Ash Strat Reset

Sure does look butterscotchy, Paul. Very classy looking with the grain showing through like that.

Careful with the highlights - had a nice black guitar that I thought would look neat with some silver highlights. As soon as they went on I wanted to take them off again.... Couple of hours of careful sanding and you can't really notice them...

Hi Brendan
I don't really think the highlights had any affect at all there was very few areas where they could properly take as I had given the body a rub over with a slurry of timbermate and then sanded it back.
If it has had any effect it has been to make the body look a bit more golden.
But then I am getting much the same impression from the Clear coat which is more the colour of treacle.

Cheers PK

I've started setting up the wiring loom for this little Honey. I am toying with the idea of setting up the Neck and Mid pick ups on push pulls so they can be run as series or parallel. Has any one done this... or has any one even done strat/tele rails.. these things look awesome. just hope they sound as good as they look.
So far I have set the bottom tone control to only run the big Humbucker. I've soldered in the cap as a .023uf. It's a pitty I don't hace a Black four wire Bucker otherwise I'd do a split on it as well as the tiny rails. I've used a full sized CTS B500 pot for the humbucker tone, but picked one that was actually only 424K Ohm. I've got about 150 Full Sized CTS B500K pots but they are only 30%. I've graduated them into sets of four. When I bought them I was only supposed to get 20 pots all up. So if any one wants some drop me a line and we can work something our. Beers are my favourite form of Currency, but if your not in Melb money will do. LOL

Cheers PK

I've dabbled a bit with running rail coils in series/parallel, as well as in series/parallel pickup combos and out of phase. I like the sound of the GFS Lil' Puncher rails out of phase in my TL-1A (coils in series, pickups in parallel out of phase), it's a bit like position 2 on a Strat. I usually run the pickups with their coils in series, but I'm still experimenting with all the sounds and tweaking the pickup heights etc. So far, they sound pretty good to me.

If you are interested, here are some of my wiring diagrams: TL-1A with GFS rails, ST-1 with GFS rails, ST-1 with Toneriders.

Is there a particular style of sounds you want or just general versatiliy? Rail coils in parallel can be too thin, scooped and nasally for some tastes so splitting them may a better option if you want something more like single coil tones. But, I guess it depends on the pickup, the guitar and most importantly, your ear. And, if you are game, you could always try some surgery on your humbucker to give it a coil split option.

150 CTS pots! wow, are they all 'B' linear's?

Hi WB.

My prefered music flavour is Blues.
I like to try and build a guitar that is versatile. so maybe go the series/sngle split coil option. I know the P-Rail on my Eagle 11 doesn't gain much in parallel, It has SD switched pickup rings.
As you can guess I like to fiddle with the wiring. and see what I can get out of it apart from burnt fingers. 8)

of the CTS pots, the whole 150 pots are B500K. Some get as high as 530K and as low as 424K. I have graded them in to groups of four. each group is within a K or two of each other. I have something like 30 packs of four. and one pack with about ten pots that just could not be grouped. they have 9mm of thread and standard sized splines.

Cheers PK

If you want wiring 'options' then Scott is definitely your man. Watch out though, some of his combos require a degree in dimensional sanity. ;-)
Seriously though, check Scott's diagrams. He's put together some very cool combinations.

Paul, if you're going to go with the split rail option remember to split the 'north' rail on one pup and the 'south' rail on the other, so you still get the RWRP hum cancelling when both the split neck and middle are on together. And, depending on the rail pups and how you decide to wire them you may need to swap the series link on one of the pups to make the split easier. It may also pay to check the phase of your humbucker in relation to the rails before you start soldering so you don't have to flip wires later.

@Lawry, hehe I've been working on an 'unusual' bass wiring diagram that I may need you to peruse at some point...

"@Lawry, hehe I've been working on an 'unusual' bass wiring diagram that I may need you to peruse at some point..."

My minds already doing contortions just trying to imagine what you have in your head.
But... I'd love to see it! :D

@Weirdbits. Um so how do you work out which is the north and which is the south coil? is it that you have two choices the right way and the wrong way. If you get it wrong unsolder one of teh pickups and reverse the setup? :D
I can almost guarantee I'll wire it wrong first up.
The rail Pups I have a are Belcats. I probably should put the meter on em and see what the resistance is. In my mind if they are around 6K then it is really pointless plitting the coils as they will be too weak, in wich case the idea of series/parallel would be a better option. even though two 6K coils would result in aweek 3K coil. :D
Yeah I know too much too... lol

Cheers PK