1989 Custom 24 rotary switch question(s)...

bodia said:
Hot guitar! The Wing Police are gonna be after ya, though! :p
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I plead guilty, due to "that guy did it". Assuming the Wing Police are what I think they are, this is how I got the guitar; I'm going to assume someone who just didn't know changed out the strings last. When I bought my 85 (remember I was one of the first people to buy one) I got taken aside and got a detailed run down on how to change the strings. That first batch - the wings weren't completely developed yet, I had to take it back in to get replacements as they started breaking. Fun fact: Dickie Betts spent a few hours playing my guitar before he decided to buy one of his own, and I got to show him how to change the strings.
 
steved said:
I plead guilty, due to "that guy did it". Assuming the Wing Police are what I think they are, this is how I got the guitar; I'm going to assume someone who just didn't know changed out the strings last. When I bought my 85 (remember I was one of the first people to buy one) I got taken aside and got a detailed run down on how to change the strings. That first batch - the wings weren't completely developed yet, I had to take it back in to get replacements as they started breaking. Fun fact: Dickie Betts spent a few hours playing my guitar before he decided to buy one of his own, and I got to show him how to change the strings.
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Now that is wicked cool!
 
steved said:
I plead guilty, due to "that guy did it". Assuming the Wing Police are what I think they are, this is how I got the guitar; I'm going to assume someone who just didn't know changed out the strings last. When I bought my 85 (remember I was one of the first people to buy one) I got taken aside and got a detailed run down on how to change the strings. That first batch - the wings weren't completely developed yet, I had to take it back in to get replacements as they started breaking. Fun fact: Dickie Betts spent a few hours playing my guitar before he decided to buy one of his own, and I got to show him how to change the strings.
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That is beyond cool!!!
 
Beautiful guitar, from that era the amber tops are my favorites, personally. Iconic.

I have a '90 with original everything and here are some pix of the switch. I presume the wiring is still the same as an '89 would be.

I gotta say, wiring that bad boy up looks like a nightmare. I mean, look at that fine red wire running around all the different wafers. Good luck with it!

Control-Cavity-1.jpg
Control-Cavity.jpg
 
Thanks for the pics! And no worries about the wiring - I build and fix modular synth electronics stuff semi-professionally, doing this kind of wiring is a piece of cake. I got the switch, and I've cleaned it up - removed all that red teflon wiring - it was set for a different version than what I want. The original wiring is much simpler - only about 6 little jumper wires.

Tonight (instead of monkeying with the switch some more) I changed out the strings for the first time (the wing police can stay home!), adjusted the bridge height (the previous owner had the high E side of the bridge down on the deck for some reason), and checked out the pickups. It turns out there are Dragon (I guess the first version) pickups in there.

kgA2oHg.jpg
 
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That photo of the neck pickup cavity is interesting. Looks like a bunch of people who worked on or inspected the guitar all left their marks. In mine there are no such marks, just a number which I believe is a date (111290, i.e. 11/12/90). I wonder when they started doing that? Sorry, I'm just a nerd about such stupid things.

Neck-Pickup.jpg
 
steved said:
Thanks for the pics! And no worries about the wiring - I build and fix modular synth electronics stuff semi-professionally, doing this kind of wiring is a piece of cake. I got the switch, and I've cleaned it up - removed all that red teflon wiring - it was set for a different version than what I want. The original wiring is much simpler - only about 6 little jumper wires.

Tonight (instead of monkeying with the switch some more) I changed out the strings for the first time (the wing police can stay home!), adjusted the bridge height (the previous owner had the high E side of the bridge down on the deck for some reason), and checked out the pickups. It turns out there are Dragon (I guess the first version) pickups in there.

kgA2oHg.jpg
Click to expand...
An early Custom with Dragons!! What's not to like?
 
Yes, the neck cavity writing probably reveals a lot. It looks like J.K. crossed out A.B.'s initials, and then S.S. got in the act too. In the bridge cavity it has the serial number and "Vintage Yellow" written in sharpie.
 
steved said:
Yes, the neck cavity writing probably reveals a lot. It looks like J.K. crossed out A.B.'s initials, and then S.S. got in the act too. In the bridge cavity it has the serial number and "Vintage Yellow" written in sharpie.
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It looks like they were fighting over who was going to get to keep it. In the end though, you're the one who won the battle!
 
Follow up, for anyone who's curious: I got it all back together tonight with a completely working rotary switch - Yay!

