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Those bridges were SUPPOSED to wobble.  That was their intent.  Never worked as intended though.  If you've never used tone controls on a guitar before, this is the one to cut your teeth on.  You could invest in a Mastery bridge if the tremolo bothers you but is a pretty good investment.  Still, if you want the original intent to actually work, its the way to go.

Great looking guitar and hope you enjoy it.  Really off the beaten path in terms of feel and tones so like a good strat or tele, it will make you work a bit harder to get what you're after.

Yes, they are made so that when you use the tremolo the bridge had some movement intended to lessen the movement over the saddles and improve string life and tuning stability. Sadly, it just didnt work!

The bridge setup was'nt in my concern at first... still don't have any problem with it so far... might do some fixes on it when i'll change the string next time, i have some quite large heat-shrink tubing that could fit nicely around the posts... Though i will order some Mustang saddles, i have a quite strong picking hand and i've manage to get the low E string do some slot skipping while giving her some serious beating.

Onto my real matter now.

I sure dig those switching options... but the upper controls difference are'nt unicorn tears injected and it's something that can easily be mounted on a switch or simply be the voicing of the neck pickup when in stand alone use.

So after debating in my head how to solve that squealing issue that is definitly create by the mahoosive wiring that is going from Montreal to Vancouver, back and forth couple time in that chunk of wood... i'm going to simplify that a bit.

Now what i need is help to source a custom pickguard that covers the upper control area and routed for pickguard mounted strat single coil and a 3-5way slide switch in the lower horn.

Can't seem to find anything like that on the internet other than Jazzmaster pickguards.... ...but the bridge area section is made differently and i want to keep the chrome control plate.

Thanks!

Rej

Rej, the large heat shrink should be fine so long as it doesnt give/compress, thats why i went for wire as its solid. Mustang saddles for the win! Same look and feel without the disaster of multiple grooves.

The upper controls sound darker due to the 50kB pot on the tone control, this removes some treble. Case in point - single coil guitars go for 250k pots as they help curb some excess treble, HBs use 500k as they need less filtering and help keep them a bit brighter and articulate. Jags/JAzzmasters are so bright (on the lower controls) as they use 1M pots letting loads of the highs through. you could easily experiment with different pots, tone caps or treble bleed circuits on the upper control to give you some more tones that are suited to your taste. Yes, there is a lot of wiring, but you could use shielded wire or multiple core shielded wire to combat this, then shield all the cavities. And of course, wax pot them pups to stop the microphonics.

Shame I'm in the UK, sounds like a fun project! Back in my tech days I used to spend ages selecting the best tone caps/treble bleed caps on strats for the individual player/amp/pups. Makes them so much more usuable.

I do mean that literally, the poor thing isn't just pissed off at me... Anyway...

I was beavering away the other night and after placing 30+ resistors went to solder and nothing. I have an old (ish) Weller PS-2D Soldering Station that takes the TCP pen/tips. Love it. I inspected the base and no on/off light. Checked the mains fuse and on board fuse and it was the on board 315mA 250V (FYI, I'm in the UK) Slow Blow (Time Delay) Fuse that had blown. Next day I picked some more up and every fuse blows as soon as I power the unit on. I tested each fuse before it went in and they were all fine. The blow whether the Pen is connected or not. The on/off light flashes on and then fuse blows. From some googling I thought I may have a short on one side of the transformer. However, I checked blow sides and they blow read a resistance - 42 ohms on the primary, 0.8 ohms on the secondary. This seems correct based on my minimal knowledge and googling. There is also no visible sign of burning out or shorting on the transformer.

Any ideas as to what else this could be? Anything else I could check or any other way of testing it? I can't test the AC across each side of the transformer as the fuse blows, could I temporarily jumper the fuse to test the voltage or is this too dangerous?

Please help so I can finish building my Triple Wreck! 

A pretty common failure in the old Weller soldering stations are the diodes.  These often rectify the power supply as well as other uses.  Check with your DMM to see if any of them have failed (shorted closed or shorted open).   Weller will often send you a schematic upon request if you are bent on fixing this one up.  Otherwise, I would suggest a newer station like the Weller WESD51 or Hakko FX-888d.

I can't see any diodes in there.  Tis indeed old, got it on eBay recently though. Live and neutral come in, live goes to the fuse and then to the switch along with the neutral. Switch connects these yo the transformer primary. Secondary side goes straightto the output for the TCP pen. Old and simple... But clearly not too reliable.

