Grunged-up Mustang build

[Tretgeraet]

Hi everybody,

In the last weeks a few things came together at the right moment:
- I realised my first guitar turns 30 and made some pictures;
- I found a set of tuners I totally forgot about;
- My last build was slowly nearing completion!

What does all that have to do with each other?

Well, the set of tuners made me look through all the parts I either ripped out of other guitars, got somewhere for free, or planned on using but never did.

Among those parts was the bridge singlecoil from my first guitar, that I replaced with a Seymour Duncan JB Jr. many years ago. I though it would be cool to celebrate that guitars 30th birthday, by bringing that pickup back to life in a new guitar build.


With the closed cover it kinda looks like the pickups Fender used in their Duo-Sonics, Mustangs and other student guitars. I don't have a 24" scale guitar yet so I started planning on building a Mustang, but grunge style! As if it was modded in the 90's with a bridge humbucker!

Since all the humbuckers I took out of other guitars, I did for a reason, I finally decided to order a new one: It's a Rockinger Bellbucker (overwound PAF style) in Zebra, what else?

So we have...

...pickups, Kluson roundback tuners, headstock decals, a bunch of string trees, strap buttons (Schaller S-Locks), 500k log pots, wires, caps, a jack and some screws and some cool bakelite reflector knobs from my pedal building days.

From Warmoth I ordered:
- Neck Screws, Neck Plate and Neck Plate Pad
- Modified Mustang® Bridge
- Mustang® Tremolo Tailpiece
- Mustang® Control Plate
- 2pc Switchcraft Slide Switch, On-Off-On
- some copper shielding

Then the neck:
With the experience of a build still in progress I decided to order a maple neck with maple fretboard and finish it myself using Wudtone.

Mustang/Jaguar CBS
24" Scale Replacement Neck

Construction: Modern
Shaft Wood: Maple
Fretboard Wood: Maple
Nut Width: 1-5/8" (41mm) - Narrow
Right / Left Handed: Right-Handed
Neck Back Profile: D
Fretboard Radius: 10" - 16" Compound
Number of Frets: 22
Binding: None
Fret Size & Material: SS6150 - Wide & Tall (Stainless)
Tuner Hole Size: Schaller/Modern Fender/Sperzel (25/64")
Inlay Shape: Standard Dots
Inlay Material: Black
Side Dots: Black Side Dots
String Nut: Standard Nut - GraphTech White TUSQ XL
Mounting Holes: Standard 4-Bolt
Neck Heel Shape: Strat® Shape
Finish: None

And the body:
Mustang bodys were originally made of poplar and since it's the least expensive choice and I'm attempting a non-transparent finish this time anyway, poplar it is!

Mustang Guitar Body

Construction: Solid
Core Wood: Poplar
Lam Top Wood: No Lam Top
Right / Left Handed: Right-Handed
Control Cavity: Top Rout
Multi Pickup Top Rout: Mustang Top Rout
Bridge Rout Type: Tremolo
Bridge Rout: Mustang Tremolo w/ Mustang Bridge
Would you like Warmoth to install the bridge studs?: No
Mounting Holes: Standard 4-Bolt
Neck Pocket Shape: Strat®
Body Contours: Forearm Contour, Tummy Cut
Paint Category: No Paint

And finally: The Pickguard!
I was thinking back and forth on this, vintage pearl, white pearl, tortoise, they were all on the menu. I was about to choose tortoise, when Rockinger helped me decide and reminded me, that I really actually want something more like this...


They stick these red pearl picks to their wooden pickup boxes, like a seal. From pictures I'm convinced, that Warmoths ruby pearl looks like this. So why would I pay extra for tortoise, when I can have ruby pearl? Ruby pearl it is!

I placed this order a week ago, I'm very excited.

Ah wait! I forgot about the finish!

Last time I ordered from Wudtone, it took over two weeks, this time they were much faster so it's already here:


For the neck I ordered "Vintage Amber" and for the body "Lady Marion", which I assumed is a reference to "Sherwood Green".

Like last time I didn't order the grain filler and I went for "extra gloss, no aging", but this time I took the "silver highlights" to try to give the finish a metallic look... Will that work? I'm gonna find out!

 

[Tretgeraet]

Alrighty,
Package arrived just a few minutes ago, I will post pics later, but there was one surprise:

It's a one piece body! For the standard price, no extra charge!

Now I feel a little bad covering that up. Just a little, as it's still poplar. But maybe I'm making the finish not completely solid.

 

[Tretgeraet]

Another update!
First, here's a pic from delivery day that I promised... and then didn't deliver, sry 'bout that:


I put the final coats of finish on this weekend, so I'm gonna put it all together next weekend. Stay tuned for that!

In the meantime I was able to wire up the pickguard; while I like the Mustang's original layout, I find the wiring with the individual On-Off-On switches for each pickup very impractical. Luckily, there are many ways to wire those switches:


I chose to wire the one closer to the neck pu as 3-way pickup selector and the other one as parallel/split/series (left to right) switch for the humbucker.


For example: Both switches in the middle position is the neck pickup and the humbucker's inner coil together and they are hum-canceling.

The pickup selector's...uh... "selection" (the white wire) then goes to a master volume with 470pF and 150k series ("kinman") treble bleed and a master tone with a 22nF tone cap, both 500k log pots, 'cos I had those. No push-pull pots or other fancy stuff.

Wired like this, I lose the Mustang's original ability for out-of-phase switching, but frankly... I accidently wired a humbucker OOP once and I don't understand why someone would want that... on purpose!

It's gonna be my first time having a parallel/split/series switch. I think wiring those switches like that is an elegant solution and I'm excited to see how it'll turn out in practice.