Two...two....two Tele's in one!

[duhvoodooman***]

Well, not simultaneously, but the intrinsic ease of modifying the controls and pickup wiring on a Tele, combined with the fact that the CV 50's comes pre-routed to accept larger pickups, has lead me to this next idea:

GFS sells a Tele pickguard that's cut & drilled to accept their Firebird-style mini-humbuckers:

http://store.guitarfetish.com/tepitoshcucu.html

So for $56--$20 for the tortoise shell p/g and $36 for their Fat Alnico V mini-bucker, I figure I can easily convert my CV 50's Tele to a second configuration and release my "inner Keef". Mockup courtesy of the Kisekae Virtual Tele design page:



The wiring is so readily accessible and the pickguard is so easy to remove, it should be very easy to switch back and forth between the stock CV 50's configuration and this one. I just need to wire the neck pickup in with some quick-connect plugs of some sort (anybody got a good link?), and install a couple of "halfway" control pots. This latter idea was a great suggestion from Bloozcat--I'll make a couple of 375K control pots by soldering a 1.5M resistor across the 1 and 2 lugs of a 500K pot. That will put the pot spans right in between the 250K commonly used for single coils and the 500K value usually employed for humbuckers.

Ordering the parts today....

[markb]

I've got one of those pickups here but I've never managed to put it in a guitar.

[Katastrophe]

That's a killer idea, DVM!

Kinda changes Classic Vibe to ConVertible, don't it!


Sounds also like a great idea for a prepackaged kit. With a quick change system for the bridge pup to a single coil size 'bucker, Twang to Rock in minutes!

[bigoldron]

Looks way cool, DVM! Let us know how she sounds. Clips would be nice!

[Kazz]

That's a killer idea, DVM!

Kinda changes Classic Vibe to ConVertible, don't it!


Sounds also like a great idea for a prepackaged kit. With a quick change system for the bridge pup to a single coil size 'bucker, Twang to Rock in minutes!

Not quite that simple Kat, since the bridge pup is not connected to the pick guard on a Tele but mounts through the bridge itself. Unless you get a hardtail strat bridge then you can body mount the bridge pup. DVM's idea of a quick connect harness is cool especially with that mini bucker set up split the coils too so you get neck bucker, neck single and standard tele bridge. Lots of tonal options there.

[sunvalleylaw]

Wow, more GAS. See, that is what I wanted in a tele with the humbucker in the neck, and the quick connect harness idea is killer!

[duhvoodooman***]

I think I have something that may fill the bill for a pickup wiring quick connector system. I was playing around with various small connectors for PC innards, and came up with what you see in the photos below. The female connector is easy--any of a number of PC connectors will work; I used a 4-wire CD drive output connector for that. The trick is to have male connectors that will be small enough to run through the pickup wire channels in the guitar body. For that purpose, I cut up a male cooling fan connector, so that I could get just the wires and pins soldered to their ends. I covered the excess part of the pin with heatshrink, and--voila!--male plugs that are practically no bigger than the wire diameter. Insert them in the female plug and you have a nice, snug connection. So these just need to be spliced into the pickup/switch wiring and I should be good to go.

[vroomery]

This is seriously cool. I have a tele and would love to give something like this a try.

[Katastrophe]

Not quite that simple Kat, since the bridge pup is not connected to the pick guard on a Tele but mounts through the bridge itself. Unless you get a hardtail strat bridge then you can body mount the bridge pup.

Gotcha, Kazz. I was kinda brainstorming, which turned into a brain fart. Gotta hate it when that happens.

DVM's idea is just too cool!

[duhvoodooman***]

DVM's idea of a quick connect harness is cool especially with that mini bucker set up split the coils too so you get neck bucker, neck single and standard tele bridge. Lots of tonal options there.

Yup, I'm doing that as a part of this mod, too. Have an A500K push-pull pot coming along with the pickguard and mini-bucker. The coil-cut can be accomplished with a single extra connection through my "quick-connect" setup. Just solder a length of wire with one of the little male connectors to the two wires of a 4-conductor 'bucker that are pre-soldered & taped. The plug side of the quick connect is then wired to one of the middle lugs of the push-pull. You just connect the "pull" lug above it to ground, as shown in this humbucker coil-tap diagram on my web site:



All you're really doing is putting a quick-connect in between the red-white wire solder joint and the push-pull switch. When you pull up on the pot knob, one coil is shorted to ground. The other continues to work, since you're just moving the ground connection point of that coil from one spot to another.

