se custom semi mod

[davep393]

Hi,

Just bought an old 2008 semi Se custom off eBay. Love it already, my first prs and don't think will be my last. However it's a bit beefy and I'd like to be able to split the coils so I can get a more fender sound from time to time. I've done guitar mods previously and are happy with a soldering iron but need some advice.
Currently thinking of trying to keep the guitar looking standard and i dont want to drill the guitar so my plan is:
Add the split wire to the coils by cutting into the red wire.
Buy a metric tone pot with a push push or push pull. Switch the tone pot (add orange cap same time) and wire up.
Done.
Anyone know a good supplier for pots (UK, and after metric)? And other ideas, also what size of pot length, want the knob to be close to the body like the original.

Thanks

Dave

 

[markintime]

I'm sort of thinking along the same lines with mine. Allparts.com has the stuff, but I don't know what size pot it takes. Maybe take it apart for a looksee and measure?

 

[andy474x]

I'm not sure on the diameter, but for a flat top SE you will want a short shaft pot. I've done the coil split mod to a set of SE pickups and it worked really well (HFS and VB in a CU24 SE). If you really want to knock it out of the park, replace both pots with push/pull, and wire one for each pickup. Then you can split the pickups individually, kind of like the 408 switching. There are a lot of useful combinations that way. Also, you can experiment with using the unused half of the push/pull that splits the bridge pickup to add a capacitor to the circuit and dial back the treble on that split bridge pickup, they get bright when you split them!

 

[davep393]

Hi,

Yeah thinking 18mm shaft will do. Looking at another site adding a 1k/2k to the split wire on the switch will make the single coil slightly humbucker and stop some of volume drop and brightness. Quite like the idea of both pots being push pull may make them look more even.

 

[pac90]

axesrus

http://www.axesrus.co.uk/Alpha-Pots-s/1877.htm

Note on their drop down menu that log is A and B is linear for their Alphas (SEs uses alphas, but some prefer the taper and feel of other brands)

I used medium shaft for an SE, and although they are individually cheap, I went through a few to get them all >500K as they are +/- 10%
You can get pre-sorted 550 CTS pots on the bareknuckle website in UK too

 

[John Beef]

I have added a split wire to SE pickups before and it works nicely. I would also recommend you add the 1.1K and 2.2K resistors to the split circuit. See the DGT 2015 schematic...

http://www.prsguitars.com/csc/schematics/2015/dgt.pdf

 

[davep393]

Hi

thanks guys that's exactly what I was after. Just need to decide if too change both pots now so they match.