Two...two....two Tele's in one!

[Brian Krashpad]

Cool!

I'm lazy though. Would never have the patience for all that wiring work. I did it the simple way.

One Tele with 2 singles and '50's wiring:

One Tele with full size splittable neckbucker and 5-way switching:

And one Tele with a Seymour Duncan mini in the neck and 3-way switching:

Lot less work this way.

 

[duhvoodooman]

It's been over two years since I posted this, and I have been running this CV '50s Tele with the neck mini-humbucker all that time. But I think it's time to check out something new, namely ONE OF THESE. I have my eye on an eBay auction now that will save me a few $$ if I win it. These P-Rails pickups will function in 3 separate modes--as a rail-style single coil, as a P90, and as a hybrid bumbucker with the two connected in series. Because you want to be able to split & use either coil of the P-Rails, the usual 2-position/on-on push-pull pot will not work for this purpose--it requires a 3-position on-off-on switch to give all three pickup configurations. I have never seen a 3-position push-pull pot, so I'm looking at using an on-off-on SPDT mini-toggle mounted through the pickguard. They're small, so I'm sure I can find a place to mount it where it will be out of the way. I'll also need to get a Tele pickguard that's cut for a full-size humbucker in the neck position, but that's NOT A PROBLEM.

The one problem I see is that the way the switching for the P-Rails works, I can't come up with a way to wire it that avoids losing the bridge pickup signal for one of the three bridge-neck-in-series combos. Whichever coil is split by shunting its output to ground will take the bridge signal with it, since the both-in-series setting on the 4-way pickup selector switch is wired so that the bridge pickup signal feeds into the humbucker. I'm pretty sure I could get around that by using a second switch or by completely rewiring the 4-way, but I really don't want to do either. No big deal--9 different pickup combinations instead of 10!

Will update this thread as the project unfolds....

 

[Tig]

I've always been curious about P-Rails.

 

[duhvoodooman]

Me, too, obviously! I've yet to read a bad review. Everybody who tries them seems to love their tonal versatility.

 

[kidsmoke]

I've always been curious about P-Rails.

Me, too, obviously! I've yet to read a bad review. Everybody who tries them seems to love their tonal versatility.

i spend a lot of time on the Heritage Forum. There are a fair amount of corksniffers, as well as some very demanding but pragmatic journeyman musicians. Without exception everyone who's tried them loves them. I think it sounds pretty cool.

 

[sunvalleylaw]

Sounds cool! One of those in a jazzmaster could be cool.

 

[piebaldpython]

Sounds way cool.......like slide guitar heaven being able to go 'bucker.....to SC.......to P90......all in the flip of a mini-toggle. I'm DROOLING at the prospects.

 

[duhvoodooman]

Sounds way cool.......like slide guitar heaven being able to go 'bucker.....to SC.......to P90......all in the flip of a mini-toggle. I'm DROOLING at the prospects.

I leave this guitar tuned to open G all the time, and play (badly!) a bit of slide on it (when I'm not banging out Keef riffs). So what you're referring to is a big part of what I'm going for, Pie....

 

[duhvoodooman]

First step completed--won the P-Rails auction! Brand new pickup for $20 less than retail. Just ordered the pickguard from GFS, too....

 

[piebaldpython]

OK.......so you're buying 1 P-rail pup. What's the other pup? Could you use 2 P-rails pups on your Tele?

Sorry if these are dumb questions.......just trying to understand.

 

[sunvalleylaw]

First step completed--won the P-Rails auction! Brand new pickup for $20 less than retail. Just ordered the pickguard from GFS, too....

Hey, so you can put that in your tele? It is routed for it? Would it fit my CV?

 

[duhvoodooman]

OK.......so you're buying 1 P-rail pup. What's the other pup? Could you use 2 P-rails pups on your Tele?

Not without major surgery. The CV Tele's are routed for anything up to full humbucker size (which the P-Rails is) at the neck position, but have the traditional slanted single coil routing at the bridge position. I am going to try a GFS Fatbody Tele pickup at the bridge as part of this change.

Hey, so you can put that in your tele? It is routed for it? Would it fit my CV?

Yes, as described above.

 

[sunvalleylaw]

Yes, as described above.

*re-reads thread* Oh, ok. Cool! This mod might end up being enough of a motivation to make me try it. Though I don't dislike the neck pup in my guitar at all, the idea of a p-90/bucker in the neck sounds killer. Having done the connector system, do you see any downside to doing it that way instead of just hardwiring the modified pup?


EDIT: after re-reading your recent posts on this, I hope you find a way to handle the issue with the bridge pup. Come on you mad scientist! We're counting on you!

 

[duhvoodooman]

The quick connector system is great if you think you might be switching back and forth between pickups. But if it's a permanent change you plan to make, it's probably more trouble than it's worth, since it takes a lot longer to set up the first time than just soldering a new pickup in place.

 

[sunvalleylaw]

Ok, and if you figure out how to make this p-rail pup work, it will have both single coil and bucker capabilities so no real need to swap back and forth via the connector system. So, I hope this mod works for you so I can look at copying it!