I would guess the squealing is microphonic, as the Squier pups aren't usually wax potted (though i could be wrong if things have changed) but it's the likely answer. Jags and Jazzmasters desparately need good shielding due to the combination of pups, layout and amount of wiring. Either open her up and fully shield the cavities if it's one full cavity, or shielded cable and shield the individual cavities if it's routed like that. Not sure how they route squiers nowadays.

The upper circuit, 'rhythm' mode is just the neck and uses a different combination of pot values that does make it darker. 50kB tone pot instead of 1MB that is on the bottom controls.

The 3rd switch on the bottom row is just a set tone switch, your could mod this to use whatever cap or cap and resistor combo you want to get a 'preset' tone. you could use a cap and a bleed cap to create an unusul tonal combination etc. Fun times ahead.

Also, as I can't tell from the picks, does it have the saddles with multiple groves? If so, swap them out for a mustang bridge and I used to use different methods to stop the saddle unit rocking back and forth (a 'good' feature of the Trem on Jags). but it's all personal preference, I just found the tuning stability unusable with it set stock.

I don't really use the Trem so i have'nt had tuning issues yet... but i still find that bridge design a tad wonky... swapping it for a complete tune-o-matic was and i idea i had.

What did you do to keep the bridge itself moving in the inserts?

I'd go for the mustang bridge over a tune-o-matic, but that's personal preference, ToM would probably be more stable for string tension. If the neck is fitted correctly you can use a £1 coin underneath... But that's a UK quirk! I actually wrapped the posts in solid copper wire I had lying around, it was the perfect diameter to fit! No idea what it was though as it was about 6 yrs ago. You can probably find a coin suitable to sit underneath the bridge or find a wire like I used. I'm sure you have wires lying around 

Love it! The layout and finish is brilliant. I have one of LaceSensors boards awaiting my decimation (v2.3 I think?) still unsure on how I want to lay it out to utilise board mounts but get it all centred and symmetrical and keep the two expression outs. Hmmm.... Good job lace is only around the corner to me (in the scheme of things)

Thanks guys, any other suggestions gurus?

I would guess the squealing is microphonic, as the Squier pups aren't usually wax potted (though i could be wrong if things have changed) but it's the likely answer. Jags and Jazzmasters desparately need good shielding due to the combination of pups, layout and amount of wiring. Either open her up and fully shield the cavities if it's one full cavity, or shielded cable and shield the individual cavities if it's routed like that. Not sure how they route squiers nowadays.

The upper circuit, 'rhythm' mode is just the neck and uses a different combination of pot values that does make it darker. 50kB tone pot instead of 1MB that is on the bottom controls.

The 3rd switch on the bottom row is just a set tone switch, your could mod this to use whatever cap or cap and resistor combo you want to get a 'preset' tone. you could use a cap and a bleed cap to create an unusul tonal combination etc. Fun times ahead.

Also, as I can't tell from the picks, does it have the saddles with multiple groves? If so, swap them out for a mustang bridge and I used to use different methods to stop the saddle unit rocking back and forth (a 'good' feature of the Trem on Jags). but it's all personal preference, I just found the tuning stability unusable with it set stock.

I'd just like to clear something up...

The middle pickup on Strat is NOT out of Phase. Reverse Wound and Reverse Polarity is very different from out of phase. Reverse Wound and Reverse Polairty (RWRP) pickups are used to cancel hum, hence why positions 2 and 4 on strat cancels any hum you may hear from using positions 1/3/5. Out of phase switches the ground and hot connections that gives a different sound, much thinner, tinny and more of an effect rather than a usable sound.

The Neck pickup on most Teles will be RWRP so that it cancels the hum between the neck and bridge pups. If you wanted to add a middle pickup (this would get closest to the strat tone) you would have to replace the neck pickup too, so only the middle pickup is RWRP. Otherwise you would no get the hum cancelling and sound that this creates.

My suggestion, get a fresh set of pickups, Tele neck, RWRP Strat Mid, Tele Bridge, 5-way switch and stick an EQ box on your board to target the high mids that the tele creates (via its body shape and string through bridge). Use the EQ around 1-3kHz as previously mentioned, dip those and you should get a much quckier, hollower sound in strat territory.

Anyone else you refers to RWRP as out of phase shall now be shot 
ahahahahaaaaa....

I do mean that literally, the poor thing isn't just pissed off at me... Anyway...

