A modded Musicmaster - Done

[rodvonbon]

*edited title

I started a project on my Musicmaster and want to completely rewire it. Right now I've got a lipstick in the neck position and a Hotrail in the bridge. I use hotrails a lot, but never together with a single coil so I'm not sure if the hot lead and ground need to be reversed in order to keep it in phase??
Also I'm trying to do a parallel/series/split switch using a standard Mustang switch. I've looked up some wiring diagrams, but none of them seem to work. I can get it to work in parallel and series, but not split. What I'm unsure of is if the red and white wires need to be shorted to ground in order for the split to happen or if the connection between the two should be broken.
Here is a diagram I came up with that in my head should work. In parallel red/black and white/green are connected, in series red/white only are connected and split red/white are connected and shorted to ground. I'm positive parallel and series will work, just not sure about the split.
Anybody got any ideas or thoughts on this??

*edit* I might have just though of a flaw. If I reverse the black and green leads to keep proper polarity, it would stand to reason I would need to flip the red and white wires too. Right?

[rodvonbon]

Here it is with red and white flipped around.

[rodvonbon]

Well, I did some testing by running all the wires through the switch hole and tried every combination of wires to see what would happen. green and black wires do need to be flipped around, but red and white stay the same. I could get the pickup combinations I want now I just need to wire it up and see if the switching works.

[serfx]

sweet eric, thanks for the semi how to. i've been looking at different switching options for my mustang with a rails in the bridge.

[rodvonbon]

Ahhh, success!!
The first wiring diagram works perfectly and the guitar sounds great.
I tried a few different times using wiring diagrams I found searching both here on SS and on various other websites. Absolutely none of them worked.

Originally I threw this thing together out of spare parts I had laying around and never had any plans of ever using it for anything. It had a '68 single coil out of a comp Mustang, a Warmoth pickguard I had made for another guitar and an allparts neck. I found the body at a garage sale years ago for 40 bucks with a neck I ended up using on the M16. I had also used it to lay out the template for the M16's body. It came with a bridge too and I put brass compensated saddles on. In the end it sounded like shit and the neck felt really cheap. I put it in a case and forgot about it, except when I take pictures of my collection :}

Before


This week I started doing some maintenance on a few of my guitars by putting them back to stock, so I had some rails and a couple necks left over with nothing to put them on. I started looking around for something to make a project out of and remembered I had this guitar. I cleaned off the body and stripped the electronics out of it, pulled the lipstick out of a Squire Tele someone gave me, then went through a bag of pots in my parts box for a solid shaft 500k for volume and 250k for tone. One of the necks I had left over was on a comp blue reissue, it's actually a reissue Jaguar neck I painted the headstock of to match the Mustang. I've also got a stack of pickguards and the one I used for this was sold as a reissue replacement. It didn't fit any of the reissues I have nor did it fit any of the 60's Mustangs, but fit absolutely perfect on this 70's body.
After sorting out the switching I put it all together and strung it up with 11's.
I've got to say, the sound that comes out of this thing is stunning. Played through a clean amp, the rail switched to parallel and both pickups on is very Telecaster sounding.
All that's left to do is some final tweaking with the intonation and adjust the string height.

After







Here are some gut shots of the switch wiring. I know they don't make much sense, but they follow the first diagram.

► Show Spoiler

[rodvonbon]

sweet rob, thanks for the semi how to. i've been looking at different switching options for my mustang with a rails in the bridge.

With my diagram you would have to sacrifice the out of phase option and turning the pickup off, but you will get the most out of the pickup this way. If I were to do it again I would give up the split option and have an off instead. With it running in parallel it sounds like a really hot single coil and in series is humbucker mode.

[hotrodperlmutter]

CHRISTMASONIC!!!!

[robroe]

can you make me a tracing of this pickguard?

or ya know if you aren't going to use the old one anymore......?

[rodvonbon]

can you make me a tracing of this pickguard?

or ya know if you aren't going to use the old one anymore......?

I would, but I don't think it would do you any good. It's a Warmoth guard made to fit a Warmoth body. Besides the guitar it was made to fit, the Musicmaster is the only other guitar it lines up with. Which is weird because the guard I have on the Musicmaster now doesn't fit any other guitar either, even though it is supposed to be cut for a reissue.
Really though it's just a Mustang pickguard that was made without the neck pickup and switch holes.