curtisa

Given the way those wires look pre-twisted, my gut instinct says that you can install it as per the Seymour Duncan diagram. It is possible to do a full breakdown of each wire in turn to verify the correct wiring scheme, but you'll need a multimeter to do it. Here's a couple of articles showing how it's done:

Nothing wrong with making a solder connection to the back of a pot. The success of the solder joint is entirely down to the tools used, the preparation of the surface to be soldered and good old fashioned practice. Don't forget that it is possible to overheat and damage any component designed to be soldered if poor tools are used or the person holding the soldering iron lacks experience. It most likely dates from the days of point-to-point wiring in tube radios and TVs when there was no other way to ground the case of the pot. No doubt the practice was carried over to the guitar world by people who had experience assembling such circuits in factories. Back to the original topic: Where did the pickup come from? If it came from a working guitar I'd be tempted to use the Seymour Duncan wiring diagram, as it sounds like the wiring colours and the way the pickup was supplied to you with red/white and green/braid coiled together matches the SD scheme.

As deep as they need to be. Electronic cavities are easy - deep enough to enclose the parts without them bottoming out on anything. If the part needs to penetrate through the front (pots and switches) make the cavity deep enough so that the part has enough thread exposed so it can be secured to the surface properly. Pickups need enough depth to allow for the lowest height adjustment you're likely to set them at. Raising the height of a pickup in a slightly too-deep cavity is easy. Lowering it in a too-shallow cavity is much harder. In both of the above cases I'd want to have the parts handy so I could measure them beforehand (or at least have some known-good measurements of them) and trial-fit them after making the cut Neck pocket is more critical, and something I wouldn't attempt to do without the neck being built to a point where it is near its final thickness, or without knowing some information about the bridge dimensions. Most decent manufacturers of tremolos should include routing and drilling details for their products which will assist in installing them. If not, then I'd recommend trialling any self-made templates out on scrap timber before committing it to the final cut. I've always gone body then cavities, but I have seen some people do neck pocket and bridge on the blank and then cut the body shape to align with the cuts made for the neck and bridge. For all other cavities it makes sense to do them last. The neck pocket determines the minimum position of the neck pickup. The bridge location determines the minimum position of the bridge pickup. The body shape determines the location of the control cavities.

Yes, first impressions of these Fishmans are quite nice, not your typical EMG hifi-ness, although there is a bit of a volume drop between the two voice modes. Some experimentation is required...

Never fear. I hadn't forgotten about the project, just had a few other things on the go that were otherwise occupying my time. Still on the to-do list: Decide if the nut bothers me enough to throw another $15 on a Graphtech nut blank Raise the height of the neck pickup slightly with some compressible foam Find something non-oily/greasy to lubricate the tuners a little (as the string tension come up the tuners get quite stiff to turn by hand) Experiment with gain cut/HF cut functions on Fishmans. Oil fretboard Bust out mad roxxorz skillz for @KnightroExpress And there's still the sister build for this one to get on with...

Thanks, Knightro. Guess that means I'll be expected to bust out my mad roxxorz skillz

If you have any offcuts from the original neck blank it would be better. Pine will still probably work fine though.

Anyone know what to do with all these wires? These Fishmans are actually pretty well equipped in terms of options. Out of the box you get the usual plug-in type connectors to get things going with basic EMG-esque ground/9V/signal terminals for each pickup. But then they throw in extra cables for each pickup to allow you to switch between two voicing options, a low gain option and a high frequency cut. On the back of each pickup they also include solder pads that allow you to split the coils aswell. Pretty neat. I may yet re-make this nut. I accidentally took the top surface down too far, and while all of the strings have sufficient clearance at the first fret, the nut slots are barely there. The only thing that has me hesitating on it at the moment is that the string locks being so close to the back of the nut means that the strings seem unlikely to jump out of their slots while doing bends in the first few frets. @KnightroExpress - I hereby take this opportunity to steal your independent saddle grounding idea, but I will raise your method slightly by perforating the two layers of conductive tape with an Xacto knife so that they are guaranteed a reliable connection: The black powder coating on the underside of each saddle needs to be removed in order to get a good connection to the grounding strip. Nothing a few seconds with the Dremel can't fix: Near enough to a dead short for this boy: Damn close to being done:

Interesting. I would have thought that'd be way too aggressive to be of any use, although the quick check of the Frank Brothers Instagram feed I did only mentions scuffing the sanding sealer, rather than levelling the finish coats.

