Back in the village

AGAIN!

The day before yesterday, I started the routing on my Hamer Blitz. I have made up my mind that this thing will live again by my own hand. I would hereby like to formally rejoin the ranks of BTF (not that I ever left!), but you'll hear more from me coming up 'cos I'll update y'all on my progress on this project.

Good to see you boots!

no...go back to your bomb shelter Martin.

Well it's about bloody damned time, Martin! How the hell have you been? You've been sorely missed!

I know you got rid of the Kelly, since we talked here and there, but do you still got the 3b?

Thanks for the welcome, guys. The reason for my absence was that I used to spend WAY too much time plopped in front of a computer. Now, when I'm not working, I'm trying to do more stuff with myself, be that play guitar, get exercise, make good food. Just something besides rotting in front of a computer screen.

No, Mike, all the pointies are gone now, probbly not to be replaced. I loved the neck on that Charvel and it looked really neat. but the rest of the guitar and I had irreconcilable differences. If I could find a Charvel with a non reverse P pickup, I'll consider getting it if the price is right because they set up so well.

I'm starting to gather up the parts for my Blitz project. I will put the X2N-7 and the DiMarzio Model P I have in it for now. I'll probably replace the P pickup with a Seymour Duncan of some kind down the road. As soon as I get some more time off work, I'd like to get at it again.

Madmike put a dimarzio dualrail-p in my series10 ( at least I think it was a dimarzio )...
computer time should be used wisely or you will get like some people 23/6 on the computer, letting everything else go to s***

p.s. very nice tone out that rail compared to my 4pole jackson counterparts and i'm almost at the point of putting it in my main bass to see what happens..

I enjoyed the Model P a lot when I had it in this guitar previously. Since I started playing bass again, I've been using my P bass almost exclusively and the tone that it produces is legendary, so I'm curious to see how the DiMarzio compares. I'm also interested to hear how the X2N will sound to me in this instrument and which of the wiring options appeals to me most now.

The hardest part now is going to be carving the nut slots. I got them roughed in just by rubbing an old set of strings across it. I don't have nut files and I don't want to pay anybody to work on this (I really don't want anyone to see all the shoddy things I've done! ), so it's going to be a trick to get the nut slots on the graphite nut cut clean.

I've been getting away with cutting nuts with a cheap harbor freight file set ($6) and finishing with old beat stainless rotosounds.

Works fine for me.

Did I do a nut on your series 10 mike? I fergit. How is it???

Is it this set?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1ku7QNRudg

I've already filed out quite a bit just with old Roto 66s. I might not have much use for them, but it'll be nice to have a bunch of different files around anyway.

I've abused the crap out of my file set and they have held up pretty well (filing all thread ends, making a firing pin out of a nail and bringing down a machine head peg set to fit different housings ... not what they were intended for) but next nut I do ill go get a new set ( for $6).

I used the rotos for the finish and diameter / depth match. I also used different grits of sandpaper to take it down, shape and finish it.

Whoops. wrong link. While I was typing that post, I was introducing a friend of mine to The Who.

This the set you got? http://www.harborfreight.com/hand-tools/files/12-piece-precision-needle-file-set-4614.html

Mine don't have the handles and come with a handle with a chuck holder.

But those will work. Pretty much the same thing.

Harbor freight is awesome! Not the best tools ... you might break them after 2 or 3 uses but they are dirt cheap. Im not building ships so they are good enuff.

Alright, I spent about three hours this afternoon making a lot of sawdust and I think I have all of the routing done. I hope I have all the routing done. All in all, it's pretty good. It's definitely in the best shape it's been in since I started changing things. The trem is finally on straight, I just have to fill the hole from the screw that went into the control cavity and glue in a little block of wood to let it have something to sink into. Then, for cosmetic purposes, I'm going to glue in a couple pieces of dowel to let the bottom screws on the pickup ring have something to sink into. The recess for the Kahler is by no means gorgeous, but it ain't that bad. It'll hardly be noticeable if I spray it black.

