least you know the magnet polarities are right and there is a wiring combination for the neck pickup that will make everything hum-cancel.

the closest you can get to strat quack from two humbuckers is running the two inner coils in parallel. this is one of the positions on the PRS rotary switch. depending on your pickups and/or amp settings, this combination can actually have lots of strat quack. another cool setting is the two outer coils in parallel--this has the slightly notched sound like the middle position of a tele. check out a wiring site like guitarnuts.com for wiring diagrams of how to wire those coil-split combinations. as for kinds of pickups, if you want great single-coil sounds from split humbuckers, the best wasy to get that is to use humbuckers that are built like single-coils. single-coils use pole-piece magnets; normal humbuckers use steel poles and a large bar magnet underneath both coils. Rio Grande makes their humbuckers with pole-piece magnets, like single-coils, so when those humbuckers are split, they are exactly the same as a single-coil. they're expensive, but if they sound as good as their single-coils that i own, they will be awesome.

great thread, and great tips. i too have held off learning how to file a nut because those Stew Mac files are too expensive, but the Warmoth ones look good.

no, it's just the camera angle on my crappy pic. that is a 7-string neck, and the string spacing is the same as standard Ibanez and others with 48mm / 1 7/8" nut width.

I'm building my own 7-string Tele, so I had some 7-string Tele bridges made-to-order by a machine shop (details in this thread on sevenstring.org). Like anything made in small numbers, it cost a lot for the shop to tool up, so I got a few extras and now I'm selling them off. Like the original 1950s Fender bridges, mine are made from cold-rolled steel for that twangy Tele tone. They hold seven individual string saddles, barrel-shaped like the ones on classic Teles. I designed them to fit the 7-string Tele bridge pickup that the Seymour Duncan Custom Shop makes (I have one and it sounds awesome). The chrome finish isn't perfect--the steel has tiny striations in it, as you can see in the picture; the chrome plating is very shiny, but the striations show through. The edges are also not perfectly smooth, but they aren't rough enough to be sharp or painful. Here's a pic: . I'm selling them for $150 with seven saddles, and $158 with saddles and the string ferrules that go into the back of the body. I know that's expensive, but it's exactly the same price I paid to have them made and buy all the saddles. They're the only 7-string Tele bridge available anywhere in the world, and once they're gone I doubt there will ever be any more. PM me if you're interested--thanks. And here's what they look like on a 7-string Tele.

thanks all for the nice replies. i should've checked back with this thread sooner! i have not seen anyone other than ibanez make switch covers like that, and they only make them in black. the only way i can think of to make a gold one would be to use that super-thin gold foil that you can apply to things by rubbing it and peeling away the mounting paper. you would have to be really careful doing it to get an even layer onto a rounded object like this switch cover. if it didn't work, you could just scrape it off and try again. you could also paint it gold with model airplane paint--that might be the best option. you might want to clear-coat it afterwards to make sure it wouldn't rub off.

thanks. the cast-metal neck plate makes the neck heel look weightier than it feels, and i have big hands so it's not a problem for me. i don't have any clips of the TZ7, but i can give you the basic lowdown: it's high output [not super-high] with solid/moderate treble range, but it has a very dark midrange. people who like sharp, cutting high gain tones often find the TZ7 too dark or muddy, especially in less bright woods like mahogany. i like dark sounds, and the alder body of this guitar gives the TZ7 a bit of extra brightness. if you don't like dark tones and/or your body wood is not bright, you might consider other pickups.