I was beavering away the other night and after placing 30+ resistors went to solder and nothing. I have an old (ish) Weller PS-2D Soldering Station that takes the TCP pen/tips. Love it. I inspected the base and no on/off light. Checked the mains fuse and on board fuse and it was the on board 315mA 250V (FYI, I'm in the UK) Slow Blow (Time Delay) Fuse that had blown. Next day I picked some more up and every fuse blows as soon as I power the unit on. I tested each fuse before it went in and they were all fine. The blow whether the Pen is connected or not. The on/off light flashes on and then fuse blows. From some googling I thought I may have a short on one side of the transformer. However, I checked blow sides and they blow read a resistance - 42 ohms on the primary, 0.8 ohms on the secondary. This seems correct based on my minimal knowledge and googling. There is also no visible sign of burning out or shorting on the transformer.

Any ideas as to what else this could be? Anything else I could check or any other way of testing it? I can't test the AC across each side of the transformer as the fuse blows, could I temporarily jumper the fuse to test the voltage or is this too dangerous?

Please help so I can finish building my Triple Wreck! 

Oooo, very tempted to try the LED clipping in mine. Might socket and try a few different colours etc. Was it a 3mm diffuse you used?

Challenge accepted!

That looks like lotta fun!

FWIW I consider a 125B to be cheating

I consider a 1590B as a fair contender 

All that you need to do now is make it on a double sided SMD board and fit it in a 1590A  :
Seriously good work getting in there, you must have the patience of a saint! I'd probably put the soldering iron through the window haha.

Ok... So i got round to boxing these up after the Tex had time to cure and got a trade show with work out of the way...

First up is Squeeze - Ross/Dyna Comp Clone on Fuzz Dog's Skwisher PCB
This was my very first full build, the gentleman that is LaceSensor aka Ian supplied the parts for me and it went together easy enough for my first build. The inside is messy compared to standards on this board, and I really want to refinish this as I don't like my hand-painted art. Started painting the orange and then remembered the compressor of that name... confusion. Ah well. Love this compressor, does what I want and the variable recovery switch is a nice touch.


Next up, two Big Bulls - BB Overdrive/Preamp Clones on Fuzz Dog's  Big Beefy PCB
I've played plenty of TS based gain boxes over the years, but this is really pushing to be my favourite, its a great variation with bags of volume on tap and the active baxandall tone stack is saweet. I built two as these were my 2nd/3rd builds and wanted to see if they turned out the same... They did. One's for sale, I'm keeping the sparkly one! This is the start of my now set aesthetic but I wanted the smoke and horns to be white, so i masked these off, sprayed and then put the decal over the top. Envirotexed an we're done. Loverly.


Who you gonna call? Ghostbooster! EP3 Boost clone on Fuzz Dog's EPic Boost PCB
LOVE LOVE LOVE this boost. Echoplex-y goodness with loads of boost and the Fat/Bright switches are subtle but thats all you need to tweak the tone. The name came from my friend, who thought I was talking about Ectoplasm when I said Echoplex... and Ghostbooster it was. Again, decal, Tex. Done. Though I ran out of my Ultrabright Red LEDs so this is waiting for some light action.


Finally we have Glitter and Trauma. I'm a big fan of Biffy Clyro (especially albums 1-3, and 6) and this is the name of the first track from 3rd album Infinity Land.
Glitter is a Euphoria Drive clone on Fuzz Dog's Joy Drive PCB. Wonderful tones, great dumble-in-a-box tones and a nice complement to my other TS variants.


Trauma is a Prunes 'n' Custard Clone on Fuzz Dog's Dirt Dessert PCB. Never had a chance to play the actual pedal for one reason or another, and its so fookin cool. Filthy, sweepy, dirty oddness and this is also my favourite artwork so far (apart from El Embullo, but thats another story for another day).


As you can see I've been doing a lot of Fuzz Dog PCBs so far. I highly recommend trying some for the UK/Europeans on here. His newer boards are getting more and more PCB mounted pots/switches and he has a big range too. All good.
Here's the family so far...

Nice build, I've got one of these boards on my bench... Cant wait to get it up and running.

Thanks guys, much appreciated!

Good work Joe , get more reports up

PS for everyone else, me and Joe know each other in real life
I hooked him up with his first parts and enclosures

Will do! I've got plenty more on the cards...

Nice build! What's next?

I've finished a batch and just need to box them up including my own BB OD, 1776's Six Shooter EQ, LaceSensor's Larry David (he gave me a prototype pcb so i just boxed it up), Fender Blender, Ross Comp, Prunes n Custard, Euphoria Drive, EP3 Boost and a trube bypass looper.

