A while back I bought a 1993 Hamer Studio from an HFC member who owned it just long enough to decide he really does prefer 25.5" scale guitars. It came with a DiMarzio Virtual Hot PAF at the neck, a Duncan Pearly Gates Bridge, and high-ratio Schaller tuners with ebony buttons.
It also, surprisingly, came with Jin Sung 500K linear taper volume and tone pots. That's how the selling HFC member got it. I'd love to know the backstory on that transplant.
So besides now having a platform for the set of Charlottes that were cooling their legs in my pickup parts box, I needed to rewire this girl. A short order to Mojotone for 500K audio taper pots, some cloth-covered wire, an orange-drop .022 µF cap, and some amber top hats, was delivered quickly. I also wanted to add treble bleed bypass circuits to the volume pots, but was disinclined to buy a bunch of resistors and caps and cobble together test circuits with alligator clips to find the best compromise. So I bought two V-Treb circuits, which have a trim pot that lets you vary the R of the RC circuit to dial in the amount of treble bleed. After making a crude wiring jig out of cardboard and mounting the potentiometers into it, I wired them up.
The Charlottes came with chrome covers - Josh recommended them for, as I recall, balancing the strings' output. The bridge Charlotte mounted just fine, but the Studio's neck pickup pocket is a hair under-routed, and that pickup with cover would not fit into the pocket. So off came the covers (damn!), in went the pickups and, with final soldering, the thing came together. Amber knobs replaced the gold ones to complete the job.
There's a little buzz in the first fret of the D, G and B. Might be that second fret needs a little love in its middle from the fretting hammer, or maybe just leveled a shade. But the Charlottes sound great, and the action is very good. I'll hang onto this one for awhile.
Still tinkering with the V-Trebs across multiple amps. Glad I went with them.
It also, surprisingly, came with Jin Sung 500K linear taper volume and tone pots. That's how the selling HFC member got it. I'd love to know the backstory on that transplant.
So besides now having a platform for the set of Charlottes that were cooling their legs in my pickup parts box, I needed to rewire this girl. A short order to Mojotone for 500K audio taper pots, some cloth-covered wire, an orange-drop .022 µF cap, and some amber top hats, was delivered quickly. I also wanted to add treble bleed bypass circuits to the volume pots, but was disinclined to buy a bunch of resistors and caps and cobble together test circuits with alligator clips to find the best compromise. So I bought two V-Treb circuits, which have a trim pot that lets you vary the R of the RC circuit to dial in the amount of treble bleed. After making a crude wiring jig out of cardboard and mounting the potentiometers into it, I wired them up.
The Charlottes came with chrome covers - Josh recommended them for, as I recall, balancing the strings' output. The bridge Charlotte mounted just fine, but the Studio's neck pickup pocket is a hair under-routed, and that pickup with cover would not fit into the pocket. So off came the covers (damn!), in went the pickups and, with final soldering, the thing came together. Amber knobs replaced the gold ones to complete the job.
There's a little buzz in the first fret of the D, G and B. Might be that second fret needs a little love in its middle from the fretting hammer, or maybe just leveled a shade. But the Charlottes sound great, and the action is very good. I'll hang onto this one for awhile.
Still tinkering with the V-Trebs across multiple amps. Glad I went with them.