I think when Chris refers to "finish sanding" he's talking about the final sanding performed on the raw timber before applying a finish. IME buying a good quality random orbital sander changed my perceptions of power sanders. Up until then I had only used generic orbital (non-random) power sanders which always tended to leave tiny little sanding "squiggles" on the surface of the timber, requiring more hand sanding to get them out, which defeated the purpose of using a power sander in the first place. I ended up getting a Makita BO5041KX ($250AU or so). No doubt I could easily spend 3 times the price of the Makita on something by Festool. I believe the Bosch GEX (blue) series sanders are recommended too. Sandpaper attachment method may be important when buying replacement pads. Some manufacturer's may utilise specific shapes, sizes and securing systems that may require you to buy more expensive sanding paper. One of the reasons I chose the Makita was that it just uses a velcro-backed 125mm circle which can be bought just about anywhere. Buy a big stash of sanding pads in various grits up to as high as you can get them. With the velco-backed stuff, after the first use they rarely reattach to the sander properly when they're peeled off, so they're effectively single-use only. What I've found when using the ROS is that the equivalent grit used on the sander will give a smoother finish than using that same grit sanding by hand. Have a look at the dust collection port and see if you can hook something up to it. The little dust bags that come with most sanders aren't worth their weight. Sides and complex carves where the ROS won't fit I'll still do by hand. Just takes time and patience.For really tight stuff I'll cut up some sand paper into 8" strips, place it between the timber and my hand and use the other hand to pull it through in one continuous motion. Kinda hard to explain - a bit like pulling a piece of sticky tape out from a dispenser.

You'll need to fill the gap, otherwise the truss rod will rattle around inside your neck Usual fix is to add a strip of timber on top of the truss rod to fill the void between the top of the truss rod and the underside of the fretboard. The strip should be a bit taller than the gap you're trying to close so that it can be planed/sanded/scraped down flush after the glue dries before fitting the fretboard. Allied Lutherie used to suggest their trussrods be installed the same way: Fitting a timber strip under the trussrod will also work, but will be much harder to install snugly at the bottom of the channel.

In the not-too-distant past anything marked "Made in Japan" would have been in a similar category. Cheap and (for the most part) well-trained labour in developing economies is going to be attractive to big companies wanting to turn a profit on high-volume products. More than likely it is far more cost effective to employ an army of low-cost workers, each performing one task under the watchful eye of a "lead" luthier, than it is to employ a dozen luthiers doing multiple tasks each. I have heard it said that China's continuing expansion as a developing economy will eventually lead to a catch-22 situation. The improving profits from using a low cost workforce will lead to the workforce negotiating better pay and working conditions, which not surprisingly costs businesses and customers more, creating a positive feedback loop leading to China's eventual emergence as the new "Made in Japan" semi-premium category. When this happens it's possible that the market will simply move to the next part of the world to source cheap labour and parts. Who knows - in 20 years time our cheap instruments might be stamped "Made in India" or "Made in Sri Lanka". Bigger companies have bigger buying power. A couple of tons of mahogany for a few thousand guitar builds will be a fraction of the cost of one slab of timber for a single instrument on a per-volume basis. But hopefully that single plank of wood will be used to create something unique; something that none of the bigger production companies are making.

DC resistance by itself isn't a measure of a pickup's output, only an indicator. The full story is down to the proximity of the pickup to the strings, how far along the string's length the pickup is placed, the number of turns on each coil, the strength of the magnets, the inductance of each coil, the type of magnet used etc etc. A low resistance pickup might be louder than a high resistance pickup owing to its physical position and electrical/mechanical properties. I'd still suggest wiring it up and trying it out before writing it off based on the calcuated resistances. Either way, I reckon it's an interesting-looking circuit that would be fun to experiment with.

Are those pickup resistance values known or assumed? 9K seems low for a typical humbucker... Low resistance doesn't always equal non-optimum output or behavior. Assuming your single coil values of 5K are typical (I have no idea off the top of my head), positions 2 and 4 on a Strat should yield 2.5K, which seems pretty low but that shouldn't be cause for alarm. I guess the other thing to consider is what that scheme wired as parallel-only sounds like? Parallel makes your wiring scheme viable with the parts you have available, whereas mixed series/parallel complicates things a lot. Is parallel-only wiring off the cards solely because the maths says it looks odd?

Could be a dry solder joint. Open up the control cavity and look for any loose wires, fractured solder joints etc. It sounds like it affects both pickup equally, so it's likely that the fault is something that's common to both - the volume pot, tone pot, selector switch or output jack perhaps. What model EMG pickups are they? Don't mean to state the obvious, but you're quite sure they are passive pickups?

Moved to Tech Area - Electronics Chat area of forum.

