help. i'm building a four pickup strat.

[androideyes]

i picked up a squire strat at a pawn shop the other day and i want to do something ridiculous to it. ive settled on getting a custom made pickguard, routing out more of the body, and dropping four of the seymour duncan lipstick pickups in it.

the pickups are made for strats so they come in neck/middle/bridge configuration with the middle being reverse wound/reverse polarity. i figure i can get the full set and double up on the middle pu.

then, wire the neck and middle pu closest to it to the stock five way switch and wire them up so it's, position 1: off/the middle coil/both on in series/neck coil/position 5:both on in parallel.

then do the same thing with the bridge and middle pu closest to it and wire them to a five way rotary toggle in place of the master volume.

since i'm not a fan of tone knobs, i could then convert the tone knobs into volume knobs. one for each toggle switch. then wire those to the output jack.

it should look cool and be a twangy tone monster!
in my head this works beautifully but i haven't done anything this complex in reality. anyone see a flaw in this plan or something i should watch out for? i'm thinking the grounding will be a birds nest for sure.

 

[jackthehack]

I've been drinking a nice Bourgogne, you?

 

[DiMitriR33]

odd. but interesting.
i don't know how you'd do that with the "stock" switch but a superswitch from stew mac will do anything. basically a rotary switch on it's side with a lever hooked to the shaft.

how about a master volume and 2 rotary switches for you pickups and a 3rd master switch(your blade style strat switch) to choose between them.

if you prefer no out of phase option then start with the schematic for a 5-way tele using a superswitch posted elsewhere on this forum and leave the lugs that coincide  with that position blank. if you prefer this off position else where you can move things around as long as you ensure you move the wires that coincide on all four poles to the same relative position. i'd make up a schematic and post it but don't have the time.

using a master volume will prevent some tonal quirks of independant volumes as well as give you a good ground reference when you turn down the volume which will prevent. go independant volumes if you must, i'm giving my $0.02 and i think you'll be hapier that way.

 

[Phrygian]

I've been drinking a nice Bourgogne, you?

lol... that explains a few things 

 

[DiMitriR33]

http://www.tdpri.com/wiring5wayStrat.htm

the schematic i was refering to.

 

[-CB-]

There is a 4 way Tele switch.... with is a 2p4t switch, and that might be something to play with.

The permutations of this are staggering - 15 options of just "parallel" operation.  Combine that with series and phasing... fagettabouddit!
You have:

Neck
Mid 1
Mid 2
Bridge
Neck + Mid 1
Neck + Mid 2
Neck + Bridge
Mid 1 + Mid 2
Mid 1 + Bridge
Mid 2 + Bridge
Neck + Mid 1 + Mid 2
Neck + Mid 1 + Bridge
Neck + Mid 2 + Bridge
Mid 1 + Mid 2 + Bridge
Neck + Mid1 + Mid 2 + Bridge

Ya just wont get that from a lever switch.  A rotary... yes... but not in the space permitted.
How about, just do a Mustang type slide switch for every pickup.  That way you can combine em as you like, in or out of phase in any combination..... all in parallel of course.

 

[Tweed]

How about, just do a Mustang type slide switch for every pickup.  That way you can combine em as you like, in or out of phase in any combination..... all in parallel of course.


That works, Brian May's Red Special has that for 3 p/ups

 

[stubhead]

I re-wired my Warmoth "Tele" with some heavy-duty rocket science switching, parallel, coil tapping etc. using a Superswitch. I had either 13 or 17 wires going to ground,  I can't remember (some nightmares are best left dormant.... :tard. Rather than almost surely frying the potentiometers by meekly following the diagrams and trying to solder SEVENTEEN wires to the poor little buggers, I sunk a little eyebolt (AKA "screw eye") into the side of the control cavity. I sanded all the chrome plating off it first. I wrapped ALL the ground wires around the eyebolt, then heated the jeebers out of it with a 140-watt gun and slobbered solder all over it. All of the different ground wires are just, like, ground - it eventually all ends up hooked to the sleeve of the output jack. Each pot shell only needs one ground wire.

 

[androideyes]

this is my first strat, i wasn't aware that the stock five way switch couldn't be wired the same as a rotary switch. so, i've decided now to go with two 5 way rotary switches and connect them to a three way master sliding ("tele") switch and just have one master volume knob as per DiMitriR33.as much as i like the look of extra switches and buttons and doodads, i've played jags, mustangs, and jazzmasters before and i tend to inadvertently hit them while i'm playing. so, eventually i would just disconnect all that stuff. that's what got me into modding guitars in the first place. i figure this way it's minimal setup with lots of options. now if i could just hear back from Warmoth about that pickguard...

thanks for the help.