IWishICouldShred

Theoretically, since the tension isnt changing, shouldn't the 6 d-tuna's work? It's lengthening the scale length, keeping the tension the same while still changing the pitch, because the same amount of tension over a longer scale is what changes the note, right?

So wouldn't that mean it wouldn't affect the position of the bridge, so that the detuning would work? The only really hard mod you would need to do would be making and attaching different length detuning mechanisms for each string.

I think?

I just LOVE poly over lacquer. Killer gloss and depth. But, you can't shoot lacquer over it ....unless it's fully cured a few years, I just did an acrylic green with nitro clear over poly. Sorry to hear you found out the hard way. I've heard the Reranch guys like to use sealer and then stain...make the stain go on evenly, but I've never tried. Are you saying the catalyzed poly flaked off? That sounds wierd...

Anywho, my last paint job done over a scuffed poly Tele bod...acrylic silver base, clear acrylic and silver flakes, acrylic coppertone and poly clear with Aztek Gold pearl...

i love the switch!

"crap!"

the top horn is a little strange but it still looks awesome!

I'd like to see more of the cat as well

welcome to projectguitar.com! i just found the site a couple months ago myself, and its pretty awesome.

if you want to replace a knob with a switch, it is a easier but it makes your guitar much less versatile. To redo it with 1 vol 1 tone and the switch in place of one of those, just find a wiring diagram for any other guitar with a similar setup, there should be one somewhere around here. This will make you have one master volume and one master tone, which would be pretty simple to wire.

you'll also need to find a way to cover the hole you'll leave on the top horn. www.warmoth.com sells explorer pickguards, and someone posted an awesome site that sells diamond-plate explorer pickguards. i'll hunt around and see if i can find the link for ya.

to do a new hole for the switch, you'll need to make sure you have enough room in your control cavity for additional wires. then, you would drill a hole where you wanted the switch to go, put it in, wire it up the same way it was before (you will have to unsolder any wires going to it so you can pull those through the long channel going to the horn) and it'll be ready to play.

in either case, you should prolly get a new pickguard to cover that hole. if you're making a new hole in the guitar, then definitely go with a new pickguard.

hope this helped.

now i'm off to go get my own modded explorer from the shop . peace dude.

quick edit: as for the price, if you have a soldering iron, solder, and a drill, your only expense would be the new pickguard, which should be $20-30. (warmoth has a minimum order of $25 rule)

Im not totally sure about the a tuning you guys are talking about but to clear things up Zakk plays in Drop A not the whole guitar tuned down a perfect 4th. If this is what you both meant then pardon the hijack!

Thats what I meant, but he was talking about the dropped/perfect 4th down tuning.

Anyway, 2 pedals at once? doesnt that give some nasty feedback?

Looks sweet

But I would say go with an 81 instead of an 85.

now if i could only get my explorer with emg's to work

Nile does drop A which is drop D then 5 half-steps down. I only dropped my E string down to A. I believe Zakk Wylde had some songs on 1919-Eternal in this tuning.

Anyway, yeah, the Metal Master is by no means perfect, but it did more for my sound than any of the other ones i messed with. I also played in standard, and I was using a signature Joe Satriani guitar, and the Metal Zone gave me a huge volume difference between the low strings and the high ones if I got a good sound without an outside EQ.

I have the diagram ready if you can give me your email via PM. When you make the changes, make sure the pots are all grounded well. I don't think that's the problem you're having now but you will end up with some noise if they are not grounded well.

I sent you a PM this afternoon... did you get it?

I worked on the pickups more. Now I get a good sound and stuff, but the knobs don't do anything.

My EMG input jack also has 2 settings... in partially and all the way in. When i put my plug all the way in, it cuts the sound off. When its in partway it works. Whats goin on there?

I was messing with a similar one at guitar center today, actually. I like the Boss Metal Zone and Digitech Metal Master both much more.

