NGD - cobbled together around a craigslist loaded pick guard

[justFred]

Picked up a non functioning loaded pick guard on Craigslist. Has P-rail neck, unknown single coil (black and white cloth insulation wires, 6.7 DCR) and Invader bridge. Had push-pull rats nest wiring. It appeared there was a failed attempt to split he Invader. Pulled it out, installed regular old 500k mini pot and solder up without split. There is a SPDT on off on trying to do something with the P-rail, un hooked it an went to no split. Tested, it works just fine.

Bought an Okoume Wood Strat body, did clear Danish oil finish. Had a loaded strat neck and bridge from some failed project of years ago.

Put it all together and other than needing to shim the neck everything mostly fit. It all works, it is light (7.1 pounds), plays nicely, although am struggling to understand this conglomeration of pickups…still work in process but it is some kind guitar.

 

[Sam SG]

Cool. Reminds me of my battered 70s strat I lugged around for 15yrs.
Stripped to natural ash. JB in bridge stock 70s flat pole in the middle with no cover and a white 57/62 in the neck( old mid 90s one with plain enamel winding) and a mini toggle on blackguard

 

[Mincer]

What's okoume wood like? I've never had a chance to play a guitar made of it.

 

[Artie]

Nice score. Funny that someone would spend that kind of money on pups, then not figure out how to wire 'em up.

 

[Chistopher]

Thoughts on Danish oil?

 

[jeremy]

people do dumb shit all the time artie

i like the look! do yourself a favor and at least get a few tones out of the prail. the p90 is my favorite setting, and parallel is great too

 

[justFred]

What's okoume wood like? I've never had a chance to play a guitar made of it.

It’s lightweight, easy to work with (sands out without much effort), inexpensive (body was $50 on Amazon)

Unplugged it sounds good, bright, clear.

EBMM, Suhr, Fender custom shop, Ibanez, Eastman, etc. use it in some high end guitars.

 

[justFred]

Nice score. Funny that someone would spend that kind of money on pups, then not figure out how to wire 'em up.

Don’t know the history. Doing a postmortem on the switches it appears the push pull was correctly set up initially to do a split on the Invader and the other switch would do split on the P-rail with full HB, P90 only, rail only. There appears to have been a bunch of half assed rework done for reasons unknown. The result was a couple of shorts on the push pull pot and cold solder joints on 5 way switch.

 

[justFred]

Thoughts on Danish oil?

Like it for clean, clear finish that holds the wood’s natural color and accents the grains. Process I used took some time and wet sanding on each of four applications with a two day wait between each.

 

[justFred]

people do dumb shit all the time artie

i like the look! do yourself a favor and at least get a few tones out of the prail. the p90 is my favorite setting, and parallel is great too

Going to wire it for P90 only for now. Further on down the road will add parallel wiring, don’t care for the rail only it’s own or the series standard wiring.

 

[Artie]

Don’t know the history. Doing a postmortem on the switches it appears the push pull was correctly set up initially to do a split on the Invader and the other switch would do split on the P-rail with full HB, P90 only, rail only. There appears to have been a bunch of half assed rework done for reasons unknown. The result was a couple of shorts on the push pull pot and cold solder joints on 5 way switch.

Soldering is an Art form. (Pun may have been intentional.)

 

[Mincer]

Going to wire it for P90 only for now. Further on down the road will go for the parallel wiring, don’t care for the rail only it’s own or the series standard wiring.

I kinda agree with you there. The P90 sound is the one I find the most useful.

 

[magillver]

At my local shop one of the younger techs is mildly dyslexic and occasionally has a difficult time working out oddball small switch wiring that people have brought in when they finally surrender. I end up assisting him fairly often trying to do post mortems, and help figure out what the customer had intended to do and addressing if it's even possible, then working on solutions... fun side diversion. FWIW, in his defense, the guy is a great woodworker! I've watched him do some absolutely frightening neck and head repairs...