guitar2005

Nope. The download worked just fine for me. No need for special SW, but the DWG doesn't show anything at all. Anyways, I do have a KL headstock drawing here: http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL912/43163...0/194325541.jpg

Maybe your local luthier guy didn't have the bridge in hand when he set the neck in and set it for a hardtail bridge. That's the only thing I can see working on that guitar right now, but even that might me too high. How much height do you have under the your straight edge at the bridge location?

Love it... but why paint the front of the guitar?

I played the guitar a little more today just to see if I still liked the results and I have to say that the caps really did the trick. The guitar sounds nice and meaty and still as enough highs to sound nice and clear. The Paradise City intro is sounding real nice and it no longer has the ear piercing ice pick treble. Pinch harmonics sound reall good too. I highly recommend this to anyone trying to control highs in a guitar.

Looks real nice. Personally, I would have just built the neck myself though. Seems like a waste to destroy an SG just to keep the neck.

The treble controls on my amps don't remove the right frequencies for this guitar/pickup and that wouldn't be very practical at shows.

+1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-pass_filter A second order filter simply has a more defined cutoff where the frequency response drops faster. I was thinking of something along the lines of the Butterworth filter or something similar. ToddW was right in that I'll need an inductor for that though.

When I put the cap in parallel with the pickup, I got the desired effect. Lower cap values (i.e. 68pf) remove less high end than higher cap values (i.e 10nf); meaning that the higher the cap value, the higher the frequency cutoff value. The series wiring probaly had some weird interaction with the pickup own capacitance, inductance and resistance. I ended up going with three 3.3nf in series, which is about 1.1nf. That tamed down the high end enough, while keeping the pickup's character. I think that having a slightly lower value and a second order filter would help even more. I'll have to research how to make the second order filter though. My electronics days are so far away...

How does Gibson do it on their Les Pauls? I haven't figured it out yet.

With the 68pf, it cut off bass frequencies and as I moved up in values (i.e. 10nf), more bass was present... therefore increasing the cutoff point. That's what I noticed. Using the formula is 1 / (2pi)rc, I agree that I should have see the opposite. I know what I heard... There must be something about how I wired it. Basically, I put the cap in series with the hot lead, not in parallel with the pickup. I 'll experiement some more with the cap in parallel and report back.

It's really a pretty small value. I would start with that and tweak it from there. You might even find that it's not quite big enough for your taste. Hmmmm, you must be building some JUMBO guitars there Actually, you were wearing guitarspeak goggles when you saw .0047, and turned it into mf. Guitar2005 actually read what I wrote like an engineer would. I have no idea how you'd fit a 4700uf (4700mf) cap inside a guitar, but I hope Guitar2005 reads this before he tries. The 12w ones I have upstairs are 3" tall and 1.5" across! Todd Ok - So I tried a couple of values. The lower the cap value, the more high end you lose i.e 68pf make the guitar sound real thin as it not only removes high end, it also removes a lot of bass. I tried 10nf and that kept much of the bass but didn't remove enough high end to get rid of the ice-pick treble. 4.7nf isn't too bad but still, ice-pick still there. 3.3nf seems to roll off enough high to make the guitar sound better and all of the bass is there. Really smooths out the frequencies. Then, there's this unknown value I tried (I think I prefer the 3.3nf though) which sounded pretty good. Its marked 100v, 68cp, 8821, 682k. Not sure what value it is but I'm curious. I don't have many more values... but I think I'll stick with the 3.3nf for now, live with it for a while and see how I like it. In the process, I found this interesting site: http://buildyourguitar.com/resources/lemme/

It's really a pretty small value. I would start with that and tweak it from there. You might even find that it's not quite big enough for your taste. 4700mF is HUGE - That's mili, not micro I guess that what is being proposed is a low pass RC filter where the capacitor is in series with the pickup's hot lead and the pickup's output is taken in parallel with the cap. As for the volume pot value... I was thinking... will it really make a difference if I run it wide open? When its wide open, the pickup sees 0ohms from the pot, as if it was connected directly to the guitar cord, no?

Its a 500T by Gibson. Its really bright to start with. I might try a different PU but I'd like to see if I can tame this one first. Its output matches well with the neck pickup. The fact that its a little over 1/4" closer to the bridge (compared to a Real Gibson Explorer) doesn't help with the brightness.

I think I have a couple of caps lying around. So is the cap supposed to be wired from hot lead to ground? 0.0047 is 4700mF. That's pretty big. did you mean 4.7pF or 4.7uF?

I never use tone controls. don't like 'em. I'd rather keep the instrument as is.

The guitar only has a volume per pickup. No tone controls to play with and its a 2 conductor pickup. I already use 10 gauge strings. The bridge pickup is closer to the bridge than usual. This, combined with a bright pickups makes for a bright sounding guitar. I don't have a big selection of resistors at home to try a 500k in parralel. I'll try to see if I can find something tonight.

I have a Gibson 500T bridge pickup in my Explorer but I find it a tad bright. Its wired direct to a 500k volume pot. Is there anything I can do to tame the high end and make it sound smoother - I mean noticeably smoother. I can try a 250K pot but I know I'll need more than that to tame it. Any ideas?

I don't think it matters. I usually put some maple or cherry veneer that I have around the shop.

I'm a little curious. Couldn't you have found the backbow with a straightedge? That sounds like pretty serious backbow.

Love it. Awesome design and choice of woods. Can't wait to see more progress on this one.

I would heat that area, get some glue in there and re-clamp.

What does "plek'd" mean? Anyways, measurements would be helpful. Can you tell us what the action is at 17th fret, what the relief is around the 7th fret (measure with fretted strings on fret 1 and 17). Also, what is the nut height? When you fret a string at the 3rd fret, do you see a gap between the string and the fret? It should be berely noticeable. If the gap is too large, action cannot be set correctly by setting the bridge height because you're starting out too high. The bridge ends up being too low to compensate for the nut height and fretted notes buzz. This is a common problem on a lot of guitars.

+1 Neck wood and fretboard play an important role in the final sound. Body wood/top wood play an important role as well... and even ... the body shape... yes.. there you have it... I said it. The body shape. Pickups will have a HUGE impact on sound for sure but they have to work with what's present acoustically.

Yes, titebond will work fine but I prefer to use slow setting super glue for this. Both will work just fine though. Super glue will be a lot more messy.

I can send you PDFs of the drawings for this guitar if you want. PM me if interested.