g'day all,
first post here I'm mostly a bass player, but I enjoy mucking about on guitars too. Got into modding last year, and have been properly bit by the bug. I
just finished modding a Squier Telecaster (5-way switch, hi-pass TBX mod), so it's time to tackle something I've been neglecting for some time now.
I have a 1970's Suzuki Les Paul copy that I picked up dirt cheap at a pawnbroker. All the hardware was trashed, so the poor thing has been lying around totally gutted for about 2 years. Got around to getting some parts recently, then remembered I'd never checked out what the pickups were like when I first got my multimeter. I was surprised when I measured around 3.6 k resistance, so I popped the covers off to find a single coil in each! No wonder it was so noisy...
The design is odd - the screws are just for show, it's basically a double bladed core in a U shape, with a magnet slid into the open end of the U. The other half of these bucker impostors is just the U blade epoxied in place. I managed to take the magnet out of the neck coil, invert it & then wired the two coils together to make a bridge humbucker with a resistance of around 7.2k. Last night I got around to re-installing it, wired straight to the jack. To my surprise, it worked and sounded normal - no phasing issues (yet - I'm going to re-wire it with 4 conductors for phase switching).
After finding this thread I knew there was only one thing to do to this guitar - damned if I'll buy pickups for it, as they'll cost me more than I paid for the whole guitar
So, here's my issues that I'll be exploring - if anybody has any short answers, feel free to stop me doing anything too daft!
1) PSW - you're probably familiar with Jaycar's Champ kit. It's similiar to a Ruby circuit, comes on it's own circuit board that's smaller than a 9V battery, and costs about AUS $6. I've got one lying around so I might as well try it out. There's a resistor that controls output gain, so I'll replace that with wire to get maximum output for the driver. If it works, I'll be well chuffed.
2) I'd love to have this look stock - how much are humbucker covers going to interfere with the driver? Given that guitarists regularly remove the covers from their Tele neck pickups for a brighter tone, I'd hazard a guess that they would mess with the harmonic mode.
3) I've got two of those U blades - I've seen mention of using two 4 ohm coils in series, but don't recall the verdict. I might give that a try. I'm also considering making one coil, but wider like a P90. I'll use CD tray cutouts for the bobbin, maybe jam a bar magnet between the two blades and leave that side up. I have a couple of old hard drives lying around, might have to crack 'em open and plunder their magnetic booty.
4) PSW again - Dick Smith have discontinued the .22 and .20 mm wire, and Jaycar don't sell anything less than .25 either. Any other suggestions for suppliers?
Controls will be 500k push/pull for Volume & phase switching, a 500k tone pot (.033 or .047 cap), a 500k hi-pass pot (.0022 cap), and a mini-switch for phase switching the driver. The 4th knob is utterly stuck to a busted pot shaft, and I'm trying to keep all the plastic parts original. If I can ever work it loose, I might replace it with a varitone or Schottky clipper. If I can use the original 3-way pickup switch to turn the sustainer circuit on & off I will, otherwise I'll use it for a killswitch & get another push-pull.
I'll take plenty of pictures along the way - I'm REALLY looking forward to this; now I know how Frankenstein must have felt
c-
