GregP

It's virtually impossible to do this just within a pot, John. Digitally, it's a no-brainer because the knob can be a continuous encoder. But a pot is locked to a physical location. I could scheme up all kinds of mad ways that it COULD be done for someone willing to create such a pot (and have done so in a previous thread) but as far as I know, there is no readily-available pot out there that actually does this. If that's the case, you'd have to try to scour or create a digital option, which to me seems very fussy when a cocentric pot will do the job just as well.

Cool stuff, thanks for sharing!

Since you asked, I'm not a fan either. Too flat on the top and too dramatic a "lip" going into the carve. But if you like it, go for it.

projectguitar.com and look for fretting-related tutorials. It's basically an unfinished/poorly-finished fret job; or, in some cases the wood has changed dimensionally, revealing the fret end. More likely the former. There are plenty of people on this forum who could guide you through the process (me not being one of them-- I only did this once and ended up filing into the fretboard!), but most of them typically prefer a slightly more specific question that shows you've done a bit of research first. Before learning about doing the job, though, a more important question to ask is: despite "liking" the guitar, is it offering you good value for your hard-earned money? Poorly dressed frets may also be symptomatic of an overall poor fret job. Are there spots along the fretboard that it "frets out" (faint buzz and then the notes die)? What's the overall setup and action like? Depending on the cost of the guitar (with problems like that, I suspect it's not a boutique guitar, but none of mine are either), you may want to look at least a few other options, and especially don't let your eyes be the judge (not that I think you are; just emphasizing).

Not vintage by any stretch, but the Khaler bass bridges (the non-trem) are different from the norm.

Cue .jon! Great work as usual in this thread. Love all the different pics.

black labb-- that's a frankenstein of a guitar all right! Looks like you used more than glue to hold the odd-shaped "tenon" in place. But that raises an interesting question-- assuming you could do it in an attractive way, or cover with a pickguard, is there any good reason to not bolt the neck "down" into a body instead of from the back? The right hardware, some well-chosen countersinking... the wood equation could be made relatively the same, as far as I can imagine. Greg

It's not just that it's "a guitar that costs a bunch," but that the particular model in question isn't worth $50G. If I'm not mistaken, it's about a $5,000 guitar. Not that I'm a collector or know JACK about these things, but a quick Google and it SEEMS to just be a typical mass-produced item from the 80s... Could be wrong.

I don't think you can press legal charges unless there was an exchange of asset of some sort (either barter or cash) for the guitar. If it's a gift, any lawyer would be hard-pressed to come up with a case. That said, I totally and completely agree that you should be proud and put your own logo-- you did a good job, dude!

Sorry, that's out of my domain of expertise. I'd have to do the same thing as you-- start Googling to make sure I'm doing it right. But since I'm already here, we can try mucking about--> 1. IF you're doing it right and you're getting a reading of zero, then that pickup is DOA. Which might help explain why stuff isn't working in general. 2. Not sure what you mean about the probes being shorted. If you're doing it right, there shouldn't be a short-- the probes will be completing a circuit with the multimeter in the middle. 2 isn't much resistance... which unit of measurement are you setting it to? "2" could be almost anything! FWIW, if you're literally touching the probes to the coils, you're not doing it right. They have to be on either end of the wires. I just don't know which ones in your case. Unless you want to test each coil individually, you'll need to twist a pair of them together (which feeds the north into the south or vice-versa) and then the remaining 2 should each be touching a probe. I just don't know how which wires fit into the equation. Since I'm an impatient guy, I'd probably just start testing pairs of wires to see if "something" appears. But that's not really the "right" way to do it. The "right" way would be to look at a chart like the one I linked to in one of my first responses, to figure out how to set up your test scenario.

Lots of information both on this forum and through Google. The short answer is: yes, it's problematic. Most people seem to overcome the most obvious of these difficulties by sending their passive through a preamp, essentially making it an active pickup. Then they can use the same values of potentiometers, etc. If you had both pickups along completely discrete signal paths (ie. one or the other, with their own controls), it'd be pretty trivial, but it's when you want to combine and blend them that you have to do some planning.

