Silly little idea

[Chistopher]

I was messing around with the bullet strat I modded for punk rock purposes and came up with a few whacky aesthetic ideas for it.

The one I'm leaning towards is to put a poker chip around the 5-way switch which effectively converts it to a 3-way switch and substantially ups the silliness factor. I was thinking about putting a 3-way switch in it anyway cuz the 2 and 4 tones aren't all that great.

Probably not a good idea on just about any other strat, but I think this one fits the theme quite nicely.

 

[jeremy]

if you dig it, then doo it!

 

[Seashore]

Man. Having all the controls clustered under the first string at the bridge like that would drive me nuts. But I do think it looks cool.

 

[Mincer]

It isn't a terrible idea. I think what gets to me is all of the screws.

 

[hamerfan]

The Les Paul style toggle has 3 throws but only 2 pickups can be connected.

 

[orpheo]

The Les Paul style toggle has 3 throws but only 2 pickups can be connected.

There are 3 way toggles that work with 3 pickups. Gibson's original 3 pickup LP had a toggle like that. It did bridge, bridge+middle, middle+neck. Two totally useless sounds imho, but hey, it was possible?

 

[Chistopher]

It isn't a terrible idea. I think what gets to me is all of the screws.

It's actually two less screws than a strat usually has :nana:

 

[Chistopher]

The Les Paul style toggle has 3 throws but only 2 pickups can be connected.

I won't be using a Les Paul toggle, it's a 5-way switch, but the poker chip will restrict it to the middle three positions.

 

[jeremy]

so that makes it weird. cause the two outside positions are middle plus another pup, you couldnt have n/m/b with a normal 5 way only using the three middle positions

 

[GuitarDoc]

Putting a poker chip around the 5 way won't change it to a 3 way (unless you replace the lever switch with a toggle switch).

 

[Chistopher]

The poker chip physically blocks the switch from going into the 1 and 5 position. I've got a spare super switch and I'm going to wire up the three middle positions to neck/middle/bridge.

 

[beaubrummels]

I like the black/white aesthetic. The chip doesn't do anything for me personally, but it's your guitar, your idea and you need to be satisfied with it. From a practical standpoint, I doubt just putting a chip there will stop you from eventually hitting positions 1 and 5.

If it were me, I might try Orpheo's suggestion of the Gibson 3-way SP3T switch. Because of the Strat cavity and the angle of the switch body, it would throw at a 90 degree angle from the blade direction, moving in between the vol/tone knobs and away from the body, which would help prevent accidentally hitting it to another position while playing.

Another option would be scrap all that and use black and white push button switches to select any pickup combo you want. They would be low profile so you couldn't accidentally hit them and you could easily switch to whatever position/combo you want.