My Bonamassa Custom...finally

[questionman]

So after a pretty long wait my Bonamassa custom showed up. I had heard about these long ago, seen a lot of videos on youtube for these things.....the one that really sold me was Petes section of the demo playing Triumphs Little Boy Blues

So anyway after a week of hell at work totaling 23 hours over schedule

I came home in a horrific northeast ice storm to this

Needless to say I was into it! Had a late 80s Burny 3 pickup custom years ago and I loved it, long gone

This one is cool

Hog body, probably 3 piece, hog neck, very dry ebony board. High action, everything needs an adjustment. Bui it sounds damn good. Plays pretty damn great despite the very dry board and high action. Knobs have to go too..witch hats already ordered. Perhaps a bigsby and some gold grovers...

Hell if I know but its a great guitar and will be for a very long time

 

[LP1865]

Happy NGD.
A bigsby would be an amazing addition to this guitar

 

[JESimons]

FRAGILE... It must be Italian!!!

 

[JayPDizzle]

Looks great! Mine came with pretty high action too. I dropped the bridge down and had to lower a few of the nut slots, but now it plays like butter. Tuners are the only weak point on these. Gold grovers would be the perfect upgrade

 

[musicmaniac]

Nice enjoy!

 

[questionman]

After some more time this morning, I must say the quality control is very good. The pickups.....I expected to not like nearly as much as I did. I still will probably swap all 3 out later on down the road but they are pretty open and dynamic. I really like the middle position with the middle and bridge pickup, played through almost all of Skynyrds Second Helping just in that position and it rips. I think I might attempt what one would consider a stupid modification....I want to put 2 mini toggles in the guitar for the middle pickup, one to alternate which set of volume/tone knobs its wired into for a bit more dynamic range and one to toggle it on/off. I know I can get a 6 way toggle for the latter but wheres the fun in that?

 

[Zacknorton]

freeway 6 position toggle switches are awesome. or use push-pull pots

mini toggles suck.

cool guitar.

 

[questionman]

freeway 6 position toggle switches are awesome. or use push-pull pots

mini toggles suck.

cool guitar.

Can you reroute tone controls through a 6 way toggle switch though?

 

[Caretaker]

Congrats.
Looks great.

 

[Zacknorton]

re-route tone controls??? I don't understand what you mean?

the freeway simply replaces your 3 way toggle and gives you 3 more options of pickup cobinations.

Or you could just swap all your pots out for push-pull switched pots and you'd have nearly every option available. without drilling holes in your guitar.

 

[questionman]

Well, I don’t mind drilling a hole or 2, I’ve done it before

The way I play I mess with tone controls a lot. I don’t like having my bridge pickup tone on 10, but I kinda need that when in the middle position just for the nature of that second pickup. So I want to be able to control the middle pickup with both the neck controls and the bridge to give me some more options. It just feels too restricted right now. Not looking to add more switching options per say, though having the middle pickup on a on/off toggle would be very handy, just to give myself that little extra control

 

[CB91710]

Be aware of the original wiring.
The middle pickup does not go to the control cavity... it goes directly to the switch, which is a special switch layout.
The bridge and neck pickups go to the control cavity like a normal LP:

The bottom set of contacts on the switch switch between the bridge and neck. The top contact simply connects the middle pickup to the bridge.

These are 2-conductor pickups, so no coil-tap options are available unless you replace them.

 

[questionman]

Be aware of the original wiring.
The middle pickup does not go to the control cavity... it goes directly to the switch, which is a special switch layout.
The bridge and neck pickups go to the control cavity like a normal LP:

The bottom set of contacts on the switch switch between the bridge and neck. The top contact simply connects the middle pickup to the bridge.

These are 2-conductor pickups, so no coil-tap options are available unless you replace them.


View attachment 512660

Well that’s slightly complicates things lol. That would be a much bigger undertaking than I initially anticipated

 

[CB91710]

I suppose you could rewire the B/N to a normal 3-way, then using a DPDT on-off-on, connect the middle pickup to the common, and in one position it directs to the bridge volume pot, in the other it directs to the neck volume pot.

Another option that would not require drilling the top for a switch is to go V-V-V-T.... Again, normal LP wiring for the B/N, but with a master tone like a Flying-V/Explorer, and the 4th pot is a volume/fader for the middle pickup.
The middle pot would need to be wired with the pickup on the wiper, rather than the output.

But that eliminates the option to have different tone settings for the bridge vs neck.

 

[questionman]

I suppose you could rewire the B/N to a normal 3-way, then using a DPDT on-off-on, connect the middle pickup to the common, and in one position it directs to the bridge volume pot, in the other it directs to the neck volume

This is what I was thinking of

With the 3 was on/off/on, would that off position be a hard off for the middle pickup - allowing just the bridge and neck in the middle toggle?

 

[CB91710]

This is what I was thinking of

With the 3 was on/off/on, would that off position be a hard off for the middle pickup - allowing just the bridge and neck in the middle toggle?

Yes.
In the middle position, it would be a normal Les Paul.

 

[questionman]

Yes.
In the middle position, it would be a normal Les Paul.

Awesome, that’s exactly what I am looking for! Initially was thinking 2 individual 2 way toggles to do this, 3 way is much simpler

 

[CB91710]

Awesome, that’s exactly what I am looking for! Initially was thinking 2 individual 2 way toggles to do this, 3 way is much simpler

It is simpler, but I've found 3-way mini toggles to be "iffy" hitting the center position when playing live.
My Kramer came with the mini-toggle for pickup selection and I never used the middle position.

A pair of simple on-off are more positive, but it becomes a 2-step process to switch.

 

[Zacknorton]

freeway switch has zero impact on tone controls.

my experience with mini toggles: unless you enlarge the control cavity they're always cramped and 2 there is zero reason to use them now that push pull pots are so readily available.

Hope you find an elegant solution and get exactly what you want.

 

[CB91710]

freeway switch has zero impact on tone controls.

my experience with mini toggles: unless you enlarge the control cavity they're always cramped and 2 there is zero reason to use them now that push pull pots are so readily available.

Hope you find an elegant solution and get exactly what you want.

Push-pull pots don't have a center-off position.
You end up with a 2-step process to switch the middle pickup from vol/tone 1 to vol/tone 2.