Batfink

Blackmachine

I just finished a guitar for a US customer who supplied a set of WB Firewaters and i will say in nearly 30 years of playing i've never heard a humbucker that actually sounds like a single coil when their tapped before i'd heard these - absolutely outstanding.

From what i can see from a quick google they have a sort of 4pc cross thing - quite a lot of buggering around even for a pro like yourself.

He posted this on the UK Guitar Builders Forum a few days back and this, the backplate plus a few other things stuck out so much i'm sort of the opinion that this guys a painter rather than a guitar maker / modder....not that that's a critisism, just an observation.

Not that i can help you with your problem, electronically inept, but i used the Wizard and was given the same schematic (10 led's with 5 resistors) and after a bit of headscratching (i'm using 2mm leds for side dots and they're not marked which side are + and which are -) it's been sitting wired up fine on the bench for 3'ish weeks and still has plenty of life in the battery so it could perhaps be the switch as PSW says. FYI i 'm using a standard DPDT switch like you'd use as a coil cut or the like, just connected to two of the six terminals.

Yea, they did a curvier version. WesV does a similar one too (can't remember the name - sorry!) i had to look up the paul stanley model.... mines much better!!! I'm sure Fernandes would agree - just ribbing ya matey

Schaller's 3D is a handy bit of kit. Each saddle's adjustable for height and spacing and it can be used for no angle or some angle with the shim provided.

Not quite sure i'd use it for necks - tends to be a bit springy and bendy.

A git of a job and a chance of real disaster if you've never done any inlaying. Suggestion: Get some scrap and have a few attempts at trying to inlay what you want to do. As a rule inlaying into a built neck will almost always call for the frets to be pulled out so something else to consider if you've never done that before either.

Well, if it's inspiration you want: Grit Laskin Larry Robinson Craig Lavin Mike from SmallWonder in the UK

You need to be a bit more expansive to allow people to point you in the right direction. For example: Where are you ? What do actually want done: supply only, inlaid into a new fingerboard, inlaid into an existing fingerboard, inlaid into an existing neck etc etc etc...... All these first considerations will effect the price, the offers you get or the reccomendations of where to go enormously.

Or get it epoxy powdercoated - tough and flexible.

I'll expect a writ the second i touch down in Vegas for SEMA this October

Perry, i totally understand what you were saying, i was just trying to counterpoint that him being 'unconfident about his ability' may not have been the major reason for his question knowing what the states is like. I work, and have done for 20 years, as a buyer and technical manager for the biggest aluminium wheel wholesalers in Europe with a turnover well in excess of €280,000,000 and we won't even send a wheel nut to the states because of the public liability laws over there. Anyway, as i said in my first post, i may have got this all wrong and your assumption may be the correct one.

Perry, it may be the fact that the guy's in the states and they sue eachother for just about everything - or i may be wrong and you may be right.

Just remember with the 'P' switch that the neck pickup needs to be opposite polarity to the bridge which means either mounting it upside down or yanking the magnet out and putting it in the other way....something i didn't realise when i went to use one !

I can help - shoot me a PM. Jem.

I use Ezlok threaded inserts - the smallest one's 4/40 are the same as pickup height screws (not metric imports) Ezlok

I can't work out exactly which one i'm looking at but if it's a flake finish: Base colour coats, metalflake coats, clear coats to bury the flake. Google custom paint spraying or custom metalflake, i'm sure you can find some car sites. Check out 'House of Kolor' or 'Old School Flake' for available colours or you can tint the clear over a silver flake but as i said i couldn't exactly work out which guitar i was looking at.

You must clear over their chrome paint otherwise it darkens and comes of if you rub it.

Thanks Scott, bang on answer there. I'll list out the options to the customer although i'm not very confident about ripping a magnet out of a set of custom pickups from 4000 miles away

I took it as both stacked facing up rather than face to face. Dunno, sometimes i think i think too much into this stuff and at the end of the day, as you say, slap it in and see what sounds good and what doesn't and modify / re-position accordingly.

Firstly i'll freely admit that guitar electrics are not my forte in any shape or form. I have a customer that wants a Schaller 'P' switch used in his build - 2 humbuckers. Now, everywhere it says that seeing the contacts are numbered it couldn't be simpler to wire up - sounds like my kind of wiring. As the switch came from Germany in OEM type packaging (a Schaller polybag without instructions) i went onto Stew Mac's wiring section and was confronted with the following text: For the 'P' Model Megaswitch to work properly, the pickups must be correctly installed. The outside coils of the pickups must have opposite magnetic polarity. To check this, place one pickup over the other. If the pickups repel each other, the coils have the same polarity. The pickups will attract each other if their polarities are opposite. The pickups i have, WB Firewater matched set, the coils have the same polarity - they repel each other when placed on top of each other - so does this mean i just have to mount the neck pickup back to front or do i have to change the wiring or am i stuffed ?

Yes it works extremley well but i doubt it could be tinted anything more than black as it's graphite in, the stuff i've got, a water soluble solution so it's grey to start with. If your stateside i know Stew Mac's sell it, this side of the pond i had to go to an electrical component supplier. As for sealer: i don't use scratchplates (pickguards) so only use it in cavities and these are already painted - i'm not quite sure how well it would take if you wanted to use it in a Strat type situation.

As Setch said, you can't dye M.O.P, the dye cannot penetrate. The coloured sheets you see for sale are laminates that are set in epoxy and it's the epoxy that's tinted, not the shell. Perhaps try Doug at Parable to see if he can help - sound's right up his street.