Jupiter

Thanks for the tip, Wes! That was a great idea. I tried it out, and i got a signal when i put the white wire on the back of the long post, and the bare wire on one of the smaller posts. So, i soldered them down, and plugged the guitar up. I have a signal now, but it's extremely weak... the volume and tone knobs don't work at all for some reason. The toggle works, though. This is really crazy, do you think my volume and tone pots have been fried? Maybe the cap, too? Aaargh, i say, aargh.... Ben

Alright, so should i wire the one that's touching the lug on the pot to the longest shaft { the one that the guitar cable touches }? I'll try it out and let you know the results... I'm in Eastern Tennessee, BTW. Thanks, keep the help coming! Ben

its not a stereo jack, it's normal. the third lug is for a battery harness for active pickups. So does that mean that the wire that goes to the lug on my volume knob should go on the long post that the guitar cable touches, and the wire that goes to the top of the volume pot should go on one of the smaller posts on the jack? And i would post pics, but i don't have a scanner of digital camera.... Thanks! Ben

Doggone it, i'm really getting frustrated now... As per Wes and Brian's suggestions, i jumped the wire from the middle lug on the toggle to the other small middle lug. No change... Brian said that maybe my wires were swapped on my output jack. The wire thats on the lug on the volume pot should be connected to the longer post on the output jack. So, i removed the jack... my output jack has three shafts; the long one that your guitar cable touches, and two smaller ones that are the same size on either side of that one. I figured 'what the heck', so i switched the wires. No change, no signal... What in the world is going on here???? This is tough because this is the only tech job that i've had serious problems out of. Huge thanks to all the people on this site who have helped me, i've learned a lot from this site! Any other ideas? Please help, Ben

Hmm, okay, i'll try that. I just noticed another thing.... Why is it on the diagram it has 4 solder points on the toggle switch ? You have one lug for each pickup, and the one in the middle that runs to the volume knob. Where and what is this elusive 4th solder point? Thanks for the help! Ben

Aargh { again... }..... i redid everything this morning, and it's still not working. Everything is wired exactly like it looks in the diagram. There's only one or two things about it that are questionable... let me tell you what it looks like now... Neck pickup has the black wire connected to the same lug on the toggle as before. Red and white have their tips soldered together. The green and bare wires are twisted together with the green and bare from the bridge pickup and soldered to the back of the volume pot. I'm suspicious about this, should the green and bares from each pickup be seperated instead of twisting them together like i did? Bridge pickup is the same, only with the black wire on a different lug { same one as before, though}. The middle lug of the toggle has a piece of copper wire in black tubing that goes to the right lug on the volume pot. The volume pot has it's left lug occupied by a piece of copper wire in red tubing that goes from the lug to the top of the volume pot. Middle lug is the white wire from the output jack { the bare wire from the output jack is soldered to the top of the pot }. The right lug has the wire from the toggle attatched to it, as well as one wire from the little green cap. The tone pot's left lug has a piece of copper wire in white tubing going from the lug to the top of the volume pot. The middle lug has the other end of the green cap. The right lug has a little blob of solder on it, but is otherwise empty. The main ground wire to the bridge is soldered to the back of the volume pot. All of the things that are soldered to the back of the volume pot are seperated { except for the green and bare wires from the pickups, which are twisted together }. Are they perhaps all supposed to be touching? PLEASE help!!! I've missed playing this guitar.... Thanks again, Ben

Hey guys, i was reading some of the threads about swirling, and i had an idea... Okay, so you put the paints on the water surface, swirl 'em about, dip the guitar, then blow a little hole on the water surface so the guitar can have a clean exit, right? Well, to save yourself and others some time and exhaustion in the 'blowing a hole in the paint' part, couldn't you just use a hair dryer to quickly clear the water's surface? And could you even use the hair dryer to swril the paints around before you dip the guitar? Just a thought, let me know if these ideas would work ! Ben

