Blocking material - experiment

[shredhed]

Hi all.
I've started to experiment with the type of wood to use when blocking my trems. It seems I've gotten lazy in my last few years and prefer blocking for dive only.

I got a maple bodied guitar that had a block in it of some kind of hardwood. It looked like oak. I've got an OFR on it and a JB in the bridge postition. It is the most trebly sounding guitar I have. Kind of annoying actually.

So I got an idea. I was wondering if maybe a softer wood would tame the treble. I know that different trems can affect tone. So I blocked it with a soft pine instead. And by golly it worked. It sounds great now.

My model 3a with j90 pickups is getting some hardwood for it's blocking. It's blocked with soft pine and sounds kinda muddy in all positions except for the bridge. I wanna get some more treble out of it. So, I'll let you all know what I find out

[finnman]

Not wood, but it's the first time I saw it.
Probably trebly sounding like the hard wood
you described.

http://www.axcessories.com/proddetail.asp?prod=AXfrstp

[shredhed]

Cool! Thanks.
Well it looks like what worked on the first guitar didn't work on the Model 3a. I think it's cos the body is basswood. But the hardwood block had virtually no effect on the tone.

I may just get an angle bracket from the hardware store.

I really like those J90 pickups tho. I hope I can get it brightened up a bit.

Not to hijack my own thread, but...
I also want to try and change the wiring too. I'd like to have it where it's:
Pos 1 Bridge both coils
pos 2 Bridge both coils and inside coil on the neck
pos 3 All 4 coils
pos 4 one coil (not sure which one yet)
pos 5 front pup both coils

I haven't been able to find a diagram yet online. I'm gonna do a search on here next.

[straycat]

If you want to tame a trebely JB use a 250-300k vol pot that will do the trick.

[Valeck]

Schaller Megaswitch ?

[shredhed]

I hadn't thought about the pots. I pulled the cover on the Charvel with the too-much-tone problem.

It's got solder over part of the numbers. I can read a 75 but that's all. So it's either a 75k or 750k(if there even is such a thing). Anybody know which one Model 3a came with?

If you want to tame a trebely JB use a 250-300k vol pot that will do the trick.