TXY9tcc.jpg


And it's just as I remembered. Bridge, Neck and middle are standard, power out of phase is fantastic sounding, and the other position is doinky sounding.

The road to getting it finished wasn't as smooth as it could have been. The first switch I bought was extremely "experienced", and had the knurled knob end bent over slightly. I ended up doing the rewire with standard hookup wire, and got the knurled end straightened out, but wasn't completely happy. I wanted it to be as close to the original as I could make it, as I certainly have enough soldering skills to pull that off. So I found another much cleaner looking switch, and thanks to my friends on muffwiggler.com I was able to track down the original kind of wire used for all the wiring that's on the switch. And got busy redoing the wiring on this new switch, but - it fell apart. Broke. Half of the top blue wafer broke off. I tried supergluing it back together, but it wouldn't hold, and broke again, so I gave up on that one and just used the other one. And it works like a charm!
 
Ouch. That's a bit complicated. Two factors. First reason: - my main job at the time was (and still is) playing cello in the Nashville Symphony, and in 1988 they basically shut down, went bankrupt, locked us out for almost a year. I scraped together some odd jobs, but was really hurting financially, and wasn't playing guitar at all like I used to, due to Second reason: in 1987 I had a big bad accident involving a glass door that nearly cut off my left hand. Got myself put together, at least enough to resume playing cello after a year of rehab, but the guitar playing ability really didn't come back very well. 30 some years later I still have trouble doing much more than basic chords, although I can play non-chord stuff and lead stuff really well. So basically I had this super nice, valuable guitar that I could barely play, and selling it would pay 3-4 months of rent. And yes, I started kicking myself for that decision really soon, and still am. I actually looked up the guy I had sold it to a few years back, to see if there was any chance I could buy it back, but he had sold it when he retired (he had been a cop/musician - in a band here called the Blue Lights).
 
Very nice! Back to iconic original configuration, looks great.

Your story about being a professional musician and almost having your hand amputated is terrifying. I'm glad that you've been able to overcome it - granted, with some limitations - and bring the music back to your hands. Play the hell out of that guitar and enjoy every minute of it!
 
steved said:
Ouch. That's a bit complicated. Two factors. First reason: - my main job at the time was (and still is) playing cello in the Nashville Symphony, and in 1988 they basically shut down, went bankrupt, locked us out for almost a year. I scraped together some odd jobs, but was really hurting financially, and wasn't playing guitar at all like I used to, due to Second reason: in 1987 I had a big bad accident involving a glass door that nearly cut off my left hand. Got myself put together, at least enough to resume playing cello after a year of rehab, but the guitar playing ability really didn't come back very well. 30 some years later I still have trouble doing much more than basic chords, although I can play non-chord stuff and lead stuff really well. So basically I had this super nice, valuable guitar that I could barely play, and selling it would pay 3-4 months of rent. And yes, I started kicking myself for that decision really soon, and still am. I actually looked up the guy I had sold it to a few years back, to see if there was any chance I could buy it back, but he had sold it when he retired (he had been a cop/musician - in a band here called the Blue Lights).
Click to expand...

Arm around the shoulder. I understand now. I'd tell you my story, but then, I don't need to overshadow yours. You've earned this.
 
I had to replace the switch in my '88 Custom since it became intermittent so I went with the new PCB mounted 5 way since it involves very little soldering and is more robust. I did have to use the dremmel tool and route an additional 1/8x1/8x1/8 inch square for the PCB. No biggy.
 
steved said:
I recently bought a 1989 Custom 24. The previous owner changed the rotary switch out for a 3 way toggle, which works well. I'm considering changing it back to a rotary 5 way, but have some questions.

The hand2hand wired originals are fragile. If the body has a crack....

Let me prephase this by saying that I used to own a 1985 guitar that was very similar to this new (to me) one, and I really liked the pickup choices with that one.

So, which wiring choice would be a good for this? Do I go for the original pickup choices from the 85 version? Or did the wiring change with the 1989 versions, and would that be a better choice - what were the differences? While I can find several wiring diagrams online, it's not really clear what changed and when in 1989. (perhaps this is a question for the PRS tech department?) Any and all opinions on this are welcome and appreciated.

Also - the guitar was supposed to have the switch in the case, but apparently it got lost in the transition somehow, so I have a knob, but no switch. Should I pay the premium for an old one, if I can find one on ebay or reverb; or go with the one stewmac sells - they have yet another different wiring option, not sure if that will work as well as the original PRS version. Again, any opinions welcome.
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