Incoming long ass post... I like to be thorough.....Originally Posted by Fenix93
The middle Pickup was removed on purpose... It got in my way and I never used it anyway...
The bridge Pup is not a PAF but a Gibson 1979 T-Top that came out of a 1979 Gibson Les Paul.. The story of how it came to be put in this guitar is an odd one.. Originally I had the Les Paul back in 91 or so but took the pickups out and replaced them with EMG's.. Since I never throw away parts , I wrapped the pickup in foam and put it in a box with alot of other pickups.. There it stayed for the next 14+ years until I was in need of another sound.. I was broke so I looked in this box for a pickup. I verified it still worked with an ohm meeter.. So I hooked it up in a temporary fashion.. After I was satisfied with it, I made things more permanent.. Honestly I haven't fully verified it is a T-Top but it did meet all the criteria..i.e. Year,guitar is originally came out of, and DC resistance of ~7.5 K ohms. The one thing I did not do was to take the gold cover off.. Since it was soldered on the bottom plate of the pickup.. this was going to be a pain + i really needed a solder gun for this type of operation...If it is a T-Top and it is highly probable that it is.. they fetch around $250 to $275 on Ebay if i wanted to sell it
The T-Top isnt as hot as the POS Seymour Duncan designed by abomination that was stock in it, but it more than makes up for it tonally and harmonically.. When I say this is the most perfect guitar I have ever owned.. it is all that and more.. BUT i made it that way in several ways.. sonically and aesthetically .. She never breaks a string EVER!!..and always stays in tune as long as the new strings have been properly stretched ,the string action/height is comfortable, intonation is not perfect but close.. She has become more than what she was and much more than was ever expected...a labor of love and in a very real way,she is my soul .. Shear perfection... I refer to her as one of my kids
all of the wiring and modding were done by my mind/hand...
Electronic mods
--Took the 5 way switch out and replaced it with a 3 way
--routed and drilled a hole .. Installed a on/off DPDT switch... on the off position is redirects the signal to ground.. i.e. turned the guitar off
--replaced the orginal pots with a 500k alpha push/pull (built in DPDT switch)
--Volume pot.. push= normal,pull=Volume bypass mod or as some call it a solo mod..i.e.100 % volume
--Tone Pot.. push =.047uF CAP, pull=.022uF CAP.. caps are high quality Orange Drops and are mainly used in amplifiers...the cost is like ~4X as much as a regular capacitor of =- capacitance..
--higher quality input jack was installed
cosmetic and/or functional mods
--cut a new control cavity plate out of plexiglass with a dremal and a steady hand.. Came out maby 95% perfect
-- Replaced the chrome knobs with gold knobs with red inlays
--installed a wrench holder behind the neck.. these are the wrenches I need to change strings or to adjust the bridge.. Helps to keep them close by
--neck backplate and jackplate where replaced with black ones
--neck nut was painted black but will eventually be replaced with a black one.. expensive for what it is so I just painted it as a temp solution
-- Gold pick up cover for the neck single coil
I also wanted a black bridge but im not spending $200 for a color change to replace a bridge that is otherwise perfect
All the work I did on this guitar.. If i was to attach a price tag to it.. maby ~$40 for parts and $125-$150 for labor.. perhaps more.. this is excluding the price for the bridge pickup of course
Here is the original drawing I made with ExpressSCH and colored it in psp7 ...it was a merger of some schematics i found on the net with a few minor changes to make it work as a single unit.. Pretty kool huh? i made all the components for this drawing (Pickups,switch,pots,jack).. painfully slow process but the result was worth it.. My degree in electronics was put to use for a change
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