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Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on July 8, 2018 at 4:37pm

The surface is a cheap table top. It's gotten scratched up quickly. When I put the poly stain on the back and sides I forgot to wipe off the top. So today i took a paint knife to it and some sand paper. Rather have a messy surface than one that could scratch my work. 

Didn't get to far today. May end up redoing my handles.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on July 9, 2018 at 9:33am

Yeah, but what were you wearing? ;)

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Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on July 8, 2018 at 7:14pm

Finally put a new 3way toggle switch in the AutoRATic Rhythm and Blues Cosmic Glider. The original one broke shortly after I put it in. Around four years ago..... All I had was both pickups playing together. And it sounds awesome. So that's my excuse for waiting so long. : ) Anyway I know I bought cheap. Got a few of them for less than $2 each. So upon taking this toggle switch of the the guitar I noticed one of the support posts came off the top. I could physically snap it back in. But when using the switch it popped right back out again. I had the solder gun hot already so I soldered that post back in. Played with the switch a bit. The other side popped out. There's nothing holding this cheap switch together. Live and learn.

After wiring everything back up I discovered something that I'd completely forgot about. I wired this guitar backwards.  When the switch is all the way up it's my bridge. All the way down it's the neck pickup. Both volume pots are switched around. I'll be taking these pickups out and putting single coils in it soon enough. I'll be dropping in a master tone control. And possibly a phase switch. 

I've also learned something today that I didn't know. People use foam under electric pickups to keep feedback down. Most folks cut up cheap flip flops. I got plenty of EVA foam mats. Going to give this a try as well. 

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Permalink Reply by Taffy Evans on July 8, 2018 at 9:00pm

Hi, I line my cavities with copper foil to combat hum, but you say you can use foam to combat feedback, interesting. What does the foam do? 

Taff

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Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on July 8, 2018 at 11:45pm

I didn't save the vids. And i've watched hundreds over this weekend. Sooooo. I'm going to do my best to answer why this works. There are two ways to mount a pickup in a guitar. Have something hold the pickup or directly into the body. Because the wood has no effect the sound is the same for both mountings. ( if the vibrations within the wood had anything to do with the sound these vibrations would have the pickup squealing like a piezo) With both style mountings there is a gap between the pickup and the body. Sound waves within this gap can create vibrations in the bottom plate of the pickup. I forget why but these vibrations cause feedback. (my memory would be a lot clearer if I hadn't learned so many cool things about guitar pickup and wiring mods) So it's the same as piezo pickups. Keeping unwanted vibrations from the back helps to slow down the amount of squalling from feedback.  All my guitars are going to have this mod. 

Still havne't found info that I'm looking for. I really don't think anyone has ever tried it. A variable coil tap lest you use a knob to slowly shut off one of your humbucker coils. All the way off you end up with a single coil. But because the pickup wasn't designed to be a single coil it's not going to have the highs. What I want to find out is, is there a way to use a treble bleed circuit to allow the highs from the coil being shut off to continue on to the output of the guitar? 

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on July 9, 2018 at 9:59am

All pickups are microphonic to some degree or large degree if not potted/sealed. The windings of the coil react to the vibrations of whatever the pickup is mounted too. That's how the body/neck influences your sound and no 2 guitars sound the exact same.

If the pickup is a 4-wire pickup, then you could do series/parallel option, coil tap or coil split.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on July 9, 2018 at 9:41am

I wrapped the bottom of single coil pickups in hollow body guitars to keep the feedback at bay. Used some foam rubber from on of my wife's blouses that had the shoulder pads, she didn't like them anyway.

When I made my Strat-O-Rez guitar with the skillet in the middle for reso tone, the single coil pickups were hum-free and I couldn't figure out why. I was reading a write up by Bill Lawrence and he said that aluminum will make single coil pickups hum-free. So I figured that the skillet I used was aluminum.

Here's the write up where he is discussing the effect of metal base plates and covers for pickups. pickup%20baseplates.odt

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Permalink Reply by Taffy Evans on July 9, 2018 at 1:34pm

Hi, thanks for your explanation CTBR. Paul has covered my thoughts somewhat, a dense timber will tend to keep string vibrations where they do most good, over the pickups, and not absorbed by the body if a softer timber was used. I feel that even if solid nut and bridges are used they would, to a degree, also be influenced by what they are mounted on. 

My understanding, limited as it is, is that hum and feed back are are caused by different triggers.

I also find that feedback is not an ongoing problem for me, I understand it is a product of high gain from the amp, my proximity to the speaker, and the size of the room, creating a loop of sound waves between pickups and speaker that can as we know get out of control. If I can control those I'm good. 

I can't remember having feedback problems on stage. I may have to create it and then try the foam trick.

Taff

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on July 10, 2018 at 11:05am

I only had feedback problems with non-potted pickups in hollow body, semi-hollow body or solid body with large cavity routes. The high microphonics make the pickup act like a microphone and any large space around and below the pickup would have some feedback.

Double coil pickups have less problems with this, but being on stage tends to be a problem with all the other signals, RF noise, lighting and magnet fields from other amps/speakers.

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Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on July 10, 2018 at 9:46am

The right blades make ALL the difference! Along with the help of the wonderful people of Youtube. The first and second pics are my almost perfect straight line with absolutely no chip out. Still having trouble learning to turn the blade without cutting extra on square lines. But I'm really happy with this. The blades are Flying Dutchman's #3 Ultra Reverse. I've learned the crimped end goes to the top. 

This is my spindle grinder table clamp. The bolts in the table side are set into the wood. Waiting for the two part epoxy to dry. 

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on July 10, 2018 at 11:07am

That's a fine cut.

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Permalink Reply by Taffy Evans on July 11, 2018 at 12:07pm

Hi, to get square corner cut neat, what I do is drill a hole in all four corners to give the blade room to turn, then go back and tidy up the corner area.

Taff 

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