Fred's IB-5

[Simon Barden]

That does sound rather like a broken track in the pot. You're OK until you get to the break (though you'd probably get less of a reduction in volume on that pickup as it's not now working as a potential divider but a variable resistor. Move across the break and then the output is simply being connected to ground through a resistance.

But it may still be something else, or maybe a combination of things.

[andrewdosborne]

My Epiphone Casino has a similar issue. It turned out the track in the bridge volume pot was broken. As the break was at volume 10 position it became a poor man skill switch for a while. Now in line for refit after pulling the guts of it out ...I first need to get into the mood for another hollow body frustration-a-thon


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[FrankenWashie]

My Epiphone Casino has a similar issue. It turned out the track in the bridge volume pot was broken. As the break was at volume 10 position it became a poor man skill switch for a while. Now in line for refit after pulling the guts of it out ...I first need to get into the mood for another hollow body frustration-a-thon


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I am rapidly approaching that same fun and games with mine AO. I have a dicky volume pot and an intermittent jack and pup selector to boot. Not looking forward to that job.

[andrewdosborne]

We should have a Casino restoration session FW! My CFO has decreed all upgrades are to be self funded (ie flea bay to sell off old stuff around the place).My Casino is a made in China so now pup, bridge and tuner upgrade on the list of to-do’s. The stock neck pup is especially muddy sounding. Not same quality hardware as an old Korean one I had in the past but neck and body wise the MIC is sound.


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[FredA]

Thanks guys. The pots are quite high on my list of suspects... now I need time to get into that surgery

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[FredA]

So... the gremlins in the bass must have disappeared as the pickup is working again... and I didn't do anything... interesting...

I am going to redo all the electronics anyway, first because I don't like issues that appear and disappear without reasons, and second because I've ordered a set of Bensons from Ads

But in the meantime I was trying to lower the action as it's always been quite high, and I am struggling a bit.
So I wanted to sanity check my thinking...

The neck had a lot of relief, so I released string tension and tightened the rod to get the neck flat.
When I tune the strings, I now get about a credit card thickness between the A string and top of fret in the middle (when pressing the string on first fret and end of fretboard), so I thought that should be good, but the lower strings (B, E and a little less A) now show a fair bit of fret buzz all along the neck.

I am thinking that this could be because my bridge saddles are too low, in relation to the fretboard, does it sound right?

If that's correct, I can't really lift the saddles too much with these cheap individual bridges (ebay specials), so I was wondering if I could try to shim the neck or sand the end part of it, to try to increase the angle of the neck. Is that a possible fix?

Otherwise I am considering lifting each bridge saddle by adding a small sheet of brass under each individual bridge... but that sounds quite labour intensive to cut the brass sheets to the right shape.

Any idea would be greatly appreciated (as always)!
Cheers

[Simon Barden]

If you reduce the amount of neck relief, then you are almost always going to have to raise the saddle heights. From the look of the saddles in your pictures, you should be able to raise the saddle heights by quite a bit as the screws are generally level with the surface of the saddles, so can be lowered by several mm (unless you have already done that since the photos were taken). If you really can't raise them up enough, then yes, a shim under the end of the neck would do it.

[FredA]

Thanks Simon.

I have played with the saddles and have managed to bring them up a bit.
I'll let it settle and will see how it sounds tomorrow.
Cheers

[FredA]

So, got a parcel from PBG today!

Had ordered a set of custom Benson pups for the IB5 and here they are. Aud250 including port, that's pretty good!

So now... they don't come with a wiring diagram...
I've got to work out if hot is black or white and whether I should split coil by taking the middle 2 wires to ground or to hot...
Any ideas if that will make much difference?
Anyone knows if I should set the neck to ground and bridge to hot, or should I wire them both the same?

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[Simon Barden]

Unfortunately I can't see any wiring details on their site (which I think is very poor), so I'd ask Benson to confirm the wiring details directly. I can't see any real details on the pickups on the website at all e.g. magnets type used, wire gauge and insulation, so it does look more like they are pushing for the custom jobs where you tell them what you want. But there's no point in guessing which wiring colour scheme they've gone for. http://www.bensoncustom.com/form__map

Though it does look like white and black are the signal and signal ground wires, and as long as you wire both pickups the same way, then it will work.

To get a single coil sound from the pups, you'd take the two middle wires (green + red) down to ground. Though you could also try using a switch to wire the pickup coils in parallel to get a thinner sound but retain the hum-cancelling. If you want to try that, you'd definitely need to know what all the 4 wires are, so tell Benson you are considering parallel wiring (even if you aren't) and get Benson to tell you all the details. I'd also complain about the lack of wiring diagrams and product info on their website. PBG have more info on the pickups than Benson!