JoeAArthur

Whether scatterwinding is hype or not, it does bring up some disturbing logical problems. If scatterwinding is a random (or even pseudo-random) process, then the results would of necessity be random as well, with most pickups falling somewhere near the norm and a few really extreme pickups at either end of the scale, in the old bell-shaped curve. Unless you're convinced that the maker is sorting them and throwing out all those that don't sound exceptionally good, chances are you're going to get a mediocre pickup (since most will end up failry close to the middle ground), and you have a slim chance of getting a really good one or a really bad one. That sounds like a marketing nightmare to me, and I find it hard to believe that any major maker has deliberately set up production machinery to manufacture an inconsistent product. Perhaps they've simply found a winding pattern that approximates a particularly nice scatterwound pickup, and they reproduce it over and over - that would make a lot more economic sense. Of course, it could also be that it doesn't make very much difference, and it is all hype. Just my two cents...

BTW, in pro audio, they call "added harmonic content" distortion, and spend big bucks trying to get rid of it! 

←

Well, I have to agree with you about scatter winding. Although if the winding is truly random, there won't be a bell-shaped curve.

I lean more towards the total hype explanation myself - having tried a number of pickups from various bow-teak makers. None would qualify as superior in my book... and most fall in the trash bucket category. Luckily there are other fools out there that believe they are superior so I was able to offload them pretty quickly.

I can't believe the bow-teak makers sell microphonic pickups at the price they do.

Yes, I use the search function...but my questions must be too weird. So I apologize for the seemingly endless series of questions I ask, maybe they'll help someone else further along...

Anyway, today's question is pretty simple: I have a neck from an MIM Standard (judging from the tuners). The heel has a paper label, part of which has a second label with a bar code superimposed.

Now I'm thinking this label is only getting in the way--it's pretty thick--and I'm thinking it's acting as a shim. (I've just 'corrected' the pocket for my metal shim--the pocket itself wasn't completely flat)

Should I just remove the label?

Easy one, right? 

←

I know what you mean - that second label with the bar code. On mine it was

inbetween the mounting holes, I thought that both labels would come off easy, but that second one was actually under the poly. It didn't seem that thick to me, like you say, it's just a piece of paper.

I mounted the neck with it on... knowing I could always remove it and sand it off. It hasn't caused any problem with the neck alignment - it's flat.

heres a site with what im trying to do neck

←

I think this is what he meant:

http://www.edromanguitars.com/guitar/prs/heel_prs.htm

Ed Roman... <sigh>

I know... the bottom part of those F holes are downright back-ass-wards.

wut does the different values of the resistors do?

←

Are you for real?

http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/  Check here.

←

You're probably going to have to get all your parts at RS... all those values seem way too low for any kind of pedal.

Nice looking bridge... but I'd really be surprised if those saddles were correct.

Or if you're planning on using active electronics in your Strat, you can use a stereo jack for a battery switch. That would be the only other reason to use a stereo jack. If you're wiring a standard passive Strat setup, use a mono jack - any unnecessary complications will multiply the opportunities for problems.

←

And of course the ony other other reason would be to run the guitar in stereo. Don't need piezos... Gibson has been doing it with two mag pickups for decades. Not impossible to set up a Strat for stereo outputs.

Question:  Won't there be some "up pressure" from the string going under the saddle?

Question:  Won't the string be trying to primarily pull the saddle towards the headstock?

Assumption:  I thought you wanted to increase the downward pressure of the string on the bridge.

←

I'm thinking that if I do it this way it will be more like the wraparound bridge on an LP Jr.

The downward pressure becomes less important precisely because of the force exerted by the string on the saddle. Or that's the theory at least.

Of course it'd be nice to anchor those saddles down too (and together)--you might be right, there might be too much upward pressure.

←

If you don't want to drill top mounting holes in the back of the plate where they normally are...

Why don't you just widen the string through holes so you can slip the ball end of the string through it... and then file a slot towards the peghead side so that the ball end will be captured. You will have to route a small channel underneath those string through holes, but it will be covered up by the bridge.

Just a thought...

But I'm wondering why I couldn't do the same thing but reverse the holes and place them in front of the saddle --that way I could still do the wrap around thing...since this bridge is already trashed, I don't mind drilling holes everywhere, I suppose it's worth a try.

I'm wondering if anyone can come up with a NEGATIVE reason for doing it this way though?

←

Ok... let me try.

As I understand what you want to do... your string(s) will go back UNDER the bridge, wrap around it, and then head on it's merry way toward the peghead.

Question: Won't there be some "up pressure" from the string going under the saddle?

Question: Won't the string be trying to primarily pull the saddle towards the headstock?

Assumption: I thought you wanted to increase the downward pressure of the string on the bridge.

Once you go past a 90 degree turn in back of the saddle, you won't get much downward pressure against the bridge saddle to bridge plate.

OK, here's a couple of (different) reasons for adding beeswax to your potting paraffin - both make some sense, and they aren't mutually exclusive, so judge for yourself:

Mix canning paraffin and 20% beeswax by heating them in a pot. Paraffin expands and contracts with temperature changes, and the beeswax nullifies most of that.

Wax - I have always used readily available canning wax (parafin) available at grocery stores.  Recently, I've heard that some manufacturers add a little beeswax to keep the wax soft and prevent it from becoming brittle and flaking or cracking with age.

Note that neither mention using a blend of mostly beeswax, certainly not 80%. As for the expansion/comtraction issues Lindy brings up, they've got to be minimal, since paraffin has been used for eons to seal glass jars, and even with the temperature cycling from cupboard to refrigerator, I've never seen a seal that was broken. Use your own judgement - I don't think there's a definitive answer available, so it's a personal choice.

