Cort Doubleneck restoration

bigdaddy

bigdaddy

New member
I am looking for some help/input on a restoration of a mid 80's Cort DN1 Doubleneck 6/12. I noticed some posts from another member who has been down this road before and hoping to benefit from his expereince with this guitar. The first thing I need to do is straighten out the buggerd electronics . I contacted Cort but don't know if they will be able to come up with a schematic. I am wondering if the preamp is worth saving,and if anybody has any thoughts on replacing the ceramic powersound pickups.
 
Re: Cort Doubleneck restoration

Nice axe(s)....Keep it as original as possible & post when you got it done..Good Luck. Cheers
 
Re: Cort Doubleneck restoration

Sounds like a cool project.

Everything kinda depends what you want to get out of it. Is it a restoration or a hod-rod? I wouldn't go changing the pickups until I was sure I didn't like them.

What exactly is wrong with the electronics?
 
Re: Cort Doubleneck restoration

As you can see she is missing a pot is missing, and the preamp has been opened up, and wiring rerouted . Also I am trying to figure out the proper functions of the 2 mini
switcheson lower bout. One is single throw , the other is a double throw.
 
Re: Cort Doubleneck restoration

I'm not sure if you can save the preamp? However you could use the Gibson double-neck schematic and use the mini-toggles for coil splitting or series/parallel.
 
Re: Cort Doubleneck restoration

Welcome to the forum. Nice Cort; stick around so we can see how it turns out!

BTW, snowdog, your avatar is cute.
 
Re: Cort Doubleneck restoration

idsnowdog said:
I'm not sure if you can save the preamp? However you could use the Gibson double-neck schematic and use the mini-toggles for coil splitting or series/parallel.
Click to expand...

Yeah, this is what I would do. I'd be tempted to have an individual tap for each pickup, because I like to get nice combinations of a humbucker at the neck and a single at the bridge or vice versa rather than being tied down to always having both full 'buckers or both singles.

A phase switch could be really cool too (especially if you're a Peter Green fan) though I've found that I really don't use it very often. In fact, just about an hour ago I rewired a phase switch in one of my guitars into a kill switch because I never ****ing used it.

If the preamp is truly beyond saving, there are plenty of after-market alternatives out there, from many companies. Some sort of active boost could be pretty cool and would make that thing an extremely versatile beast.

And yeah, definitely hang around. This is an interesting project. :friday:
 
Re: Cort Doubleneck restoration

Thanks for the advice, and I will post some after pictures for those who are interested. I have included a couple more before pictures of this girls inards.
 
Re: Cort Doubleneck restoration

I had one of those a few years back. I replaced the stock pickups with L500s I had laying around. The big 3 way selects which neck; the toggle next to it is to turn the pre on/off; on the lower bout the 3 way is a pickup selector (both necks) and the 2 way is phase, iirc. I DO remember 3 things:

The pre sounds like fried dog**** but the little red led is a cool touch

The stocker pups are thin and incredibly microphonic

The neck angles are wrong. To make the 6 neck playable, I actually had to have the original bridge recessed into the body.
 
Re: Cort Doubleneck restoration

Forumla73, I seen your photos of your DN1, sounds like you did an extensive amount work. Refret,routing for the
bridge etc. I don't think mine will be quite ready for open mike next week. My original plan was to set up one of the necks for slide , maybe run the 12 neck as a 6 string,and since I play with a high "blues" action anyways; I hope I won't have to bust out the router. Who knows I might even like the sound of the pickups for the slide work . I love the old school nasal sound of my Teisco VN-4 for slide . I am sure those have to be the cheapest pickups made. Did you keep the brass nuts?
Did you get rid of your doubleneck ? Do you have any wiring notes when you changed out the pickups?
 
Re: Cort Doubleneck restoration

bigdaddy said:
Forumla73, I seen your photos of your DN1, sounds like you did an extensive amount work. Refret,routing for the
bridge etc. I don't think mine will be quite ready for open mike next week. My original plan was to set up one of the necks for slide , maybe run the 12 neck as a 6 string,and since I play with a high "blues" action anyways; I hope I won't have to bust out the router. Who knows I might even like the sound of the pickups for the slide work . I love the old school nasal sound of my Teisco VN-4 for slide . I am sure those have to be the cheapest pickups made. Did you keep the brass nuts?
Did you get rid of your doubleneck ? Do you have any wiring notes when you changed out the pickups?
Click to expand...

That Teisco is COOL. As far as wiring, I didn't really pay that much attention. I was lucky in that everything on mine was connected and fully functioning. The only thing that really pissed me off about it was having to enlarge some of the drilled wiring cavities to pass the fat Lawrence pup wires. That was a monster. I kept the brass nuts, but if I actually intended to play it, I would have gone to bone or delrin or something. I don't care what anybody says-brass binds, regardless of how big the slots are. String lube only lasts so long, then you get the *pinking* noise back from binding. The 12 neck needed a refret, too, as well as the bridge recessed. I ended up selling it because the body was too wide for me to sit down with, I kept hitting the big toggle when I played, and standing up it was horrifically neck heavy. I traded it for an Electra Outlaw MPC thing, which, ironically enough, was so neck heavy that I relocated the top button with a valve cover spreader. It is ALSO gone. I think I'll just stick to standard designs from here on out.:doh:
 
Re: Cort Doubleneck restoration

bigdaddy said:
Forumla73, I seen your photos of your DN1, sounds like you did an extensive amount work. Refret,routing for the
bridge etc. I don't think mine will be quite ready for open mike next week. My original plan was to set up one of the necks for slide , maybe run the 12 neck as a 6 string,and since I play with a high "blues" action anyways; I hope I won't have to bust out the router. Who knows I might even like the sound of the pickups for the slide work . I love the old school nasal sound of my Teisco VN-4 for slide . I am sure those have to be the cheapest pickups made. Did you keep the brass nuts?
Did you get rid of your doubleneck ? Do you have any wiring notes when you changed out the pickups?
Click to expand...

Man, I dig that old school look!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top