It's rather typical to have hum be reduced when touching the strings, etc. Even humbuckers can pick up noise; adding your body to the ground (by touching the strings) offers a not insubstantial amount of shielding, which in turn reduces the hum. In my apartment, the noise is awful. I can't use even humbuckers in a fully-shielded guitar without problems. That's just the nature of the beast in my particular living situation. You might be in a similar situation. <shrug> You're right that if the hum got worse by reversing the output jack, it was correct all along. And even though I have my coil splits set up to "cancel" some hum in tandem, the noise is definitely louder when they're tapped. Not sure what else to suggest. I don't think you'll get appreciably greater hum reduction by shielding those 4 lengths of wire. There's all kinds of unshielded wire in most people's control cavities. If your entire cavity is shielded, you'll be better off. But it might be just your environment. Fluorescents, dimmer switches, and CRT computer monitors are all potential sources of hum-causing interference. In my case, add to that proximity to a mains junction and a phone junction box, plus proximity to a cellular network node, and it's absolutely unbelievable. I should be wearing a tin foil hat.

Does it still buzz when you're NOT touching stuff inside the control cavity? Does the hum get better or worse when you're touching the bridge/strings (assuming the bridge/strings have been added to ground)? If there's no buzz when not poking around, and the hum is reduced when you touch the strings, you've probably done it right. Otherwise, it could be a ground issue-- either a loop, or depending on the severity of the buzz you may have even wired your output jack in reverse.

And yes, you'll hear subtle differences in sound due to the way your guitar is interacting with the soundwaves pumping out of your amplication. Some degree of phasing is inevitable, and the switch doesn't really "turn it on" or "turn it off", it just changes the phase relationship between your guitar and the speaker. And it wouldn't be surprising at all if you could hear the difference when flipping that switch.

Or even worse, they're all aggragating to that one spot (the back of the pot) and then the signal return isn't making it to ground. That would explain no noize. I don't know if it's the solution you need, but if you're going to desolder and rewire anyhow, I suggest looking into "star-grounding"-- it's a guaranteed way to make sure you have no ground loops and tick the "did I ground everything properly?" question off the list. Guitarnuts.com (guitarnutz.com?) has a good star-grounding tutorial.

Those guitars are sick (in the good way). Just had to say.

Yeah... it's all just semantics. Some people have an "I'll never go back" moment, at which time the "nice to have" feels more like a "necessity". I'm sure everyone agrees that calling a luxury a "must have" is just a way of emphasizing how significant the difference is to that person.

It's surely a sign of something. I would expect there to be no sound when the volume is off. Interesting that the buzz intensifies throughout the middle...which hints at the pot being wired incorrectly. What you're describing is in general symptomatic of 'incorrect wiring', but I'm running low on suggestions. Did you confirm the colours of the wires, like on my suggestion #1? Also, sometimes the lugs of your switch are in "reverse" depending on the maker of the switch. One of your poles (set of lugs) might be the reverse of what you expect from your diagram. That happened to me on my lap steel build. What I thought was the 0 1 2 3 lugs were actually 0 3 2 1 or something like that.

I found the EZ-Loks to be a bit fussy, still. I imagine once you become an old hand at it, they'd be fine. I agree that the theory is solid enough. Even without any practice, they were at least a TOUCH faster than standard tuners; that said, I can't imagine them ever being quite as fast as true locking tuners (for the most part-- some seem simpler than others).

Best of luck with it all. I'm sure you'll get it working with some perseverance. I can't remember a wiring job EVER working for me with no fuss whatsoever. Solder used to be available with relatively high lead content, and were considered as potential carcinogens. I don't think lead-free solder is much of a health risk, but I've never looked into it. One thing I know for sure-- I wouldn't voluntarily inhale tonnes of that stuff. Anything with a slightly unnatural (but I agree, somewhat "good", though, eh?) smell to it can't possibly be good in large doses.

