Finally installed the pickups with the correct pots

This is an update from the More Guitar Nerdity post. I finally got a chance to rewire the guitar using the old pots. It sounds great! Here's a video of some of the tones you can get from these pickups:



All in all these GFS pickups are GREAT pickups that I would highly recommend. The prices are really nice and the quality is high.

Rubber Duckie Race

Today we went to the Rubber Duckie Race to benefit the United Cerebral Palsey Association. The opening festivities were held at McCully Shopping Center. Here you could "buy duckies", which meant that you could buy serial numbers for duckies they were dumping into the race, for $5 apiece. The kids played various games like ring toss, magnetic fishing, and a wheel of fortune:


At about 12:45, we walked over to the bridge over the Ala Wai near the Convention Center. For those that don't know, the Ala Wai has had sewage spills into it over the past couple of years - gross!! Anyway, here are the duckies getting put into the water - close your mouths, duckies:


They land in the water and off they go!!


Go duckies Go!! And go #4083 and #4084!! We wanted to win one of the 50 prizes. The top prizes were pizzas for a year, gas for a year, dinner at Sizzler for a year, an iPhone and $150 Apple gift certificate, and a trip for 2 to Las Vegas!!


The finish line - it's a nail biter....


We waited around to hear the winner. Unfortunately we didn't win any of the 50 prizes (though AIG apparently bought some duckies and won a prize - grrr!!!). But that's okay, it was for a good cause, and the kids had a lot of fun. And, I got my very own devil duck! Yes!!

More guitar nerdity

I bought a cheap guitar on Craigslist and started swapping out the electronics. Initially I ordered regular sized pots to replace the old ones, but when I tried to pre-fit them before wiring them, I noticed the control holes were so close to the cavity edge that one would need mini pots. So I ordered some mini pots. Last night I checked to see if they were the right diameter and sure enough they were, so I made a little cardboard wiring harness and started soldering.



After about a half an hour, everything was wired and I plugged it in to test - and everything sounded great!

So I proceeded to insert the pots through the control holes.... and..... the shafts were too short! Aaargh!! Here's the old long shaft pot and the new short shaft.



Now I gotta desolder everything and just try using the old pots. Oh well, lesson learned - even though you measure twice and cut once, sometimes you gotta measure all dimensions, even the not so obvious ones!!

Here's the guitar prior to the pickup swap (notice it's red but it's different from the one in my previous post):

On the work table (Strat)

Here is a I guitar I made this weekend to use up all the spare parts I had lying around my music room. The spare parts I had were: 1) a Mighty Mite maple Strat neck; 2) some really old Music Man tuners; 3) a pair of Gibson burstbuckers that someone gave me after I wired up his Duncans in his Les Paul; and 4) an old white Strat pickguard.

To make the guitar complete, I picked up a Strat body with a Floyd Rose on eBay for $79. Peeking in the neck pocket it appears to be a nice solid piece of wood and by the weight I'm guessing alder. I also had to buy a set of bushing adapters for the tuners (these were the smaller diameter tuners and the neck was drilled for bigger tuners), and a Gotoh locking nut on eBay. I mistakenly bought a lock nut without the cutout on the bottom for the truss rod, so I had to buy another one. Damn, now I have an extra locknut..... I guess I gotta start another project. Finally I had an extra 500k pot from the guitar I'm fixing up for my niece-in-law, so I used that as well.

Here's the guitar on the workdesk:



Here it is all put together:



A couple of issues - I need to work on the nut shelf a little more. I routed it by hand, but it could be a little lower. I also need to adjust the intonation. But the wiring is perfect and it sounds killer. I may scallop the fretboard. I thought of doing an EVH paintjob, but since the Floyd is recessed and there's a neck humbucker, it ruins the authenticity. On the other hand, since EVH now plays with a recessed Floyd and a neck humbucker, this could be a hybrid of sorts. Yes, I am a guitar nerd.

I like the ghetto looks. I'm sure it would look "nicer" with a pickguard, but that's not what I'm going for. I'm going for the EVH just put it together and play it vibe.

Also, that white stuff around the pickups are paper towels. I stuffed em in there to stabilize the pickups since I haven't mounted them yet. Direct mounting pickups is tricky. When they're mounted to a mounting ring, you want to make sure the screws are attached to the bracket. But direct mounted, you have to ream out the holes so it moves freely (a foam pad underneath the pickup will push it up). I'm not 100% convinced that I want to destroy the threading in the pickups for this project, so right now they are temporarily mounted. Once I work on the nut and can make this a killer player, I will also commit to the pickups.

Oh yeah, and the pickguard is black because of duct tape. For me, two humbuckers, a volume control and a pickup selector are all I need. These buckers were easy to install because they're the single conductor type with the braided shielding.

All in all, a really great guitar and a relatively cheap way to use up all my spare parts.