mistermikev

since you have to pull out the switch... you need to cut both pickups and the live to the switch... then reconnect them exactly as they were later. the jack should stay with the pots and wired up. afa headstock... IMO you should make it yours... put something you like on it. you could paint it black, and do some waterslide decal on it. print it out on an inkjet or laser printer as just an outline of the letters, then paint the inside of the letters with a gold paint pen. then stick it on and clear over it. or do deco foil in chrome or gold.

hehe, I bet. my shoulder hurts just looking at it!

nicely done.

looks brutalz!

now worries. looking fwd to seeing some pickguard photos.

right on. in that case perhaps forstner is the way to go. or you could just use a straight edge to do 'lines' with the router. leaving a 3/8" barrier between each 'line' for strength. or... what I did on my delta lectric... is just cut some 1/8" mahog into strips and used it to strengthen the top in critical areas. that was a 3/32 maple top over an almost full hollow body. I imagine any of those solutions would work great.

I did forstner weight relief on a p bass build... brought it all the way down to 10 lbs! Unless you do it really aggressively I don't think it's worth it... just my opinion. I have a bad back and wish I had gone full semihollow on that build.

I wouldn't get the duct brand because A it will likely keep paint with it in coming off and B it's very thick. I would just use the 3m carpet tape - it's very thin and will stick very well... less likely to take paint with it when coming off altho still a risk. afa guitar fetish... haven't tried their tuners but if you are looking for less expensive options that are solid the wilkinson locking are pretty decent and in the under $30 range. they use them on reverend guitars so... no one complains.

you mean tuning knobs themselves... or the machines+knobs. knobs themselves - evilbay. you can get tuners there too. grizzly has some great deals on some gotoh but I think they are all gold. afa pickguard... wd will make one to your specs using any material you like but it's spendy. if you can find a pickguard you like... you could just use carpet tape. just a thought.

you had me at 'flamed mahog'. looking fwd to it! welcome!

right on!

well nicely done. lil dissapointed no dog intro but all in all it's another success.

looks great. emerald really shines against that pickguard. nice work.

just the pickup wires. he's saying to cut them back 1/2" from where they connect so that you'll leave enough of the wire connected to the original connection that you can see the color of the original wire where it connects. yes, new pickups will have new pickup wires.

could be either. this would be one part. once you have this wired up as drawn... you get a 9v battery clip. it will have red/black wires. red to the red on the preamp. black will go to your output jack. looks like you have a stereo jack there. if you give me a better pic of the lugs I could tell you better. there is going to be 3 connections on a stereo jack. two of them are there already wired to your vol pot. the third lug is going to get the black wire from the battery. this enables the active circuit to stop draining power from the battery when you disconnect your cable from the guitar. so two wires total... one for the red battery lead, one for the black battery lead.

priorities? never heard of them. Thank you for the response! agree... can't help but feel the time would have been well spent building guitars. that said, I probably only have 10-15hrs total in the two of these (finishing the 2nd now), only that much because I didn't have the proper tools to sand something this wide so had to use my router sled - followed by belt, and then orbital! not to mention every straight edge was routered (no table saw). good experience in how NOT to do it.

too late... now you owe me your soul... mhoo hoo haa haa haa ho hee hee (sinister laugh). The red wire at the bottom is your red wire on your pics. Take a look and make sure it is hitting both of these lugs as it's hard to see in the photo but it should be. the black wire at the top goes to the top of a tone pot. for each pickup you'll notice two wires aren't listed... the black and the bare... those all go to the back of a vol pot. this will yield Bridge Humbucker, Bridge single coil, neck and bridge humbucker, neck single coil, neck humbucker. IMO it's simple but about the best combos you could have from a bass for variety.

looks like these are likely colors:

roger that... I really think you should keep the pre... it's 90% wired up. go get a battery clip from ebay and you can mount it in the existing cavity with just a single screw. afa wireup... if I drew a wireup of your 5 way is it something you'd use? if so... tell me what pickups you will use so I can setup the correct wire colors.

well the red wire from the preamp is more than likely the battery. I'd bet your next paycheck on it. red to 9v + and black from battery to ring/ground on the output jack. the pickups wires... looks like the super switch was being under-utilized. i'd bet the red and white were series link and were being sent to ground by that second half they are attached to. nothing appears to be connected to the common on the halves they are connected to. From what I can see pickups go to the 5 way, 5 way goes to preamp, preamp goes to vol, vol goes to output. You might want to start over afa the 5 way goes... just desolder everything... then on the side that's connected to the red out wire... connect neck pickup to lugs 543 on one and the bridge pickup to the other side at lugs 123. then the other half of the switch you can wire the two common lugs to ground and wire up the series link from neck to posts 34 and series link from bridge to 23. this will give you bridge humbucker, bridge split, bridge and neck split, neck split, neck humbucker. I may be going too fast, or too slow... please forgive.

thank you scott. I def appreciate your input.

hehe, I hear ya. felt guilty. kept thinking "well this would make a nice neck".

well, I'm not actually sure if THEY actually said it... but there was an SNL parody where they said it A LOT! Seemed to fit how much I like your build so... went w it!

well... I am a tube guy myself. yes, tube watts =/= solid state watts. 5/1 watt of tube will def be loud - but this item is solid state... perhaps a small coffee house would work but I imagine it would be at the peak of what it could work for. it's really a 'busking' amp so should be fine but it would be drowned out by a tube champ for sure!

my buddy had one of those and a while back we did some recordings with it... i was actually going to recommend it too because bang for buck it's hard to beat. really great sound, portable-battery operated and has an interface. the achilles heel of it is the interface as it's "latent with latency" but w direct monitoring you can work around. Not sure it'd be loud enough, but admittedly they are surprisingly loud for size.