Help with Hasting's "killer mod"

[kevinsaale]

I'm going be throwing a baseplate on the bridge pup of my strat. That's neither here nor there, but while I'm in there I want to rewire the bad boy as such:


My only trouble is what goes where on the pup selector? It says it uses a standard 5-way strat switch. If a kind soul with a better eye than mine could draw up a simple diagram to show how to wire the pup selector I would be forever indebted.

This is my first post on this site and I apologize if this could be found somewhere else, but I looked around and could not seem to find anything.

[sumgai]

Kevin,

Hi, and welcome to the The NutzHouse! ;D

There are one or two little "items" missing from your diagram. No problem, the truth table leads one to finding the wires missing from the 5-way switch on the lower-left side.

But that's neither here nor there....... were you asking for a pictorial diagram of how to layout the wiring? Sort of like one of these:



Not too many people around here take the time needed to do such a nice job as done by John. Nonetheless, someone will "perform miracles", if that's what you need to get the ball rolling.

But a straight-ahead schematic, with the missing wires filled in, that's a piece of cake for most of us. If that's all you need, then I'm sure that one will be forthcoming much more quickly.

What's yer pleasure there, Bunky?





sumga

[kevinsaale]

The missing wires filled in on the schematic would be great, but a pictorial wiring diagram like what you have pictured would be super great.

I'm not looking for anything that fancy for such a simple job. A rough sketch showing where the ground and lead wires from the pups go and where the tone controls fit it would be wonderful though.

[ashcatlt]

Ummm...What missing wires?

The pole on the one side of the switch is not connected to anything. It relys on the shorting action of the switch itself to bring the middle pickup into play in the 2 and 4 positions.

I truly hope this picture helps. If you can follow it, I think I've got it correct. I'm really posting it, though, because I was stricken by the absurd "Modern Art" quality of that jumble of wires in the middle.



Edit - Looking at it in the post I see that the blue wire from the NT could just as easily connect to the BT where the orange wire is...

[kevinsaale]

Art is more about intention than anything.

Thanks for that diagram though. Would I have to do anything different I'm doing star grounding, or do I still have all those wires landing on that one lug of the volume pot? Excuse my ignorance for I are is be a nub and have never wired anything in series.

[newey]

KS-

Would I have to do anything different I'm doing star grounding, or do I still have all those wires landing on that one lug of the volume pot?

No, it's one or t'other, not both. The Volume pot is used as a convenient gathering point for all the grounds when one is not star grounding; with a star grounding scheme, the V pot grounds would be redundant- and possibly detrimental from a noise standpoint due to creating ground loops. Although the consensus hereabouts seems to be that ground loops really don't add to the noise problem.

Good wiring practices would dictate a single grounding point like a star ground, but the extent to which such preferences represent a real advantage versus just "wiring aesthetics" is debatable.

[andy]

Sorry to interrupt, but...

I was born and raised in a town called 'Hastings'.

*I've just deleted a paragraph on killers I knew and a Mods/Rockers joke. Just didn't feel right.*

Lets just settle with 'It's on the south coast of England'!

And back to the useful posts about Strat wiring...

[JohnH]

Aug 7, 2008 0:55:17 GMT -5 ashcatlt said:

I'm really posting it, though, because I was stricken by the absurd "Modern Art" quality of that jumble of wires in the middle.

..

Well my friend, I would contend that my wiring diagrams come from the classical pictorial school of graphical representation, while yours is much more towards a cubist / neo-brutalist interpretation!

John

[ashcatlt]

In order not to violate the family friendly nature of this forum, I would direct you to that one King Missile song.

I'm pretty sure my diagram is star grounded. All of the actual ground connections happen on that one lug of the volume pot, and it could easily replace the star ground ring from QTB. If things get too crowded there though, you could do it the other way.

[kevinsaale]

Ok, thanks for all the help. ;D

Since I'm sure you're all just on the edge of your collective seat, I'll make sure to post back here and let you kind folks know how it turned out. Now that damn baseplate just has to get here...

[sumgai]

ash,

Aug 7, 2008 0:55:17 GMT -5 ashcatlt said:

Ummm...What missing wires?

The pole on the one side of the switch is not connected to anything. It relys on the shorting action of the switch itself to bring the middle pickup into play in the 2 and 4 positions.

Ah, I see where I made my now-false assumption. The lower-left switch pole has the numerals 1 and 5 located well away from the terminals themselves, and in a curve along the arc that represents the "other" three terminals. From that, I just assumed that we were looking at a true 5-way switch.

My bad.


~!~!~!~

Kevin, carry on. Do as ash says, and all will be well. ;D



sumgai


p.s. andy, Hastings is a member here who used to contribute heavily. We all assume that his weasellawyerly duties have been keeping him from participating lately, but we still value what he's done in the past for us. His nom-de-plume is jhng, check him out.

[newey]

Ash-

I would direct you to that one King Missile song.

Don't know if that was directed at my post or not, but I certainly did not mean to impugn your diagram in any way. You are correct that using a single pot is equivalent to the QTB star grounding scheme.

I was using the term "star grounding" in the QTB sense. KS sounded like he planned to wire up two set of grounds, so I was answering that portion of his query, not referring to your diagram specifically.

Sorry if you took offense, none was intended.

[ashcatlt]

It was actually more toward John, but mostly re: the whole art discussion. Was meant as a joke, and there was definitely no offense meant or taken.

[newey]

Whew!! I'm glad we got that straightened out.

I did get the joke, didn't have to click the link to know what song you meant (I've got that CD around here somewhere).

But it seemed a joke with a bit of a barb on it. Sort of like what Jesse wanted to do to Barack.

[kevinsaale]

Update:

The wiring went decently well. The switch works backwards from a normal one. The tone control for the neck does nothing except when it's on ten it almost completely cuts off the pup. I would try to resolve these issues, but the point of the mod (to have the bridge and neck in series) is useless since I really didn't like this sound.

On a brighter note, the baseplate sounds tremendous and I would recommend it to anyone who owns a strat. I think I'm one of the few people that really liked the sound of their strats bridge pup before I added the baseplate. Now, well, their aren't words for it's awesomeness. It even sounds good clean now.

At least I'll get some more practice rewiring it the way I had it. Cheers, and thanks for the, unfortunately wasted, help.