Cheers guys. I shall have another look.

Wow, nice.

I'm a little late to this topic because I've been on travel for a while, but 3 yrs ago I built a Sonic Blue doubleneck Strat. Like yours, I went with two 6 string necks, one with a trem, the other hardtail. Both of my necks are SSS.

I didn't want to put in too many extra switches or knobs. Mine just has the "regular set up" of the selector switch and three knobs.

I decided to go with a stereo output and to use an outboard ABY box to do my neck switching. I need to use a stereo-to-2mono plugs cord, of course.

The regular pickup selector swtichs (3- or 5-way) are double throw, so it can control both necks (but keep them independent electronically).

I have volume and master tone controls on one neck and just a volume on the other.

Where did you get your parts? I went with a Warmoth body and then used necks off of Fender Mexican Strats.

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

^ That's quite a nifty idea with the ABY box set-up!

I got the parts from all over the place to be honest.

The main ports of call were eBay for the necks, guitarpartsresource.com for a lot of the hardware and, like you, I opted for Warmoth for the body. They are obviously the main body blank dealer and the prices are competitive compared to UK luthiers even after taking into account for shipping and customs charges.

If you want me to diagram my wiring set up, just let me know.

I have thought about getting a dual gang pot so that both necks would have a master tone (one that works on all three pickups).

_________________
Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

Thanks orvilleowner. I've managed to put together the diagram below but, being seriously unsavvy (is that a word?!?) in guitar electronics, I have really just mashed together wiring from a Deluxe Fat Strat in a way that makes sense in my head... but maybe not in real life!



I still can't see where the 2-way fits in and am slightly dubious as to whether I've hooked up the TBX pots correctly - I only want them as regular tone controls so do I even need anything connected to the lower pot?

Any help would be greatly appreciated - I know, I'm useless at this stuff!

I can't make much sense about your diagram because I'm not familiar with the Deluxe Fat Strat's wiring. I don't know what that super switch is all about.

I can't see how one neck is off while the other is on (which is what the 2-way switch could do). It wouldn't have to work that way, of course, if that super switch could selectively turn on the 6 pickups. Consider this, though: how many positions does that switch have? It would have to have at least 6 to be able to have each pickup on individually. If you can't do that, then pickups on each neck will be on at the same time (not a good thing to have all of the time IMO).

Try to find the wiring diagram of gibson's doubleneck ... what else is on the web?

_________________
Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

Disconnect your pickup grounds from the circuit. Wire the top pickup grounds to one side of your 2-way and the bottom pickup grounds to the other side. Run a wire from the center pole of the 2-way switch to the volume pot case. You'll be using just one side of the switch.

X1____X2____X3


X4____X5____X6

X1: top pickup grounds
X2: wire to volume pot case
X3: bottom pickup grounds
X4,5,6: not used

Thanks rjake - I thought that might have been what you were suggesting in your reply on the previous page but wasn't sure. That pictorial explanation above helps a lot - thanks.

Is the rest of the wiring I have planned out OK? The TBX tone controls that I was unsure about in particular?

Also, does the mesh for the hums get connected to the 2-way switch as well as the green wire or does that go elsewhere?

It looks okay. Like orvilleowner, I have not been exposed to that superswitch much. I would put a single used D string on the guitar and test before you string up. You can also tap on the pickups lightly to see if you are getting what you want.

P.S. I think the mesh needs to stay with the pickup grounds.

Cool. Thanks very much and I'll let you know if it all works OK.

Fingers crossed!

Right, just back from my holiday and finished wiring up the electronics. A little bit of extending of some wires was needed but all went smoothly and it DOES work - thank you very much for all your help guys...

...but, I have some shorting issues with the jack socket. I have narrowed it down to the jack contacts as when the socket is removed from the body and plugged in, I can lay my other strat across the pickups and get all of the doubleneck pickups to ring correctly when I strum.

The question is, how do I stop the shorting when the jack socket is inserted. I have lined the jack rout with copper foil but believe this is required for minimal hum?

Any suggestions?

If you are using shielded cable to the jack, you don't need to shield the cavity. Make sure your jack center conductor contact is down toward the cavity. Also, make sure several threads are showing on your jack on the outside of the jackplate after you screw on the nut. It gives you more room in the cavity.

Man, this is starting to do my head in now!

I've fixed the shorting issues rjake by stripping out the copper tape as you suggested and the problem's gone - many thanks for the help. It must have just been a very tight fit for the jack socket which caused it to touch the foil.

However, I have now discovered a new problem that I didn't realise was there when testing the pickups with the strings on the second guitar.

None of the switches or controls (barring the 5-way superswitch) work as they should. The volume and tone pots don't do anything and (bizarrely) the two-way selector switch, despite being wired up with the respective pickup grounds going to separate poles, doesn't function properly as all pickups are on all of the time...

Are there any obvious reasons as to why this would happen?

I changed the wiring from that shown above slightly as I decided I wanted the following configuration on the 5-way:

bridge / bridge-middle (hum-cancelling) / bridge-neck (hum-cancelling) / middle-neck / neck

I'll try to photograph the wiring shortly to illustrate how I've got it hooked up to see if any of you guys can spot what's wrong.

Right, well the volume pot now works as I realised I'd missed the soldering of a grounding wire from it's right-hand pole to the casing. The neck selector problem remains though - all p/ups on at once...

Here are the photos I took. Apologies if they don't show it all too clearly and I know my soldering isn't the greatest. Any queries or extra info you need, please just shout and I'll try my best to fill in any blanks that the pics don't show.

Make sure the shields are not touching ground on the way to the 2-way switch. You may want to heat shrink them. Also, try to make your solder connections better. Get some solder flux and use sparingly.

Looking a lttle closer, you may have a path to ground from your pickup height screws. Eliminate the path to ground on the shield. Measure resistance from the isolated or non selected pickup bank on the 2-way switch to ground. If you have continuity, you haven't got it isolated yet.