Next step is a soldering party and some more filing on the nut. Then, it's set to play. Once I have the wiring all sorted out, it'll get a lil' pickguard the same shape as the control cavity over to hide the holes and scratches around the knobs.

Bridge: recessed and mounted.
Bridge pickup: installed.
Wiring: done (vol/vol/tone, 3-way toggle, and series/sc/parallel and in/out of phase switches wired to the X2N).
I just need to finish filing out the nut slots. It's taking a while with the graphite nut.

I recycled the original pots for the wiring. They still work OK. A little scratchy, but I like them and the coarse splines fit the original plastic knobs, which I love. I didn't bother keeping the routing countersinking the bridge into the body exact, but I did try to make it look a little tidy. Not too crooked and with fairly straight lines. The bridge is much straighter than it was and I think it will intonate well. This guitar sounds better now than it ever has and although only the E string vibrates properly at the moment and the action is a little uncomfortable because of the rough-cut nut, but that should clean up shortly. I put on the strap locks and its old strap and as a whole, it feels just as comfortable as ever. It's a bit heavier, though, than it used to be. The new pickup weighs more than the wood I took out around the bridge.

After the nut is filed down enough, the only changes that I should have to make will be cosmetic and esthetic. I will make a thin black scratch plate in a similar shape as the control cavity plate to cover all the scratches on the finish around the controls. This will also allow me to revise the positioning of the switches that I installed (if I choose to keep all of them) a little more ergonomically. The place where I drilled the toggle switch is a little too far down since I sling this one low and if I move it, the other switches might look a little weird where I put them. Then, I'll paint the bare wood around the bridge black. And I think that's it. Just little things that'll make it look a little nicer. I'm way past trying to make it perfect, just trying to get it to look decent. Like Eric has told me, it's rock 'n' roll--it ain't supposed to be pretty!

Oh, and the pickups sound very, very much to my liking. I tried them out for a while through my friend's Peavey bass amp with a large 4x10 cab from the early 80s that I have sitting around. It's a lot like the amp Steve Harris used during the Killers era. The X2N-7 has more low end and bite than the Model P. Individually, the pickups have a lot of presence, but for some reason, when they're both on, they don't seem to have the same level of output. This might change when I get the strings vibrating better by sorting out the nut slots, but it also seems to rectify when I roll off the P pickup a tad. I think they both have so much low mid/low end that they mud up a bit when they're both on full. I'm not sure whether I prefer the active coil when the bridge HB is coil tapped to be towards the neck or the bridge yet, but it seems to sound very nice positioned on the treble side. Overall, they are very vocal pickups. Lots of midrange which I appreciate a great deal and lots of options at the flick of a switch. Initially, I like the X2N in series a lot and out of phase combined with the P pickup. It's super easy to pull out harmonics either way. It pairs up with the P very well and the coil tap and parallel options all sound really good. It makes it like 3 different pickups in one. And having such hot pickups out of phase is neat because I can get very expressive tones that compliment the timbre of the steel strings, especially when the trem is decreasing/increasing tension on them. And they sound much, much better when they are put through the distorted channel. Like, waaaayyy better. These pickups excel at dirty tones. I think they will suit the kind of amp I plan to get and the way I would like to use effects with it. So now I have a yang to my yin--a gnarly, dirty axe to compliment the clean sleekness of my Precision.

Wow ... looks awesome!

Chowderboots wrote:

Like Eric has told me, it's rock 'n' roll--it ain't supposed to be pretty!

Wow, Martin! It looks GORGEOUS! You did an awesome job, Bro!

About the output seeming to drop with both pickups on, are they wired to be in parallel to each other when they are both on? Remember that this will drop your gain since you are dividing the signal coming from the amp between the two pickups. If they were in series, your gain would go through the roof.

I've also had problems like this. Im gonna have to have eric break down series and parallel pikup wiring someday ... but here's what works for me.

When using 2 pickups to one out, the hots need to go to the middle volume lug(s) on the pots ... similar to a jazz bass design.

