It didn't take much stain with each coat, but eventually it started to darken the way I wanted.
To answer your question BassGuy...
Electrickery.
While the nut is staining and the Tru-Oil on the body and neck is hardening it was time to get to the heart of this build… the wiring.
The idea was to test a few things for future builds, but also to make a versatile bass with a wide range of sounds. It's a P J bass so there's always a compromise between the potentially noisy single coil J bridge pup and mostly hum-free split coil P neck pickup. The four switch block in the back of the control cavity shown at the start of this thread is only part of the grand scheme, the circuit also needs a couple of push/pulls and a balance pot. The switching plan is this:
- Master Volume Push/Pull switches the P pickup coils from series (standard) to parallel.
- Master Tone Push/Pull selects between two different tone capacitors.
- 2 x mini DPDT slide switches allowing individual phase reversal of each P coil.
- 3PDT slide switch that changes the connection between the P and J pickups from parallel (standard) to series.
- DP3T slide switch that provides Treble cut/Normal/Bass cut settings.
- Balance/Fade pot, works as a balance when pickups are linked in parallel, works as fade/bypass in series setting.
Here's the diagram I came up with:
Level of soldering difficulty: Over 9000
Lots of different switches and settings, but the two main ones I wanted to test were the Parallel/Series switch between the pickups and how the balance pot function changes with that setting. And, the Treble/Bass cut filter switch.
Balance pots have their draw backs, particularly with potential treble loss, but I needed one in this circuit. When the pickups are linked in parallel it works as a standard balance pot: centre detent is full volume on both pups, turning it to the side reduces the volume of one pickup or the other. With the link switch in series mode it changes function and instead controls how much of the signal goes through each pickup and how much bypasses it, sort of like a Dano circuit.
The filter switch uses a single cap to manipulate the signal. In the centre position it's normal, no effect. In the up position the cap filters of the high frequencies to ground, like a mild tone control on full. In the down position the cap allows the highs through the circuit but drops out some of the bass, like the Strangle switch on a Bass VI. At least, that's the plan.
First step, lay out the parts and test them/check their values. In this case my 0.0047 filter cap was wildly above the range I wanted, as were all the others from that pack (all .0054+)t, so I eventually found an 0.0033uf that measured in at 0.0046uF. Perfect!
Due to the potential complexity of the wiring, especially in the tiny little control cavity, I didn't want to have to pull it all apart if I ever wanted to change out the pickups. So, I cut two small pieces of Veroboard that will sit in the pup routs to act as links between the pickups as the wiring loom. Then it should be easy to swap them out if needed.
Yes, I know, I could have got quick connect plugs.
One unforeseen, but should have been seen, obstacle was that the fat shielded 4-conductor wire that I needed to run to the P pickup rout was going to be too big to fit through the hole to the control cavity along with the bridge pup wiring. So a little delicate enlargement was required. I had thinner 4-conductor wire but was too stubborn to use it.
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