"Jimmy Page" wiring with blower instead of series/parallel

[sumitagarwal]

On my Heritage 535 I've had "Jimmy Page" wiring for a couple of decades now, and the most useless feature is the push/pull to put both pickups in series with each other.

I'm looking to wire a newly-acquired singlecut "Jimmy Page" style but I think a blower (bridge straight to jack, bypassing all controls) would be more useful than the series/parallel switch.

Can anyone help guide me on the adjustments needed to this already very complicated wiring scheme?

[zionstrat]

This will get you in the ballpark.. blower with series, parallel https://forum.seymourduncan.com/foru...iagram-and-vid

[sumitagarwal]

This will get you in the ballpark.. blower with series, parallel https://forum.seymourduncan.com/foru...iagram-and-vid

Thanks!

I'm a total dummy and should probably get solderless pots and wires to muck around with this...

[hamerfan]

Thanks!

I'm a total dummy and should probably get solderless pots and wires to muck around with this...

Jonsey is helpful and easy to talk to on such projects

https://jonesyblues.com/services

[sumitagarwal]

Jonsey is helpful and easy to talk to on such projects


https://jonesyblues.com/services

Thanks for the link! I was thinking of Jonsey and just couldn't remember the name...

[zionstrat]

Thanks!

I'm a total dummy and should probably get solderless pots and wires to muck around with this...

Suggestion, we all have to start somewhere and you're absolutely right soldering technique won't be there on your first try. However, this is a relatively complicated mod and it could be really hard to trouble shoot if you have bad solderless connections.

My suggestion would be to get a good solder gun and proper solder, there's tons of threads that give you the details, get some wire and some junk metal and start soldering.

You're going to make blobs and you're going to have incomplete connections and you'll want some desoldering wick and a squeeze bulb... Go ahead and get a cheap multimeter to check your work. If you dig in over a day or two you can get the technique down... it's simply getting to the point where you can imagine the potential mess that you're not going to want to make. If you fake wire 10 guitars over a weekend, you'll probably be there.

Read up on soldering basics... tining the wire and coming up with the best way for you to hold wire and not overheating stuff. I absolutely love surgical hemostats cuz you can grab a wire and put it any place you want it, you can get up in f holes.

And then you'll be prepared to modify every guitar in sight and your friends will love you, they will give you money with which you buy new guitars and your wife will hate you :-)

[sumitagarwal]

Interestingly this is exactly the same scheme that the Les Paul Modern uses: coil taps on the volume knobs, phase on neck tone, bridge direct to output on the bridge tone: https://guitar.com/review/electric-g...s-paul-modern/

[zionstrat]

Interestingly this is exactly the same scheme that the Les Paul Modern uses: coil taps on the volume knobs, phase on neck tone, bridge direct to output on the bridge tone: https://guitar.com/review/electric-g...s-paul-modern/

That's quite a surprise... Very, very useful variations for live or studio.

From my perspective, blowers are the most underrated mods... They restore high end and provide punch.. however, they must be handled with care

[sumitagarwal]

That's quite a surprise... Very, very useful variations for live or studio.

From my perspective, blowers are the most underrated mods... They restore high end and provide punch.. however, they must be handled with care

Almost makes me want to see if I can just source a cheap used wiring harness from one of these, but I think since the pots are on the board you'd need exact matching geometry.

[zionstrat]

Gibson has a lot of weird stuff... Prefab boards that only fit in their cavities but some is tradititraditional wiring. Would be great to find out what's for sale.

[sumitagarwal]

Gibson has a lot of weird stuff... Prefab boards that only fit in their cavities but some is tradititraditional wiring. Would be great to find out what's for sale.

I found this, but 1) It's expensive, 2) unlikely to fit in either my Orville by Gibson Les Paul "reissue" or my Eastman SB59, and 3) I'm leaning towards 550K pots instead of 500K

https://reverb.com/item/63148341-gibson-les-paul-classic-4-push-pull-pcb-board-2021

[zionstrat]

Yep, on one hand if it was half that price I've got clients that would try it. On the other hand I point wire for just a bit more and of course everything is custom for that particular client.

Keep in mind, I'm still thinking you need to do this yourself :-) on the other hand if you're going to start wiring, you might as well stick with it :-)

Can't wait to hear what you do!

[sumitagarwal]

On my projects it's always a process of one thing waiting for another thing first. I've narrowed down the target guitar to a 1992 Fujigen-built Orville by Gibson LPS-57C, a 1993 Terada-built ObG LPS-57C, or a 2017 Eastman SB59. The 1992 currently has 9's on it, so I can't properly compare it to the other guitars with 10's, so I'm waiting for the strings to be delivered. The Eastman has a nut with wide acoustic string spacing (until recently Eastman built their solidbodies to jazz neck specs), so I'm also waiting for the new nut to arrive.

Other smaller factors: the 1993 is a JB in the bridge that needs to go (keeping things PAF). It's also an ultralight at 7.6 lbs (with no chambering!) which is a plus in advancing age. The Eastman already has Imperial diameter pots, so the BKP 550K push/pulls can go straight in, whereas the ObG's would both need a little reaming out.

The pickups are actually customs I got made by Zhangbucker. They're wired for coil tap instead of coil split. I wanted a range of tones but all within PAF boundaries, so the coils are set up:

NECK (A3)
Slug - 3.45K
Screw - 3.45K or 4.6K
Total: 6.9K (even) or 8.05K (offset)

BRIDGE (UO A5)
Slug - 4.6K
Screw - 3.45K or 4.6K
Total: 8.05K (offset) or 9.2K (even)

Cuts back on versatility a bit, but I was going more for "different flavors of PAF" rather than "different pickups within the same pickup"

[zionstrat]

Good for you! Taps are an incredible way to get excellent tonal variation while staying humbucking. They can be a pain to wire, but I love them anyway