IME in cooler climates ventilation is actually one of the better things you can do. And by ventilation I mean the exchange of air (air in/air out) rather than simply allowing outside air in. My workshop area is built on the side of a hill, unheated 24/7 all year. In winter it will rarely get any sun owing to the shadow of the hill and surrounding houses and trees. It should be cold and damp in there, but it's also far from airtight, so air is able to get in and through quite easily. Nearly all of my tools are kept on unenclosed racks and none exhibit the rusting yours have done. Maybe some kind of exhaust or air exchange fan to allow damp air to escape could help? Storing the tools somewhere where the air can get to them, rather than locked away in a drawer or cupboard may also minimise rust buildup. Buckets of those dehumidifying crystals may be a good idea, although you'll have to keep on replacing them every few weeks. Reverse cycle heating or dehumidifiers are the premium option but also costly to install and run. A cheap digital temperature/relative humidity meter could be useful to help find which parts of the cellar are the dampest.

Could be done if you are willing to move the coil tap to a mini toggle or push-pull.

Can't be done using off-the-shelf parts. Too many options for one 5-way switch to achieve. I can do everything except the humbucker coil tap with a 5-way 4-pole Oak Grigsby Super Switch. Could be done if you could get your hands on a 5-way 5-position switch (unlikely). Could be done if you can live with a blend function that wouldn't go to absolute zero at either extreme. Could be done if your blend pot only faded in one coil while the other remains at 100% all the time.

That's kind of you to say so - thanks. I would have thought a private builder who can copy a Strat for half the price of the real deal and create something as good as or better would need closer scrutiny. Either he's making no money on such a build, or the quality of the finished instrument is questionable. Or both.

I have a magazine interview somewhere at home with Rupert Neve, who headed the Neve group and designed many recording consoles and studio components from the 60s onwards. In the interview he laments the desire for engineers and musicians to favour his old designs from the 60s and 70s for their tonal qualities, as he can't convince people to buy his newer, technically-superior studio equipment. A significant portion of the recording industry is also built on clones of vintage recording equipment, even software plugins designed to recreate the characteristics of them. Its not just guitars and amps that are victims of clonewars, but it does seem to be confined to music technology for some reason.

As a non-professional builder (I'd hardly call myself a luthier!) I find it hard to understand why some businesses exist solely to create copies of Fenders and Gibsons. There's no doubt that they produce beautiful instruments, but why not put that effort to create something unique? And if a customer is willing to shell out top dollar for a Fender clone, why not just buy a top-of-the-range Fender instead? For personal use, as a one-off gift to someone or for the educational experience I can understand why a clone might be built, but as I commercial venture I find the concept a little stale. On a related note, I find it funny that guitars like the Strat, when initially produced were seen as incredibly futuristic and ground-breaking for their time. Over 60 years later players still prefer these designs over the "new" modern/futuristic instruments and the original manufacturers find themselves locked into producing those instruments. If this were the car industry we'd still be driving Austin A30s.

I'd say someone has been in there before you. Looks like pretty rough work for a PRS. Are the pickups original or have they been replaced? I assume on a lefty that the pots rotate anticlockwise towards maximum. If that's the case that would explain why the taper on the tone pot is all at the bottom of the rotation. the "15A" marking on that pot signifies it's logarithmic taper, which would probably work out fine if it was installed in a righthand/clockwise guitar. In a lefty guitar the pot wiring needs to be swapped to give anticlockwise -> maximum rotation, but reversing the terminations on a conventional log pot will give it a weird taper. Seems the push-pull has been replaced at some point and whoever did it didn't use the correct part. If they got the wiring on the push-pull switch wrong at the same time it could explain why the switch doesn't work either. Could be that the wiring from the two pickups have been swapped here too. I take it this is the wiring diagram you're using as a reference. The push-pull probably needs to be replaced with a "B" or linear taper 500K pot to get some of the correct rotational feel back. After that your best bet is to carefully re-do the original wiring to match the PRS diagram, taking care to reverse the pot connections shown on the schematic, as it is drawn for a righty guitar.

Keep a little tub of water nearby to cool the cutters as you grind. Just dunk them in for every few seconds of grinding time and you'll be grand.

You might find it easier to manually edit the NC file to make each slot follow a radius. Should be fairly easy to identify each linear slot and convert it to an arc around the Y axis. 0.33" per sec is 20" per min. Maybe that's asking a bit much for some bits? I've done 3 boards with a 0.023" twin flute Kyocera bit (eBay in packs of 10, not expensive), 12"/min, ramping to 0.012" at each end of the slot without any issues. Could probably go harder with experimentation, but haven't tried it yet. I would think that making a direct plunge into material to a depth of 0.03" and suddenly wrenching the bit sideways to begin the slotting operation would be asking for trouble with small bits, even at low feedrates. The gentler approach of ramping into the cut is ideal for this kind of work.