←

We could assume that everything comes down to personal choice. Well... Ok... that's it for discussion forums.

nah its ok i dont take any offense to answer your question about how i plan on building one was to get used to the tools and such, i know i need to research more everyone knows im terrible for not researching...

so yeah im just gonna stop posting here for a while so i can research and get out of your hair for a while

←

String height affects intonation also. First set your string height... to stop the buzzing, then set the intonation.

But hey, since we CAN do it, we're going to find the most complicated and unelegant solution to blend a middle pickup with the bridge pickup on a Tele. Nevermind that Strats have had 5-ways for 35 years now.

←

Has it really been 35 years. My how time flies,,,

Then you realize the middle pickup on a strat occupying 3 out of the 5 positions is only an accident of Fender's use of a "make before break" 3 position switch that would only allow 3 official positions - one pickup per position. Sure you do.

Us Tele players... speaking for myself of course, would rather consider the middle pickup as an addition to the three selections we have had since roughly 1966. Not as something that should take up 3 of 5 positions and leaving us without the important position of neck/bridge pickup together. Aw... but I forgot... yall Strat players can't get that position - and of course you consider it unimportant... but only because ya can't get it.

The Strat does not define the use of a middle pickup.

I was just sitting and thinking about ways to make my project a bit less expensive, and the thought popped into my head: What if I used a non-adjustable bridge? It seemed to work well for Japanese-made guitars back in the day (which was a Wednesday, strangely enough). Exactly how much would it hurt the intonation In the upper frets?

←

Probably not much - would all depend on your choice of strings of course.

It wasn't only the '60 cheapie Japanese guitars that didn't have adjustable bridges and there wasn't much of a complaint about intonation problems. Gretsch for all those Chet Atkins models pretty much had a bar bridge. DanElectro's... and the Ampeg Dan Armstrong used a simple sliding piece of rosewood - just set the angle of the bridge piece so that the low and high E strings were intonated and play away.

I thought of the five-way, yes. But I was hoping to make do with what I have here.

Right now I'm leaning toward using a mini-switch to choose between the neck pickup and the P90 (the Bridge will remain as it is, since that's where I'm usually playing anyway--the rest is just candy ).

There's room to install the mini-switch between the pots, right? I can use an on/off switch to choose between the two pickups. Or even an on/off/on switch to give me all three pickups...

I suppose if I really wanted to get funky wid it, I could install TWO mini-switches --maybe even on/off/on switches-- but the number of possible combinations boggles my mind...

←

Plenty of room for one mini switch between the pots - more would probably be

pushing it. The volume tone pots are usually installed facing each other and

there's wiring between there.

I have three pickups in my American Deluxe, two standard Tele and one strat in the middle (all Vintage Noisless).

I don't really like the stock wiring. It uses a Strat 5 way with similar switching, and an extra mini-toggle to combine the bridge pickup with the front two positions (neck, neck/middle). It's a real pain to get the stock Tele positions easily - All the way back for Bridge... all the way forward for Neck, then keep it in Neck and flip the mini-toggle for neck/bridge.

I've been toying with an idea. Replace the 5-way with a 3-way and wire the two Tele pickups to it normally. Then replace the mini-toggle with an on-on-on type to give me:

1 primary switch plus middle pickup

2 primary switch only

3 middle pickup only

I'm thinking it would be more useful.

title says it all, im looking  for the pick up that bucket head uses, its a huimmbucker and it has 2 bars (one for each coil) but they arent rails, they are flush, thick bars, help if ya can.

←

I don't know, but from your description it sounds like a DiMarzio X2N.

http://www.dimarzio.com/

click humbuckers at the bottom of the page, then high power. The X2N is listed at the bottom of the list and will take you to a picture.

Okay, now you've piqued my curiosity.

What was the strange favor?

←

Yeah, I was afraid of that when I posted. I would rather not say, because if they got barraged with a lot of requests like that they probably wouldn't be too happy about it.

Let's just leave it as it was something I would have paid for and ended up getting it for free with a number of nice, chatty, emails to go alone with it. I was very happy.

I like to return favors, hense I wanted to post this.

←

I wanted a plain ol' Tele body. I found two of them on their web page, under the "showcase" section. When I called in about them... guess what - both of them had been sold.

One was sold almost two months before, but was still displayed as available. It been two additional months, and only one is now listed as being sold.

Since they couldn't tell me what they had available and what they didn't... I went elsewhere.

I found GuitarMill.com. Best Tele body I have ever had... and it is swamp ash instead of the Alder Warmoth bodies for ten bucks less.

I ain't ever gonna get anything else from Warmoth. They ain't got a clue how to run a business.

I'm building my first guitar and I'm about to start wiring

I have tow tone,two volume and a 3 way sw

the pups are seymour duncan humbuckers jazz, and a seth lover

I thought this wiring diagram would work

http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/schematics/humb.html

but after stripping the insulation from the pups Ifind that the jazz humbucker has four wires, and the seth has one.

I found a wiring diagram that says join the the red and white wires together and insulate, join the green wire to the shield and connect to ground, and wire the black to the pot as shown in the schematic for two single coils.

Will this work?

also the three connections on the pots, how do you know which one is which?

and how do you connect the ground wires to the pots? solder it to the case?

←

If the diagram you found for the colors is an SD, then it should work fine. If you just found a random diagram... well, different pickup makers can use different colors.

Your http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/schematics/humb.html diagram is typical two humbucker wiring and should work fine.