I was surprised though... none of the pedals there besides the metal master could handle my AADGBE tuning without an EQ pedal. I tried the Metal Master, and the Boss OS2, MT2, an orange distortion one, and a black distortion one that looked(and sounded like?) what you posted.

www.emginc.com or www.emgpickups.com will give you diagrams that the pcikups came with.

The depth of the cavity kind of depends on the depth of the adjustment screws, so pick some up at a hardware store and work from there.

do like dave says...there should be NO hum or noise at all...emgs are the quietist pickups i have ever heard

and you should not have to disconnect that piece from the pot....

they come almost completely wired out of the box.

Was probably a loose connection. Took everything apart again and am currently waiting for a reply from either EMG or daveq.

As for what you said about the almost completely wired out of the box thing, these came pre-wired for a Les Paul setup, and I have one less tone control, so I had to disconnect a cap. from the volume and put it back into the tone and some other stuff. Basically my guitar has one less knob and its making everything too freakin complex.

After another few hours of messing with it... we have it wired just like the diagram said.

Our problem before was that one of the tone pot's prongs was still soldered back into it, it had came that way. We undid that and now we have sound on both pickups.

The problem? It's really fuzzy, hums a lot, and picks up radio on some settings.

Solution?

Alright. I messed with this for 5 hours, and slept for three. I'm ready to get back on the case. Thanks for the tips, guys. If it doesnt work I'm prolly gonna take it into the shop because I had it just like the diagram said before... or so I thought?

Back to work

ok we tried that... didnt work

now i'm puzzled because we have it wired up like the diagram but we still aren't getting a sound.

why is there a wire going back from the bridge vol. to the middle of the pickup selector? it doesnt make any sense. if it does, where would we solder it on the switch?

can you please (like... i'll be indebted to you for life) make a list of how to install these? like what to connect where and stuff? thank you if you do!!!

ok...apparently we didnt figure it out

there's three wires coming down from the switch, with 2 wires ends on each (one is a braided ground wire and the other is a regular wire.) can't seem to figure out which one goes to which pot. trial and error isnt working, so any ideas?

gah never mind we figured it out... we were reading the diagram wrong. now onto the switch.

wish me luck

edit. 100 posts

Ok em and my friend are installing a ZW set in my explorer.

The wiring diagram doesnt say anything about what to do with the capacitors, which came connecting the vol and tone pots. I'm using the last diagram, for 2 volume and one tone w/switch. The diagram is availabe at www.emgpickups.com

Someone please tell me what to do with the capacitors. Put em straight back into the same tone pot? I'll check back in 1/2 hour. If no answer, I'll try it without the caps and see what happens.

pics?

maybe if you do a more stable coat of clear over that, itd make a sweet finish?

where did you leave it to dry? if it dried slowly maybe it would crystallize, but i'm just spouting off crap i learned in earth science so maybe you should just disregard that...

Isn't there a tuitorial about stripping it with chemicals? Maybe that wouldnt be such a good idea....

Cool sn though

hehe...wierd...i guess i am not much for gimmicks

i have a hard enough time finding the time to keep up with my playing

hah... who cares about playing? its all about how cool your stage moves are

just kidding guys. i saw a bassist do it live once, it was pretty cool. i'll never try it because

1.) I'm a klutz

2.) I play a pretty heavy guitar live (mahogony explorer)

anyway back to the straplocks. use the longest screws you can find, it's worth the $.50.

what kind of pedals were they?

happy birthday!

What is draftsman's vellum?

Devon

Sounds like a disease

For my first template I'm drawing by hand on large paper, cause I dont have CAD or any of that stuff.

i would imagine wrapping the adapter in aluminum foil could cause some problems if it touches one of the blades of the plug...

you could add a noise supressor... unless the unshielded plug on that made it noisy. god that'd be ironic.

Dude shooting the guitar is a pretty cool idea... i wonder what itd look like if you routed a small cavity (like 1" round), filled it with paint, and then shot it...