Thank you, guys! I appreciate your compliments. For a few years, I was dubious about my ability to put the bridge on there, but after some of the other things I've done to guitars in the past year or so to varying degrees of success, this was really a cinch. A few spins of Piece of Mind, Powerslave, and my favorite recording of Danish folk music later, the bridge was on there solid.

I'm very happy with how it looks and the other pieces are falling into place one by one. I just have to buckle down on filing that nut...but not too much! This is the first time I've had to gauge the depth of the nut slots.

Oh, I didn't think about how the pickups were wired in relation to one another. Here's the wiring schematic that I followed. I just put the two switches in between the pickup and the volume pot on the bridge pickup. http://www.guitarelectronics.com/product/WD2HH3T21_00/Guitar-Wiring-Diagam-2-Humbuckers3-Way-Toggle-Switch2-Volumes1-Tone.html So, I soldered the hot to the left lug of the pot and the output of the pot through the middle lug. How do I wire them in series, like you suggest, Eric? I remember that when I put the X2N on my Charvel, I wired both pickups to one volume pot and a tone pot via a three-way toggle switch and I was very happy with the output. How can I get series wiring using two separate volume pots?

The only thing that you have to consider Martin when wiring two pickups in series is that, from my limited perspective, you will lose the ability to have individual volume control over each pickup. But the long and the short of it is that you would take the output of pickup 1, and run that to the input of pickup 2. Then you would have a single volume control governing the whole circuit.

Of course, this is based upon my limited knowledge of wiring guitar electronics, so if anyone here can think of a way to have individual volume control over two pickups wired in series, by all means, please jump in. I am all but completely certain that there is a way to incorporate individual volume control over each pickup in this scenario, and even employ coil-splitting if you wished to. But again, I am at a loss to describe exactly how this would be accomplished, so if anyone here can explain how to do so, then please feel free to explain how to do this properly.

I'm not trying to be vague here. Just honest in what I know how to do. Please bear in mind that, even though I do my goofy stereo thing, when you break it down to it's simplest form, all I am doing is taking two pickup signals, sending them through their own volume controls, and to their own output jacks. No splitting, no tone controls, and no combination of the two signals together.

The only other thing I can think of is that, with two really smokin' pickups wired together in series, you will wind up with a ton of gain, and I do mean a TON. You will also lose high end in the process, but this can be overcome with enough equalizing from the amp.

I would be willing to bet that our two Mike's know of a way to accomplish running two pickups in series with individual volume controls. Guys?

I'm going to reassess what I want to get out of this setup. I'm very happy with the tones that this guitar is making, but I really enjoyed the torrential output that I could get using a single volume when I wired the X2N and Precision pickups together on my Charvel. But I've got time, since I'm still taking out material on the nut bit by bit.

It's easy, add a push/pull instead of a volume pot, or another switch(you don't seem to mind lots of switches), wire it up as a series/parallel for the pickups, like you often see people do with Jazz basses. Best of both worlds, you'll have everything you have now, and the huge gainey setting you had with that Charvel.

Ok, I like that idea. My goal on this guitar is to have myriad tonal options. I have at least one extra switch and a push/pull pot hanging around. Do you know how to wire that up?

Since I used an on/on/on switch for the phase switch, it even has a middle setting that sounds unlike the in and out of phase positions. More mid, less treble? It's actually useful. And out of phase sounds very good with the bridge pickup rolled down about halfway. There's so much output from those pickups, it's kinda ridiculous considering they're passive. It makes my P bass sound like a whisper and it has a very commanding tone even for a Precision.

http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/schematics.php?schematic=jass_bass_sp

That's the diagram for the switch, you'll have to figure out how it'll all work with the current stuff you have in there, shouldn't be too tricky.

Thanks, Bill!

I'm not doing much on the Hamer guitar right now, I'm working a lot and when I'm in a bass mood, my P bass is getting most of my love. Every time I touch it, it feels better than it did before. I love everything about it. From the full, blonde neck to the curvaceous body with the wood grain showing through. Mhmm, so happy to have it.

That almost sounded dirty!

EricHaven wrote:

That almost sounded dirty!

Knowing Martin, it'll sound very dirty...

It does sound dirty. I've got it set up very nicely.