Dig it! The “good money after bad” project.

dodgechargerfan

dodgechargerfan

CanadianGary
Administrator
and the “good” might be a stretch.

I mentioned in another thread that I had a guitar that could benefit from the addition of a intonatable wraparound bridge. Then I hauled it out and found that it wasn’t too bad.

I’ve had it as my office guitar for a while now and decided that I needed to do what I intended do with this thing all along. Mod it.

Pending mods:
Push pull pots all around for coil splitting and phase switching. I’ve had the pots in a box for years.
Above mentioned wraparound bridge
New tuners

The guitar?
396A3F0A-431D-498C-AC0C-2CCCF8173739.jpeg


That’s one of those “failed experiment” Gibson/Baldwin student guitars with a bolt-on neck.
I think I paid $40 for it.

I’ve thought about selling it or donating it but I could never, in good conscience, unload it in its current state.
It’s not horrible. It does what it does. It often needs tuning. I can deal with it. There are things that I like about it.
If I put money into it, I’ll likely never get close to that money back out of it. So, I’m going to start modding.

I’ve done a fret dressing so far.

Then I looked at the pickups and the wiring.

The pickups are not 4-wire. So, the push-pull thing won’t work.
Wait! I have some 'buckers in the parts box….. also not 4-wire.

So, I went shopping.
I ordered up some inexpensive Wilkinson humbuckers.
While I was there, I ordered up the Wilkinson wraparound bridge and a set of locking tuners.

If I like the mods, especially the pickups and wiring, I’ll start experimenting with different pickups, and then maybe transfer it all into my LP Studio.
The bridge and tuners will stay with the Baldwin.
 
Yeah, I mean, as long as you have another use for the parts. I used to do this all the time. I'd buy a $100 guitar and spend $200 in upgrades and wind up with a $100 guitar that I still didn't like...
 
I'm in the process of replacing parts on a tele. When I'm done I'll bet there won't be a single original part. It's fun waiting for the delivery though.
 
Well, this is getting stupid.

I kinda dragged my feet on things because the bridge and tuners were going to take longer to be delivered than originally expected.
In the meantime, I documented the existing wiring, looked at a million different versions of the wiring diagram, and started yanking out the old wiring.

I started wiring up the pots yesterday.
Struggled with handling them and keeping track of which wire should go where because I didn't have the pots laid out in a convenient manner.

So, today I transferred the layout to a cardboard box and hand-turned a step drill to get the right sized hole to mount the pots.

Then the bridge and tuners showed up.

For some reason that caused me to take a good look at the nut.
I knew it was black plastic, but it worked well enough.

I couldn't let that stand.
So, I ordered up a Graph Tech Tusq XL nut.

LOL

Oh, yeah. I hate wiring.
I shouldn't, but I do.
 
The wiring on my p90 Tele has issues. At least the neck pickup is not completely dead now. Would love to hear what it sounds like by itself but, bridge is active in all 4 positions. I destroyed my glasses last week, wearing an old pair from 10 or 20 years ago. Driving, I'm like why did I even need to get new glasses. Reading, it actually better to take them off. Had eye doc appointment today so, in 10 days to two weeks, I'll be able to see WTF I did wrong.

Before you put the pots in your box, you should of sealed it up, then cut small slits in it. Then when you put them in your LP you will be sooo grateful it's not a semi hollow.
 
I finally finished up the wiring last night.

It doesn't work.

I tried to get fancy and use some quick disconnect plugs - for two reasons:
First: It allowed me to do almost all of the soldering outside of the control cavity. I only had to solder in the pickup selector switch and the ground wire to the bridge. Everything else is on a plug.
Second: pickup swaps if I am ever so inclined. I have a couple of bags of the plugs. So to put in a new set of pickups, I need only add the plugs on to the pickup leads and plug it in, mindful that the connections to the pots, etc. are the Jimmy Page wiring. So, it's not a free for all with any pickup set.

I'll probably gut it all and start again. I know that I have a couple of sketchy solder joints in there but getting to them means yanking it all out anyway.
I'm thinking about a bigger work "platform" (box) that will allow me to do all of the wiring on the bench, test it out and then be able to transfer it into the guitar. Yes, I am over thinking it completely, but that's what I do.
 
I still hate wiring, but it turns out that it’s fine.
It passes the tap test at least. I may or may not have mixed up the pickups though. So now, the switch is backwards. :facepalm:

So, why did I think it wasn’t working?
Both CH1 and CH2 of my amp are silent, all of a sudden. I had tested on CH1.
CH 3 and CH4 are fine. I’ve got a ticket in to the manufacturer.
 
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