AG...

You don't half rock. I bought a massive length of 5mm steel yesterday so I'm gonna try cutting/drilling my own slugs. The did 5mm tubing in every other metal than I wanted, lol. Couldn't find rivets either. Aliminuim tubing (with a diameter of half a millemeter) filled with putty wouldn't really be good enough would it?

Bit of a huge bump here, I've been working on some other projects (stomp boxes and in-guitar LEDs) and have neglected my poor pickups. I found this stuff on eBay, while looking for psw's suggestion of a steel impregnated putty, I was wondering if itd do the trick? http://www.dual-star.com/index2/Service/qu...epoxy_putty.htm Cheers guys.

Cheers for your help, I'm not completely sure how everything works, but I'll have a play about and see what happens, I learn better that way.

Sorry, should have included the schematic, which has the values on it. http://amps.zugster.net/images/articles/to...s/fmv-schem.gif I was planning on putting this in a pedal form, not to be used as a stand alone preamp, as a kinda boost type thing.

So I have this here 'high gain preamp' schematic; And I was wondering if I could add this tone stack design to it, and would it be a case of just sticking it on the back end of the scematic, like on the output part? http://amps.zugster.net/images/articles/to.../fmv-layout.gif If it's not as simple as that, or would work better before the gain stage, could one of you fellas gimme some direction on how to incorperate it?

I thought I'd give drilling a go, but the rivet idea is certainly preferable. I just need to find 5mm outer size rivets, with a 3mm hole in the center. I need to find some 4 conductor cable with a shield before I can plug them in, That pickp originally only had two conductor wires, but seeing as it was open anywhoos, I decided I might as well make it 4 conductor. Cheers for the support, and encouragement.

I'll be changing the design a little before I install the pickups, but I'll let you guys know what sort out of sound difference there was.

Here is the first working prototype of my new modding idea, the LED pickup. Aint had the pickup 'hearing' anything yet, but as far as my electronics knowledge spans, they wont create any noise when they're on, and as I've only drilled the slugs hollow, the pickup will function as a humbucker still. The pickup may be a little less hot though, as the mass of the slugs is decreased... Next thing to do is introduce a 555 chip so it can have a flashing mode, and them some sort of CMOS chip so I can have a chasing mode. Then I'll make a printed PCB for it, make it neater. (MX is the forum which I mod, and they got to know about it first )

Ahh, thaks for that post. I have seen the LED's behind the pickups, and it looks pretty fly, but I was going for something a little more unique. Another idea I had along these line was with fibre optics. I know very little about F.O. but I would assume, as it is just light, it wouldn't effect the sound of your bucker, but perhaps even the very small hole in the slug (needed to install the fibre optic) would? Also, I know fibre optics are used in fretboard side inlays, but do they heat up?

How much effect do the mass of the slugs in a humbucker count? I'm talking the non adjustable pole pieces here. Could I dismantle a pickup, remove the slugs and drill the hollow? Would this create an adverse effect on the pickups sound? Also, do LED's have an effect on hum or tone or something, especially when in close proximity to the pickups? Even inside them? I had a idea that would look awesome if it worked, drilling out the slugs and putting LED's inside them, but it woulnd't be worth trying if it would create any hum or buzz.

This link was just forwarded to me by a friend, so I did a search and turned up nothing, but if this is as old as Jesus, then I apologise. http://www.wayneguitars.com/nwwd/videos.htm 28 videos (of varying length) on the construction of Wayne guitars (formerly Charvel guitars) I found it very informative, and has definitely given me some more insight on how to go about building my first guitar.

It's really simple, same switches as you have now, each of the wires to a different lug and one jumper. I think you should try it on the middle position pup

That looks like it will work perfectly. Instead of coil taps, have you thought about series/parallel wiring of the humbuckers? IMO, it is a much better mod, and the sound is much preferable. Also, you can place a capacitor (of the same value you are using on your tone pot) between the switch out and ground on your coil taps, which makes the single coil alot brighter and more single coil like. There is a mad wiring diagram I could direct you towards that gives 96 different pickup combos for a three humbucker equiped guitar if you'd like? Btw, I just wired up a project guitar to have 22 different combo's, it's great fun to have so many different sounds available, good on you.

If you bought a usual tele and wanted to add a third, middle position, pickup, you would need to route the body for the pickup. The Nashville telecaster and new Block Tele come with 3 pickups as standard, I think.

Right, this is probably gonna act more as a bump so the bigger guys can answer properly but here goes. As far as I know, there are two different types of 3 conductor wire pickups; Tappable single coils, where the third conductor separates the pickup into a shorter wound coil, giving a different output and tone Humbuckers, where the North-Coil end wire and South-Coil start (usually wired together for series humbucking) wires are combined into one wire and sent out of the pickup, tapping the pickup to one coil when connected to ground. I don't know how you would go about finding out which of these it is, or which colour is which conductor. Is there a brand on the pickup? Here is how you would wire it up using a SPDT switch to utilise both sounds of the pickup, for those two scenarios. If you wanted just one sound from the pickup, use the main coil wire or hot wire only, going to the switch or pot, tape of over the extra wire and leave it. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v86/lala...lalala/bass.jpg