Well, i was having some problems out of the Duncan Design humbucker pickups in my mongrel Schecter C-7... They weren't as hot as they should have been. It wasn't wired properly according to the diagrams you guys supplied me with. So, i attempted { for the second or so time } to rewire the thing last night using those same diagrams, and it's actually worse now! There's zero output!!! I just don't get what's going on... i'll explain what i have wired to what. I'm almost positive i've that i've made some kind of dumb mistakes here { hey, it's my first time really wiring anything }, so please point anything out... From the neck pickup, i have 5 wires : red, white, green, loose bare wire, and black. Red and white have their tips soldered together and aren't touching anything. The green and bare and twisted around each other and soldered to the side of the toggle switch { a 3-way toggle, btw}. The black wire is soldered to the right lug on the toggle. From the bridge pickup is the same thing, only the black wire is soldered to the left lug on the pickup. From the middle lug of the selector switch, i have a blue wire... the blue wire has a white wire inside of it, and some bare wire. The bare wire is soldered to the side of the toggle switch, and the white wire is soldered to the middle lug. Now, i have the white wire running to the right lug on the volume pot, with the other end of the bare wire being soldered to the back of the volume pot. This connection is iffy... see, the white section of wire that connects to to volume pot wasn't long enough, so i got another little piece of copper wire, and fused it to the end of the wire coming out of the white piece. I think this is probably a mistake. The volume pot has the left lug occupied my a wire or rod of some type that runs from the lug onto the back of the volume pot. The middle lug is connected to the output jack of the guitar. The right lug has the wire from the toggle switch on it, and one end of a dark green cap. The other end of the green cap is connected to the middle lug of the tone pot. The tone pot's left lug has a wire/rod that runs from the lug to the top of the tone pot. The right lug has nothing. The output jack has a black wire running from it. This contains a white wire and some bare wire. The white is connected to the middle lug on the volume pot, and the bare is soldered to the top of the pot. There is one odd wire that i'm pretty sure is part of the problem... That's the wire that runs from under the bridge. This is soldered to the side of the toggle. I'm nearly positve that should not be there... And that is all! PLEASE help!!! I really want to play this guitar... If i need to replace and wires { like that blue one }, could i use speaker wire? I also have some kind of gray wire that's divided into two sections and has a white stripe on one side. I'm sorry for my primitve terminology, i really don't know much about this stuff. If someone could even explain in layman's terms what all those different wires do, that would help me understand what's going on. I commend ANYONE who actually took the time to read all this stuff! Thanks for your time! Anyway, please help!!! Thanks again! Ben

Hmm, that's possible... I don't know how that paint could have gotten in there, though. It would have had to leak through the tape on top, though the plastic pickup cover, and into the wire... I think i'll try rewiring it again. I'll probably have some questions about the rewing, so please keep an eye on this topic if you have experience with that kind of job. Thanks, Ben

But what could it affect inside a pickup? I mean, it's just wire and magnets, after all... Can i take the pickup apart and look? Ben

Hahaha, honestly, i'm not a dumb person... See, some of you may remember a while back i was having problems with the extra low output of the bridge pickup in my Schecter C-7 that i refinished. I started having problems out of the pickup after i repainted the guitar and had it rewired by a guy i know. Now, here's the kicker... I didn't remove the pickups from the guitar while i was repainting it. Yup. It was a challenge of sorts... i was thinking out loud about wanting to repaint the guitar and not have to deal with rewiring the pickups, and my older brother swore up and down that i couldn't do it. Of course, i had to try it. I put several layers of making tape over the pickups through the whole process. During the repainting process, some wires got knocked loose in the back cavity, so i had a guy i know rewire it. After i put it all back together, the pickups { especially the bridge } had much lower output than before. I used the wiring diagrams that you guys showed me to rewire it, and the pickups still seemed weak. However, i must have doen something wrong, because the tone knob doesn't work at all. I'm going to give it another shot. So, here's my question... Could getting a little bit of paint inside the pickup damage it and lower the output? Or is this strictly a wiring problem? Thanks a lot, guys, please help soon! Ben

...anyone???

Update! Well, i just gone done attempting to resolder everything... i tried the kill switch idea, it didn't really work. If anyone knows how to make it work, though, please let me know. Here's my current situation: -Neck pickup sounds good. -Bridge pickup still sounds weak... - neck+bridge combo works. - Tone knob doesn't work at all!!! - Volume knob works, but it's backwards! When i turn the volume knob clockwise, the volume goes down, instead of up. Please offer some advice!!!

Alrighty, well, i un-soldered everything last night. That dip-it stuff tore right off, you were right. Okay, i had a really cool idea... is there any way i could wire position 3 of the toggle switch as a kill switch, position 2 as my neck pickup, and position 1 as my bridge? I never use the neck+bridge combo. Would i just need to wire my bridge to the first post on my toggle, neck on post two, and leave the third empty? In the diagram, it shows that i need to wire post two to the tone control, though. Could i wire post three to the tone control instead? Or just solder it to post 2 with my neck pickup? Please help soon!!!!!! Thanks, Ben

So, should i try and use the tip of my soldering iron to melt the black stuff off? It doesn't seem like it's all that hard, though, i could probably just pull it off. please help! Ben

