Workingman

I modded an inexpensive Strat copy by putting a fairly hot HB in the bridge. I used a push pull pot to coil cut it to to single coil mode. It lives most of its life as a single coil and gets switched for leads when needed. Just a note, depending on the guitar, if I were goind to do it again I would use a mini switch rather than the push pull pot. The plastic pick gaurd on mine is fairly flexible and when I pull on the pot it distorts making it harder to pull.

No hate here, I think turquise is th eperfect color for a Warlock.

I have a set of ball end allen wrenches that work well for this kind of problem. StewMac sells them as do others.

HSH with the proper switching can be very versitile. Looking good.

Compost pile

Nice!

I am not familiar with the heart monitor film. What I am using is about 2cm X 1cm by about 4ml thick. The problem is piezos are very prone to picking up RF and other electrical noise. They have to be shilded. If you are puting them under a bridge, the top of the bridge should shield and you could put some copper tape underneath. The wire could run through the ground wire hole. A pre-amp while not absulutly neccassary, is a big help.

dpm99, what I used was a piezo film (much thinner than piezo crystals that most people are aware of). I didn't have to hollow anything out. Sonicly it sounded like an electric bass, not an upright bass or an acoutic bass guitar. It wan't bad but I don't think it would be worth the effort of a permanent installaion.

Prompted by this thread I tried on of my upright bass piezo setups, installing under a Fender style bass bridge. It worked fine but still sounded pretty much like an electric bass. There was some attenuation of the highs but otherwise no big idfference.

I have been experimenting with piezos for upright bass pickups for the last several months. There are a few things to be aware of. The ceramic crystal piezos degrade over time. On upright bass pickups they tend to last around five years but can go bad in as little as six months. This is an inherent part of the crystals. If you are going to use them, make sure they are replaceable. An upright bass does subject them to a lot more pressure so I don't know how they would last on a guitar. As Dpm 99 said, you need somthing to bring the output from the piezo in line with that of a magnetic pup if you are going to use the guitar with a standard guitar amp. Some amps designed for acoustic instruments have dedicated piezo inputs. A pre-amp is best and one suing a simple op-amp circuit will work fine. Piezos are cheap and you could buy a few different kinds and experiment. Most piezos are very prone to picking up rf interferance and 60 cycle hum. They make a Strat pup seem like the best HB ever. Some form of shielding is nesccasary.

Sorry you were sick. That mock up looks great. Makes me want to play it when its done.

This is going to be good.

For real tight bends, some mandolin and violin makers use hair curling irons.

Now don't feel too bad, next time I get to my "shop" I plan on checking if I made the same oversight.

Have you tried making a new nut so the string spread takes advantage of the width? You may find it comfortable, especialy for chord work.

Don't worry no hipster would go for a purple sparkly bass.

Nice!

That looks great. I am interested in why the space between the stings on the nut has been carved out. Also, is the nut as thick as it looks in the picture? BTW I live a few miles from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the center tof the hipster universe. I see a fair number of waxed mustaches and kind of laugh at them till I remeber some of the thing I did. Green hair for instance (and it wasn't for St. Patricks day).

I suspect it can be fixed (hard to tell without pics) but I am worried that you had that much movement from drying out. If you had glued it the chanced are it would have cracked.

Nice build thread. I have an LP style restoration project that is calling to me. So sorry about your dog. Ihave lost a few over the years and it doesn't get easier.

If you think about it, P90's are single coils with a fat coil and sound more like a HB than most single coils. On most strats if you play the neck and the middle pup, or the bridge and middle pup, you have two coils and they are humbucking. They still sound like single coils to me.

Nice!

Cool idiea. BTW, Pan_Kara, Electra/Westone made a bass that had that feature in the 80's called the rail.

Rubber chicken has the most likely cause. One other is if the pots, pups, or some other piece oc electronics are not securly mounted they may shift when the bass is moved andbe shorting on the shielding or the like.

I have two factory guitars with coil split. Both elminate the hot end from the signal. The ground is still the ground. No shorting, just a break in the signal. I don't know if that is the best way, just the way it is done on these guitars.