crap strat project suggestions

[justron]

I posted this in the intro forum, but this might be a better place...

so...my cheapo experimental red strat has an alnico loaded pickguard from GFS, which is also what I have on the black strat with tortoise pickguard.

I want to do something fun and cheap to change the sound. I was thinking a seymour duncan hot rail (or GFS comparable) pickup on the bridge and maybe one on the neck. Any ideas?

seymour humbucker (single size) bridge, stock alnico middle and lipstick neck?

[Markocaster]

I have a beater strat, going to try a gfs rail bucket in the bridge.

[justron]

Since further reviewing this forum, I've realized this thread belongs in a different section of the forum, my apologies, I will add some cyclone questions.

I wired up a GFS rail 15k humbucker in the bridge. I can't believe I got it right on the first try, since none of the wiring diagrams I was finding online seemed to match what I was looking at.



So here's some follow up questions...

From GFS this is what was in there "Bridge is wound to 6K, Mid is wound to 5.5K and Neck to 5K- Mid is RW/RP so positions 2 and 4 are noise canceling." So I left the neck and middle as is, but I was thinking it might be worth it to move the old bridge to the middle and the current middle to the neck....buuut I was also still swimming around the idea of putting a tele pickup in the neck, so then I could just leave the middle as is.

Lost my train of thought, what's happening in switch position 4 now?

I was going to take the extra alnico pickup and put in the neck position on my Squier Cyclone, but that's only because I don't know what's in there and I'm assuming it's just a squier ceramic pickup.

[noisepunk]

The project section isn't just for offsets, so no worries.

[Domm]

i put jag pickups in my cheapy strat, 1meg tone and volume pots, and changed switch to tele 3 way. taped over the middle pickup hole and called it a day. sounds nothing like a strat

[justron]

ok good.

I'm thinking what I'm going to do is put a tele lipstick in the neck and then get a push/pull knob to run the bridge pickup, so from what I understand, putting it in the 2 position will run all three pickups at the same time, but still give me the option of turning off the bridge and having it run 1-5 like a standard strat.

[bussche]

ok good.

I'm thinking what I'm going to do is put a tele lipstick in the neck and then get a push/pull knob to run the bridge pickup, so from what I understand, putting it in the 2 position will run all three pickups at the same time, but still give me the option of turning off the bridge and having it run 1-5 like a standard strat.

That will work electrically but the tele neck pickup is a smaller form factor than a strat pickup so you will have to jury rig something there.

[justron]

jury rig?

in the states it's jerry rigging, or jimming rigging. unless of course you're actually rigging a jury, but no need to go into that here.....yet.

And yeah, I realize it's smaller, I don't think it'll bother me.

[justron]

lately I seem to think about different wiring setups as I'm falling asleep at night. So here's what I came up last night, let me know if it's possible, it seems possible and simple...but you never know with this crazy electricity.

Is it possible to bypass the 5-sway switch altogether and have each knob just control the "volume" of each pickup? Is that a dumb idea? I like to think that there are no dumb ideas, but eventually I'm going to plug this guy in and it's just going to burst into flames.

[Larry Mal]

I'm in Saint Louis, and I know it as "jury rig". Nothing else really makes sense. It would imply that the situation can't be resolved by normal and ideal ways.

[noisepunk]

Is it possible to bypass the 5-sway switch altogether and have each knob just control the "volume" of each pickup? Is that a dumb idea? I like to think that there are no dumb ideas, but eventually I'm going to plug this guy in and it's just going to burst into flames.

It's very possible, in fact you could get rid of the knobs altogether if you really wanted to and it would still work fine; guitar wiring is great in that it'll either work or it won't, and doing something wrong can only not work, it won't ever damage anything (unless of course you have any kind of active circuit; I.e. some kind of effect).

If I can remember, I'll try and make you a wiring diagram tomorrow, it's a very easy wiring job.

[justron]

that'd be awesome. If I used all push/pull knobs, could I make them both tone and volume knobs? Still leaving out the switch.

[justron]

I'm in Saint Louis, and I know it as "jury rig". Nothing else really makes sense. It would imply that the situation can't be resolved by normal and ideal ways.

and yeah, I know him from another forum, so I was just trying to be a jerk.

this is what I get from the all knowing wikipedia on that subject.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_rig

[noisepunk]

that'd be awesome. If I used all push/pull knobs, could I make them both tone and volume knobs? Still leaving out the switch.

No experience with push pulls, but I think that is possible; I wouldn't even begin to know how to help you with that one though.

You could try and find a slider pot (like on a mixing board) of correct value that fits where the switch currently is and use that for tone.

[justron]

Haven't done anymore wiring mods, but I took some neck staining advice from here and got way better results than I expected. I wasn't too worried about the results, cause like the title says, "crap strat" but I got a great tint on the neck, much better than expected.

before (not sure if false fender logos are frowned upon here or not, but I'm never going to try to pass this off as a real fender).



after