My Standard 24 mods journal

Simon Says said:
Thank you. It's not silky-smooth perfection lol. The cavity is not finished like the rest of the guitar - there are some dents, an uneven surface, finish buildup and such, so you can still see tinny graphite patches here and there. Not an issue for me. It looks clean enough and it did the trick - the electronic cavity is no longer a faraday cage :)

It looks like my parts won't arrive today, so I won't be able to finish the job. I'm at work for the next 5 days too but I should have it done early next week.

Follow-up question - any ideas on how to remove graphite paint from my fingers and under the nails? Hahaha... Yyyy
Click to expand...

Paint Stripper?

Acetone?
 
Lewguitar said:
So you think the graphite paint adds capacitance to the circuit and bleeds off treble to ground? If it does, I wonder why? None of the hot wires are connected to ground. Not saying it doesn't...just wondering why.
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I'm not the EE but it has something to do to the faraday cage and added capacitance. There's a whole debate around this
 
Simon Says said:
I'm not the EE but it has something to do to the faraday cage and added capacitance. There's a whole debate around this
Click to expand...
Sounds like one of those things some people swear they hear and some people swear they don't!

I lined the pickup cavity and control cavity of my PRS Soapbar Singlecut to see if I could quiet the hum of the P90's.

Didn't seem to dull the tone or quiet the hum.

But I couldn't A/B it so who knows?
 
Lewguitar said:
Sounds like one of those things some people swear they hear and some people swear they don't!

I lined the pickup cavity and control cavity of my PRS Soapbar Singlecut to see if I could quiet the hum of the P90's.

Didn't seem to dull the tone or quiet the hum.

But I couldn't A/B it so who knows?
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I was religiously shielding every Stratocaster I owned. I'm allergic to hum, buzz, and general noise. I have passed on gear before because of the noise, amps, boosters - if it's noisy, it's not for me. So yeah, this is why I shielded my Custom 24 a few days after it arrived, and I was ripping it off the day after because it just dulled the tone. Shielding always worked well with single-coil guitars, so I was confused about what was happening.

With this guitar, though - I figured it's optional. With the layout I came up with, every piece of wire carrying signal is shielded, the same so the potentiometers. Complete cavity shielding would be like shielding a shielding ;).

Here's the layout if you are interested. Tone pot only affects the neck and middle position; the push-pull split the neck pickup only. In split mode, a 330pF capacitor is added to the hot signal to slightly round the tone. All are nicely shielded. Only the switch and volume pot touches the bridge pickup



EDIT: and the schematic if it's easier

 
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Simon Says said:
I was religiously shielding every Stratocaster I owned. I'm allergic to hum, buzz, and general noise. I have passed on gear before because of the noise, amps, boosters - if it's noisy, it's not for me. So yeah, this is why I shielded my Custom 24 a few days after it arrived, and I was ripping it off the day after because it just dulled the tone. Shielding always worked well with single-coil guitars, so I was confused about what was happening.

With this guitar, though - I figured it's optional. With the layout I came up with, every piece of wire carrying signal is shielded, the same so the potentiometers. Complete cavity shielding would be like shielding a shielding ;).

Here's the layout if you are interested. Tone pot only affects the neck and middle position; the push-pull split the neck pickup only. In split mode, a 330pF capacitor is added to the hot signal to slightly round the tone. All are nicely shielded. Only the switch and volume pot touches the bridge pickup



EDIT: and the schematic if it's easier

Click to expand...
Oh man, you're still screwed if an EMP touches off. Your electrics will fry. Aren't you concerned about this?

I kid, and interested in how this plays out :)
 
aphantomvaper said:
Oh man, you're still screwed if an EMP touches off. Your electrics will fry. Aren't you concerned about this?

I kid, and interested in how this plays out :)
Click to expand...

I am indeed playing with fire ;)

It will play out just fine, It's not my first rodeo with a soldering iron. Although I changed the concept a bit; I will keep the split for neck pickup only but I will do the tone pot for both pickups, not the neck pickup only as stated earlier. I will also move the tone control to after the volume aka the 50s or vintage wiring. That alone should add a bit of presence to my guitar.

I should be ready to roll tomorrow as long as the remaining parts (heat shrink tubing) will get here on time. It will be next week otherwise due to the unique way the scheduling department at work operates

EDIT: modified layout

 
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Thank you. I'm quite happy with how it looks and even happier with how it sounds. I only played for about 15 minutes but I can say that the guitar feels very different. I kept the same strings and I know this guitar very well and I could swear it sounds less modern; more like well-balanced rock guitar than the metal fire-breathing monster I used to have. As much as I never used the tone control much before I see it as very useful; it's not as muddy as before. The 50s-style wiring indeed doesn't need a treble bleed. I have also flipped the neck pickup 180° with slug poles facing the neck as this is the active coil when 59/09 is in split mode and I wanted to have it as far from the centre as possible; with 24 frets PRS inner coil would be to close to the centre. With the 330pF capacitor in SC mode, the tone is spanky but not icepeaky. There is a bit of a volume drop in a split mode and I was wondering if mixing cap from hot to ground with partial coil split would help but with all honesty, I just can't bother to gut it all to find out. The volume difference is insignificant. Anyway, back to playing
 
Simon Says said:
Thank you. I'm quite happy with how it looks and even happier with how it sounds. I only played for about 15 minutes but I can say that the guitar feels very different. I kept the same strings and I know this guitar very well and I could swear it sounds less modern; more like well-balanced rock guitar than the metal fire-breathing monster I used to have. As much as I never used the tone control much before I see it as very useful; it's not as muddy as before. The 50s-style wiring indeed doesn't need a treble bleed. I have also flipped the neck pickup 180° with slug poles facing the neck as this is the active coil when 59/09 is in split mode and I wanted to have it as far from the centre as possible; with 24 frets PRS inner coil would be to close to the centre. With the 330pF capacitor in SC mode, the tone is spanky but not icepeaky. There is a bit of a volume drop in a split mode and I was wondering if mixing cap from hot to ground with partial coil split would help but with all honesty, I just can't bother to gut it all to find out. The volume difference is insignificant. Anyway, back to playing
Click to expand...

Hope you woke the neighbours ;)

bodia said:
That's some seriously clean work!
Click to expand...

Yeah, trying to get this dude to take a compliment on his work. Pfffttt;)
 
Alnus Rubra said:
Hope you woke the neighbours ;)



Yeah, trying to get this dude to take a compliment on his work. Pfffttt;)
Click to expand...
Haha, totally Reub. They won't sleep much tonight. It was heartbreaking seeing this guitar in pieces past 2 weeks, so we need to catch up. As far as I'm concerned; I'm done messing around with it for a long time. That is unless I get ahold of open-coil \m/s.

Thank you all for the compliments ;)
 
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