SoCal mods - Phase II

[Newc]

Slowly but surely, I'm continuing to get my SoCals where I want them:

I replaced the Volume pot of both with a dual-concentric 500/250K pot. The Candy Green also got a mini-toggle to select between the 500K pot and the 250K pot, both wired as Volume pots.



Can't really tell a difference as far as the tone goes, except in very small nuances. May rewire the toggle as a splitter and dump the split coils to the 250K Volume.



The Candy Tangerine got Volume/Tone, and it's really sweet.



The Tone control adds yet another dimension of expression to this guitar.


The gold bar should serve as a hint of what's coming next, but I think you'll be surprised (and probably sickened ) when you see the final result



One thing I do wish for is that these had a wider trem slot. I have to take the neck off EVERY TIME to get the bridge off, and a wider slot would fix that. Not much, just 1/4" more would do <hint hint>

[Grandturk]

Whoa whoa whoa... you just blew my mind...

What does the neck have to do with the trem? Why do you have to take the neck off to pull the bridge?

[Newc]

The slot for the trem isn't wide enough front-to-back (neck to tail) to remove the bridge unless the strings are either completely slack (and even then it's iffy) or I remove the neck so there's zero tension on the strings.

With a wider slot, I can just pop the springs off and take the bridge out without detuning.

[metalchurch79]

Cool mods, NewC!
Do you have this wired so that the neck and/or bridge pup can be used with either a 250 or a 500K volume? Maybe I read that wrong?
If so, that's a genius wiring mod! Keep up the good work!

[Newc]

Yup. Either pickup can get either pot. It's a simple setup - pickups go to the 3-way, 3-way goes to both pots, pots go to 2-way mini-toggle, mini-toggle goes to the jack.

I could replace the 3-way with a rotary switch so I can get all the splitting/combo options, and then send each one to either pot.

[Jack The Riffer]

How often do you send Igor out looking for parts? :ROTF:

Nice work on those Newc!

[Foulacy]

dude if you put a gold floyd on their everyone who sees it will instantly puke.

[Grandturk]

The slot for the trem isn't wide enough front-to-back (neck to tail) to remove the bridge unless the strings are either completely slack (and even then it's iffy) or I remove the neck so there's zero tension on the strings.

With a wider slot, I can just pop the springs off and take the bridge out without detuning.

Whoa.

Why not just take the strings off?

[Newc]

Too much effort geting them back in. I did remove one pivot post which made it easier, and it's simple to get it back in with the strings loose.

But I'm concerned about stripping the neck holes removing it every time I wanna rewire it.

One of these will eventually get either H-S-H or H-S-S, so I'll probably have the pickguard modded then so I can just remove the electronics section.

[metalchurch79]

Very cool NewC! Did you try the treble bleed mod on the 250K pot yet?
That might result in some neat sounds as well.
The H/S would be a cool mod, like George Lynch.

Here's a bigger pic:

[Newc]

Nah. Never really had that problem actually. The tone gets thinner, not muddy, when backing off the volume. Maybe that's one of the differences between linear and audio taper pots?

Not a Lynch fan anyway

[metalchurch79]

Are you using linear taper pots on those? I've never messed with them too much myself.
I agree that an HSS pup conf. would be unique on one of those. I'd probably opt to grab another pickguard and keep the original for later.
Were those guards 11 hole?
Does the Candy Green still have the original neck on it?

[RR05xx]

OK, this mod on the surface looks cool for what it is worth.

[Newc]

Thanks for the approval

MC - Can't say if the pots are linear or taper, as I simply do not know. I could never keep it straight in my head which one fades out and which one cuts off short when you back it off. These roll off smoothly so you get a full spectrum of useable volume.

And no, the original neck for the Green one is currently on Ebay.

[fullmetalguitar]

Wasn't the bid amount on that neck well over $400 already? I just checked it again and it's at $305. Did you have to cancel someone's bid?