EDIT 7/12/10:

As mentioned two posts down from this one, the above method of shorting one of the two humbucker coils to ground was NOT useful in this case, due to the 4-way switch wiring to give the bridge and neck pickups in series at the fourth switch position. This wiring would cause the bridge pickup to be shorted to ground along with the one humbucker coil. Instead, the following alternative coil-cutting method was used, which shorts the other humbucker coil back on itself. The remaining coil stays "hot", passing its signal and the series bridge signal on to the volume pot. Diagram:

[piebaldpython***]

So........uh....lol........how soon before you begin accepting our gits to do mods on them? I mean, you already are noted for your pedal mods/building....so it seems to me ( ) that modding gits is your next logical step. Just kidding......sort of.

By the way Fretters, I bought DVM's Xaviere-820. He had already upgraded the pups to Alnico IIIs, changed the pots to 250s, and put in a push/pull to get the pups in series as well as the standard parallel. A sweet sounding Tele for sure with a great variety of sounds. She's a heavy sucker but for a wide-shouldered LOAD like me, it's no problemo.

[duhvoodooman***]

Here's the scheme I will be using to wire up this mod for my CV '50s Tele. The new neck humbucker with be connected through a 4-wire "quick-connect", working as shown in the photo posted above. The four pickup wiring connections will be:

• humbucker "hot" signal (to 4-way switch)
• humbucker ground (to 4-way switch)
• humbucker shield (to ground/back of vol pot)
• humbucker soldered pair (to push-pull switch on tone pot)

Wiring diagram:

You may notice that the push-pull switch connects the soldered wire pair of the humbucker (i.e. where the two coils are connected in series) to the "hot" signal coming out of the 4-way switch into the volume pot. When the push-pull is engaged, this will cause one of the coils of the humbucker to be shorted back on itself, muting it, while the other coil continues to pass signal.

Originally, I planned to connect the soldered pair to ground through the push-pull. But because of the bridge-neck-in-series wiring through the 4-way switch, this has the unintended effect of turning on the neck pickup whenever the switch is pulled up, irrespective of where the 4-way is set. It also kills the bridge-neck-in-series setting when active, since the bridge signal gets shunted to ground along with the one humbucker coil, so it ends up as a redundant neck coil-cut setting.

I'm also going to switch the tone pot input connection from the volume pot input lug to the output (middle lug), a.k.a. "Gibson '50s style" tone pot wiring. This method markedly reduces treble loss when the volume control is rolled off. Good explanation of how that works HERE.

The new pickguard, mini-bucker and push-pull pot are being delivered today, so I may dive into this tonight....

[sunvalleylaw]

I love your mad scientist schemes! Keep us posted!

[duhvoodooman***]

I love your mad scientist schemes!

I resemble that remark!!

[Monkus]

Way to go DVM, cool idea !!!

[duhvoodooman***]

Performed this modification last night. Unfortunately, I finished up late when everybody else was in bed, so the only testing I could do was just to confirm functionality through the headphones on my Micro Cube. Everything works as it should, but now I'm dying to hear what it really sounds like. That will have to wait until after work today.

I was able to confirm that between the 4-way pickup switch and the coil-cut switch on the mini-bucker, the guitar has 7 distinct tones now. Checked out all the setting pickup resistances at the jack, and all the combos are working as they should. Should be a lot of fun to play around with and see what sounds best. And will definitely post a photo or two tonight.....

[sumitomo]

I'm for these new tones,but I'll till you post em Sumi

[duhvoodooman***]

Oh, man--sounds great! The neck mini-bucker rings like a bell.

Here are a couple of pics. Only problem is that the stock pickguard was mounted with only 5 screws and the new GFS p/g takes 8, so I have 3 empty holes for the moment. But I really like the look of the tortoise shell on the vintage blonde body. And the mini-humbucker looks pretty cool in there:

[t_ross33]

Nice can't wait to hear some clips... I see more mods to my Modified Vintage Modified Tele in the future

Hmmm... gonna have to give 'er a name, Maude would seem appropriate, yet somehow... NOT

Welcome to the Tort PG club!