Wazkelly's EX-5

[wazkelly]

Finally got around to tweaking the action and setting up intonation with this new bridge on Friday night.

This fiver has a huge amount of tension on the neck and even with truss rod fully wound up tight there is still a very slight forward bow up near the nut end. Main reason for swapping bridges was to achieve a lower action however this thing was buzzing all over the place on most strings and ended up with an action that is still a bit on the high side, maybe not quite as high as before, possibly 1 mm lower??? Not sure but this bridge is a better design with how strings are loaded and if you like to palm mute, as the old guitarist in me does, this bridge is much better for that too.


Took a bit longer than usual with intonation as first I had to get height to stop fret buzzing, then adjust length to obtain correct pitch, then tighten the allen key grub screws to hold everything in place. Not so easy when strings are also in the way of where you need to turn an allen key wrench.

[ozzbike]

Waz, those bridge saddles are up pretty high. I have a few of those style bridges...and they offer less travel than the open fender style bridges they replaced.

My solution.....was little neck shims I made and stacked out of business cards. To allow you to lower the action and the bridge saddles....can I suggest a third of a business card laid in place at the top of the neck pocket....cut to shape and place so the two higher neck bolts will pass through it and hold it in place.

I hope it helps.

[wazkelly]

Thanks for the tip Ozzie.
Probably need to check fret levels around 14 - 18 as that is where most of the buzzing occurred. Will get around to doing that one day, once all other fiddly jobs on a couple of other builds have been done.

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[ozzbike]

Thanks for the tip Ozzie.
Probably need to check fret levels around 14 - 18 as that is where most of the buzzing occurred. Will get around to doing that one day, once all other fiddly jobs on a couple of other builds have been done.

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I was wondering how you got on?

I see on some other builds....recess the bridge....was a chosen outcome.

I didn’t like the permanency of a hole in my bass body.....so I business card shimmed the neck.

Still at work right now....but off the top of my head I can think of three of my builds with this style bridge.

ALL are shimmed and have not height issues....good neck relief and easy intonation.

[wazkelly]

Hi Ozzie, haven't had time to look at it yet. Think a fret level may be required or at least checked out first before doing a shim.
The action looks higher in photos and is probably only 1mm or thereabouts higher than normal. Still ok to work with and not too phased about it. Saw a youtube video recently where a known pro advocated higher action as a way to become a better player? Obviously takes a bit more work and effort but not impossible to play.

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[wazkelly]

Hardcoretroubadoor had a few questions about how I did the split coil wiring on this beast and figured it was probably best to post these photos here. They may not mean much to anyone until you have the same parts in your hands, being Bourns 500k push/pull switches plus a Gotoh style 3 way pickup selector switch.
1st pic is the master volume control where you can see the paired red & green from the Custom Bensons (REd & White for stock kit PUP's) soldered to middle lug on LHS bank of 3 then bottom lug on LHS has an wire running to side of pot. You will also notice a black wire on a tab at the base of the box section....this has been linked to same point on the other push/pull switch to also act as an earth.
2nd photo shows another wire used instead of folding back a lug to the base as you normally do on a volume pot however on these things there is not enough metal to fold back, hence the additional wire.
3rd photo shows the treble bleed and hot pickup wires connected as you normally do on any volume pot.
4th photo is a zoom out showing the additional earth wire to link base of both push/pull switches.
5th photo blurry but is the master tone pot where you can see how I have soldered the orange drop capacitor to side of the pot.

[wazkelly]

Couple more shots
Another angle on the tone pot.
2nd shot shows how the Gotoh style 3 way switch was wired. Both Hot pickup signal wires to the outside lugs, then join the middle two and run that as the hot wire to master volume pot. Black wire on other end goes to earth.
Hope this helps......I did this quite some time ago and was really in the zone back then but cannot say wiring is my favourite part of a build.
The simplest way to get your head around these split coil push/pull switches is that the top part that is cylindrical operates exactly the same as a normal pot and therefore should be wired up in the same manner. Below this is the boxy section with 2 banks of 3 lugs. These are used for performing coil split and if you want to get really funky there are numerous other things that can be done such as series/parallel, etc.
Hope this helps anybody contemplating this modification.

[Hardcoretroubadour]

Cheers Waz, ill try to digest this info and look at it on the laptop, making some progress, just need to fit treble bleed and a few more earths i think. This really helps, thanks for going the extra mile, i'll save you a prawn and beer

[Lloydy]

Hi Wazkelly, I received my EX5 today and totally stoked. I have a question for you regarding the pickups. All the diagrams show one hot wire and one earth, my pickups have three wires, red/white= hot wire, green=earth and a single black wire, my question is, where does the black wire go?

[wazkelly]

Hi Wazkelly, I received my EX5 today and totally stoked. I have a question for you regarding the pickups. All the diagrams show one hot wire and one earth, my pickups have three wires, red/white= hot wire, green=earth and a single black wire, my question is, where does the black wire go?

Hi Lloydy, sounds like the same stock pickups that came with my kit.

The red & white are paired together and if you don't want to coil split just leave them alone and maybe seal bare ends with some heat shrink or electrical tape. Black is the hot wire and green is the earth.

I have done a tutorial on how to wire up with coil splitting on these stock Chinese humbuckers as there are some interesting/useful sounds to be had if you feel inclined.

Cheers, Waz