Hello again! Thanks for all the replies, i was away form the board for a few days, so i didn't respond. Anyway, it's kind of hard to tell exactly what's going on back there, as the guy used copius amounts of some kind of strange black stuff to 'solder' the wires into place. He also used a heat shrink wrap tubey-thing on the ends of one of the wires, so i can't tell what colour it is. What i'd really like to do is somehow remove the wierd black stuff, and completely redo the wiring myself with my soldering iron. I'd just like to have done it myself, so i'll know how to do it in the future, you know? It's not all that hard to do, is it? Please give me some advice! Ben

Wes, i really appreciate the help, but i unfortunately don't understand a word of it ! Like i said, i've done next to zero electronics work, but i'd really like to learn. My guitar doesn't have a trem... it has a fixed bridge. There's a little wire that runs from the electronics cavity and comes out right under the bridge. I put the wire through the hole and positioned it so that a piece of the wire touches the metal on the underside of the bridge. If this somehow slipped loose, would it be causing the problems i'm having? Also, please re-explain all the stuff you just tryed to tell me. Please explain this in Jughead terms! Thanks, Ben

Hey guys! Fairly recently, i had a my Schecter C-7 rewired after doing some mods to it. Whenever i tryed the guitar again, it seemed like the bridge pickup was only running at about 75% of the power it should have... The bridge humbucker is a Duncan Design, based on the JB model, so i know the PUP should be hotter than what it is right now. Is it possible the guy did the wiring wrong, and that's why i'm not getting enough output? The neck PUP doesn't seem to be suffering from this problem. I've raised the bridge pickup to see if that would help with the output, and it didn't really do much. The guitar has two humbuckers wired to a three-way toggle switch, with position one being the bridge, two being bridge and neck, and three being the neck PUP. Could someone explain to me how to check and see if it is wired up properly? I've done next to nothing as far as wiring work goes, so please explain in moron terms ! Please help!!!! Ben

Thanks for the info and well-wishes, guys! I'll set some of the wood aside to dry.... in the meantime.... i have some very nice pieces of walnut that need to be made into something useful !!! Ben

Hello! We recently had 3 HUGE elm trees cut down on our property. There's got to be several tons of wood in our yard right now! Anyway, it seems like a waste just to give it all away as firewod. Could elm be used to make guitar bodies? It has a nice colour and pretty grain, too. I've heard that it's a pretty soft wood, but lots of soft woods are used in guitar making { basswood, poplar... }. If it can be used, i'll use it to make several solid or semi-hollow electric bodies. Could it be used for acoustics, too? Please help soon before we give it all away! Ben

Really, the weight isn't that bad at all... i'm about 5'6 and weigh around 120, and i have no problems standing up playing these guitars for long amounts of time. Oh, and i also have a bad back ! Not from the guitars, though, it's always been that way. Also, if you remember WAAAAAAY back when, Geroge Lynch used to play those solid maple ESP's back in the day. That's when he was just a little guy, too! These days, he looks more like The Hulk, though... I think a good idea would be to rout tone chambers in the body. This would cut the weight back a little and also increase the overall resonance of the body. This would be especially great if you do the 2" thick body. Hope that helps! Ben Oh, and what kind of finish are you going to do on it?

I personally own two maple-bodied Dillion 7-strings { they look like an RG7 copy}. The brightness does indeed balance well with the low-b, and it sounds so bright and clear! I really like it a lot. And neither of them are all that heavy... i mean, they're a little heavier than your standard basswood RG7, but then again, the Dillion RG-style body has a bit more mass to it than the Ibanez does. Hope that helps, if you have any more questions, feel free to ask! Ben

Heh, well, last night after my last post, i just decided to have a go at it! I just kinda did what i thought would work! I blocked the trem and took all of the tension off of the low B first. Next, i used the appropriate allen wrench to undo the saddle lock { never done that before... cool little devices, these Floyd things! }. I slipped a small piece of the thin cardstock from the back of a notebook for my shim. Putting the saddle lock back on was a hassle, let me tell you! But i got it. Tuned up, unblocked the trem, and plugged it in... it reduced the rattle quite a bit! It's still there, but it's not too audible through an amp. But then again, i have a practically straight neck, too. I'll go back and shim it with a piece of metal soon, that sounds like a better idea. Thanks guys, you all rock! ben

Hmm, okay, sounds good. But where does the shim go? Under the actual saddle on the bridge? How do you lift the saddle up? Thanks! Ben

Hey guys! I have a Floyd Rose-equipped 7-string, and i've recently found nearly perfect action on it. The only problem is, the low B string rattles a LOT pretty much up to the 8th fret or so, and the low E has a tiny bit of buzz to it. The low E i can deal with, but i need to fix the low B... Is there a way i can tweak the height of just the low B? Or am i stuck with adding some frontbow to the neck, and affecting the other strings? Please help! Ben