Then I have PCBs to build a Triple Wreck, Tap Tempo Tremolo, Hamlet+, Doppleganger and attemptting a fully tamp tempo Multiplex delay.

First build report but not my first build! I have done a few more before this but as i have built/finished in batches this is the first one finished, boxed and ready to rock as it were...

Anyway, its multistomp made for a friend who liked an Xotic BB clone I made. He basically wanted a wee bopx to first off emulate the preamp from his Space Echo, then into the BB clone and finally a Rat. Hence the image of a Rat shooting a BB gun.

The preamp is the Nocturne Brain Setzer on vero courtesy of Tagboard - this is my first experience of working on vero and was a nice easy one to start off. Easy enough to do and has a really decent amount of volume on tap. The Tone control did nothing with my setup (strat into Laney IRT Studio) but it may working with my friends Gretsch. The Echo Pre is switchable via the Toggle on the top of the enclosure next to the DC in. the vero is held in by some thick foam double sided tape. I left some extra space on the end of the vero to link grounds and power to the other boards and the DC in.

Next up is the BB clone from Fuzz Dog/Pedal Parts UK. I have bought quite a few of his boards and they are really good quality as well as having a big BIG list on tap so worth trying a few. He's also doing a lot more with board mounted pots/switches which is nice. Anway, BB on the first footswitch, built stock with a blue LED and mounted on two of the pots. I couldn't mount on all four pots due to the pot spacing.

Finally there is Fuzz Dog's Rodent PCB with toggle for standard clipping diodes or 3mm Red LEDS (Turbo Rat). I love the LED clipping, WAY better than stock and much more dynamic. He's also just updated the board with the Ruetz mods and mounted pots, but this wouldn't have fit in the 1590BB. I also had to bend caps to fit this in, didnt plan for their height, which look as a bit uncouth but needs must.

Artwork was done by the chap the peal is for, printed on clear adhesive paper and then Envirotexed - big props to Juan and Cleggy for their tutorial, absolutely wonderful stuff! ALso my first experience of Tex'ing which I loved. Very theraputic. The finished are not 100% perfect (bloody dog and his hairs floating around) and even though i kept them covered their are a couple of flaws but nothing enough for me to remove and redo.

Boxing up was a challenge as I really pushed myself to put all this in a 1590BB, and you may wonder why the toggle isn't further over above the last pot (it would make more sense) and this was simple because i altered the inner layout slightly after drilling. Thankfully I had planned i (fairly) thoroughly but you can never count on the boards fitting EXACTLY as planned. I then had some wires break which I replaced with far better quality stuff.

All in all, it was a pain but work it. I think it looks neat enough, though i did tuck DC and the red LED Rat wire under the middle PCB after the pic. Anyway, thats enough blabbler, here's the pics.

Hi all on the wonderful forum,
Been stalking around on here for a few months and thought I should finally get posting and I'll pop up some build reports soon. I'm a friend of LaceSensor, actually in person too, can you believe it! I used to build guitars under the moniker Dorcia, hence the screen name. If anyone needs geetar work doing in here Manchester UK area do feel free to ask, I'm a trained luthier so I (pretend) to know what I'm talking about, haha.

Anyway, after meeting Lace and much chat I decided to build a few things, my currently list is:
Squeeze - Pedal Parts UK/Fuzz Dog Skwisher PCB, dynamcomp/Ross clone
El Embullo - One of LaceSensor's finished prototype boards he named Larry David aka Crunch Box, just wired in pots, boxed and added opamps
Big Bull - Pedal Parts UK/Fuzz Dog Big Bull PCB, Xotic BB Clone
Killer Hertz - 1776 Effects Six Shooter PCB

I have studied Juan and Cleggys finishing tutorial and ordered me some clear adhesive paper and Envirotex so I should be up and running with build reports/pics soon. Not sure how many of you have tried Pedal Parts UK/Fuzz Dog but his stuff is great. Just received a big Tayda order so my next builds are....
SHO
Xotic EP boost
Wampler Euphoria and Triple Wreck
Crowther Prunes n Custard
Multistomp for a friend - Dynabrain preamp, Xotic BB and Rat in one
Fender Blender Fuzz
MusicPCBs Tap Tempo Trem (terrified about this but what the hey)
Doppelgänger, PCB courtesy of Lace
Hamlet+
Multiplex Echo Machine with Slam and attempting Tap Tempo implementation on both 'heads'... Will it work? Probably not, haaaaaahaaaaaa.

So I have plenty to be going on with... I'm sure I will be much more vocal when I getting into the harder builds!

Much love
Joe