 

[duhvoodooman]

Got the GFS Tele pickguard with the humbucker neck cavity today, so I took the opportunity to start prepping the guitar for the pickup change later this week when the P-Rails arrives. Thought I'd take a couple of photos while I was at it.

Here's the CV '50s Tele with the pickguard & minihumbucker removed. Note the size of the neck pickup routing--full humbucker size. BTW, those are just light scratches in the black conductive paint on the inside of the cavity, reflecting the camera flash:

Here's the new pickguard with a spare humbucker I had mounted into it and then set in place on the Tele body. Fits like a glove!

A wider angle shot of the preceding, showing the full body of the guitar. BTW, that's a new GFS "Fat Body" bridge pickup that I ordered along with the pickguard. Figured I try one of them along with the P-Rails, as long as I was "under the hood":

Here's a shot of the previous pickguard, showing the mini-bucker mounting and the quick connect wiring. The green stuff is heat-shrink over the wire splice and connector pin soldering:

 

[sunvalleylaw]

Very cool! Go mad scientist go!

 

[duhvoodooman]

A bit more progress--received the new P-Rails pickup yesterday, so here's a shot of the Tele with it mounted. Note the small toggle switch at the lower right side of the pickguard, near the control plate--that's the 3-position on-off-on SPDT switch that controls the P-Rails configuration. The middle "off" position is the dual-coil humbucker setting; up is the P-90 coil and down is the Rail coil. The switch is wired per the diagram from the Duncan site shown below, except I used an SPDT (the diagram shows a DPDT, with half unused) and the two wires coming off the throws don't go to the volume pot. Instead, they are wired to pins, like those shown in the mini-humbucker photo posted above, and then fed through the hole between the neck routing channel and the control cavity, which is where the "quick connector" that they plug into is located. The toggle switch is positioned to be right down at the end of the diagonal channel in the neck routing, so that it's as far from the strings as possible and won't interfere with picking/strumming.

I plan to finish up the control cavity wiring tonight. Adding a two-pin quick-connect for the bridge pickup, too. Might as well take this idea all the way...

 

[duhvoodooman]

Wrapped it up this evening. Here's a photo of the finished guitar and a diagram I put together showing how the whole thing is wired together. Sounds just great--each position of the P-Rails' 3-way coil-splitter toggle sounds distinctive, and that carries over to the parallel and series combinations with the bridge pickup. Speaking of which, my initial impression of the GFS Fat Body I installed at the bridge is quite positive--a bigger, fuller tone than the stock pickup, but still a good, snappy Tele character. The P-Rails full humbucker setting is quite distinctive--doesn't sound like any other neck humbucker I've heard, which I guess isn't surprising, based upon how different the two coils are. Maintains quite a bit of the P-90 character, but smoother, fatter and a bit louder. Very attractive.

 

[Tig]

Awesome! The combination of the P-Rail and 4-way switching could keep you busy experimenting for a long time.

 

[sunvalleylaw]

Very cool! I would love to put the toggle somewhere else, but based on the routing, it looks like that is the best place. I hope to hear some clips sometime soon! Excellent work, and excellent documentation. Makes it so even goof balls like me can follow what is going on. Congrats!

PS, do you have a shot of the back of the PG after the mods were completed but before you screwed it back on?

 

[duhvoodooman]

I would love to put the toggle somewhere else, but based on the routing, it looks like that is the best place.

Me, too, but unless you're willing to remove wood, that's pretty much the only place to put it. I generally strum/pick over the neck pickup, right around the 2nd octave point anyway, so it's not in my way at all where I have it.

PS, do you have a shot of the back of the PG after the mods were completed but before you screwed it back on?

No, I didn't. Wasn't much to see--looked pretty much like the photo above of the mini-bucker from the back, except for the toggle. The switch wiring really wouldn't be clear unless I took an extreme close-up shot--I figured that the diagram was the better way to show that.

 

[marnold]

Pretty nice. Clips or it didn't happen

 

[Brian Krashpad]

Bosstastic!

I would love to switch out the HB in my Tex-Mex Tele Special for a p-rail, but it already has a 5-way switch. So it could get dicey.

 

[marnold]

Can I just give this thread a bumpity-bump to see if DVM still likes that p-rail after five months?

 

[duhvoodooman]

Still diggin' it! Makes for a very flexible guitar--lots of different tones on tap. I think the P90 setting is probably my favorite, especially for the Open G stuff (Stones, Black Crowes, a bit of slide) that I use this guitar for, but all 3 modes sound good. Duncan hit a home run with this one, IMO.

 

[kidsmoke]

Very cool rig DVM.

 

[Duffy]

Does the butterscotch blonde CV tele have the HB neck rout?

 

[duhvoodooman]

Yeah, I believe all the CV Tele's do.

 

[Duffy]

Thanks. A Jazzmaster might go good in the neck. I'm not sure who would make a tele pickguard for a JM neck pickup. Ideas?