New purchases on the way (Guitar makeover)

68 lost souls

Hey,

picked up an old squire strat from 96 a while ago, I know most of you will see squire and run a mile but I love this guitar. This guitar sounds beautiful unplugged but then the the electronics let it down. The neck feels amazing too. Deiceided it was worth investing some money in it so Im making it a custom pickguard, installing a Seymour Duncan Everything axe set with a wicked wiring setup with 62 combinations plus the added benefit of switching between two different tone caps.

Have everything on order so waiting for shipments to arrive and a week off from college around Halloween to get this done. Ill post pics as things arrive and I progress.

feylya

Hmm, sounds like an interesting project. 2 caps eh? Must admit I haven't heard of that before. I'd love to do something similiar but dump the Dave Gilmour EMG's into it with a mid booster.

darrenw5094

F**k all to do with this....but my mate bought a Squire Tele from Oxfam in Dundalk for €10.

That's a fricken bargin........nuthin' wrong with either.

Sorry....back to the posts.

Ancient1

68 lost souls wrote: »

wicked wiring setup with 62 combinations

Damn. If that's not a typo then I really need to start catching up and seeing beyond the 3-way Strat toggle.

68 lost souls

Nope its no typo but it includes phase in or out and series parrlel options. Using 3 push/pull and 3 3pdt switchs in it so Ill have series off parrlel for each pickup aswel as in and out of phase options for neck and bridge, combining this with the tone switch will do it all for me.

At the moment its a 3tone burst with a 3ply white pickguard but I am making a clear pickuard with a copper backing and a layer of black in the middle, hoping to cut designs into the black so the copper will show through the black and clear.

I cant decide on what knobs to use, gonna go with black ones either way but will have to experement with barrel knobs and speed knobs, not sure which I prefer.

feylya

Ancient1 wrote: »

Damn. If that's not a typo then I really need to start catching up and seeing beyond the 3-way Strat toggle.

Don't strats have 5 way switches?

Ancient1

68 lost souls wrote: »

Nope its no typo but it includes phase in or out and series parrlel options. Using 3 push/pull and 3 3pdt switchs in it so Ill have series off parrlel for each pickup aswel as in and out of phase options for neck and bridge, combining this with the tone switch will do it all for me.

Man, you lost me at "nope its no typo".

feylya wrote:

Don't strats have 5 way switches?

Yeah, the supermodern ones do!

5 is as much as I can handle, even too much at times, imagine 62 combinations!

feylya

1 on, 2 on, 1 on is more than enough for me!

68 lost souls

I like wersitility. This is my first BIG modification, I have messed about with one or two guitars before, like the project I got given on here before. I reckon with this guitar I will find all the combinations I really like so in future I can use them on future projects and they wont be as complicated.

Im learning alot from this project about the working of all the electronics and before I used help on soldering but I am learning to do it myself for this one.

Not sure if I will be upgrading the bridge and that anythime soon but if I do decide anyone got any suggestion for a nice replacement 6hole trem?

And yes I am partial to a nice 3 way toggle, thats how I plan on leaving my Epi SG but at the same time I like to have a choice.

leninbenjamin

68 lost souls wrote: »

Nope its no typo but it includes phase in or out and series parrlel options. Using 3 push/pull and 3 3pdt switchs in it so Ill have series off parrlel for each pickup aswel as in and out of phase options for neck and bridge, combining this with the tone switch will do it all for me.

At the moment its a 3tone burst with a 3ply white pickguard but I am making a clear pickuard with a copper backing and a layer of black in the middle, hoping to cut designs into the black so the copper will show through the black and clear.

I cant decide on what knobs to use, gonna go with black ones either way but will have to experement with barrel knobs and speed knobs, not sure which I prefer.

i have a fair bit done to my little peavey, series/off/parallel for each pup as well as the ability to use all three pickups at once or the neck and and bridge (in series, this is my current favourite tone). anyway pretty much everything that's in that setup i was thinking experimenting with on my own when i get the time this xmas. let us know what's sounds good and what sounds ****e. the differing tonepots is definitly something i want too look into...

and if it's not too much too ask either, a pic of the wiring would be lovely

Quattroste

Eh, what effect/sound does the in phase and out of phase switch do?

leninbenjamin

Quattroste wrote: »

Eh, what effect/sound does the in phase and out of phase switch do?

most guitars are in phase, out of phase is a biting, nasal, thin sound apparently...

Eoin Madsen

Tone caps only have a noticable effect when you start to roll off the tone. As something I've experimented with in the past, I've found the effect of different caps to be disappointingly insignificant. But I barely use the tone pot and probably wouldn't miss it if it was pulled altogether.

Quattroste wrote: »

Eh, what effect/sound does the in phase and out of phase switch do?

The pickup signals sum completely differently. When they're out of phase, you get some cancellation, which you can vary with relative pickup volume levels. How it sounds varies from guitar to guitar and pickup to pickup. On my bass I can use it to pull a bit of middle by setting my bridge volume and tone low and my neck volume high. When the pickups are at equal volume it sounds a bit thin, and not in the good way.

68 lost souls

UPDATE:

Hey,

My new pups arrived today so started work on the project. I have started to make a pickguard, so far spent about 2 or 3 hours on that. I have it rough cut the clear plasti-glze to the shape I want it but just need to sand the edges smooth and down to the same size as the previous pickguard. I also cut to shape the black card to go behind it and drawn some simple graphics on that.

Waiting for more electronics to arrive hopefully this week so I can start on the wiring, (after a crash course in soldering.) Its starting to come together.

Dord

Make sure you wear a face mask when cutting the plastic. I made the mistake of not doing that before and got sick 5 minutes afterwards.

68 lost souls

Almost made that mistake, started off then remebered, also wear safet glasses or goggles since that dust flies everywere, I was using a rotary tool and there was lots of dust spraying up which can be very damagin.