Lots of diagrams around for standard 3-way wiring. Weird that you're not getting ANY sound, though. Since you've already been at it for 2 weeks, it seems to me that you wouldn't mind another day or two of full-on trouble-shooting if the end result will be what you want. Someone might recommend a more optimal method of trouble-shooting, but my personal attack would be: 1. Make sure your colours are sorted out. Different companies use different colours for their wires. If you just go by colour alone, you'll be screwed. You have to find out how they correspond. For example, what is a "red" wire for Duncan corresponds to a "green" wire for DiMarzio. http://www.guitarelectronics.com/category/...ckupcolorcodes/ Once you've got your colours straightened out, *I* (because I'm a bit weak at keeping these things straight) would re-draw or use a marker to trace over the exisiting diagram with the correct colours. 2. Before desoldering anything, double-check everything, and do it as an "idiot" check-- pretend that you haven't seen it a million times already and check each and every lug-- rotate your diagrams to match the switch orientation. 3. Check continuity of electronics from point-to-point. You might find a link that's not being made, axing the whole shebang at once. Cheap multimeters will do the job and can be had for $10-15... though there are certainly nice ones. I don't know how to measure parts very well but I mainly just wanted to use it for continuity checks, so I got one with an "audible" option. Being able to hear that "beep" when you complete a circuit is handy. I imagine most multimeters HAVE this, but I saw one or two without. 4. Normally I've found that this only results in excess hum rather than "no signal", but check your output jack. Twice out of 10 or so rewires, I've reversed these... which is all a part of item #2 above, but is worth mentioning because I thought that the jack was a "no brainer" and didn't bother rechecking it. I can't help but wonder if between 1 and 2, you'll be sorted out. But if not: 5. Desolder and check that each individual component is working. Start with the pickups. You'll need a multimeter.

http://www.projectguitar.com/ref/jpmwire.htm Dunno how accurate this is-- never tested it. But it seems to use a standard switch. Based on how you called it a "Petrucci" wiring scheme, Google turned up plenty enough of people who seemed to be confirming that indeed, a standard switch would be up to the task.

I'm not particularly familiar with standard toggles, but my impression at least is that it can NOT be done. I'll help you find out for sure. I think that with a 3 way *blade*, the same holds true and you'll still want a 4-pole switch. I've never heard of the possibility of cutting coils with a standard 3-way switch. That doesn't mean it's not possible, but when I was looking for information on one of my own builds (which had only a single-coil and a humbucker, mind you, so slightly different), I had to go with 4-pole. Greg

Heya, You'll have to get a 4-pole switch if you want to do a coil split all on the same switch. To be honest, I've never looked for an LP-style (toggle) 3-way that will do the trick, but I'm sure I've seen 3-way blade switches that are multi-pole. The other thing is that you need both pickups to be 4-conductor (4 wires) in order to do coil-splitting. My personal recommendation? Use a push-pull knob for the volume. Or even better, someone mentioned something about a "push-push" (no fussing around trying to dig your fingers under the knob) pot, but I can't remember where they were sourced from. So, the end result (with either push-push or push-pull) is that you have a "hidden" switch to split the coils, and then use your 3-way as normal. Even though you don't really WANT the single neck and single bridge (or neck and bridge both as humbucker together) options, they'll be there. It's not QUITE as elegant as what you're describing, but it adds no additional *visible* switches to your setup. If that's not a good fall-back plan or the idea of a push-push is still too intrusive, I'll see if I can help you find the right kind of switch online-- I just need to know if both pickups are 4-conductor, and if it's a blade or toggle switch that you want. Greg [edit: I couldn't help myself so I did a quick Google. Our own Universal Jems (host of Project Guitar) carries such a thing: http://www.universaljems.com/cart/switches.htm scroll down to find EP-1111, 2nd one up from before the Mini-Switches list]

Lots of people do it, some of them for no other reason than preferring the process of changing strings with locking tuners. (I guess it would depend on which tuners exactly, but most if not all would require less fuss at re-string time) On top of that, by eliminating the need for wraps around your post, you are potentially creating a more "stable" string at the post. Less material to stretch, no overlaps suddenly "falling into place", no wraps causing friction and "popping" as the settle into place with the adjascent wraps. So, IMO, it's not "dumb". Not "necessary" perhaps, but nothing wrong with spoiling yourself.