Blake Wilson
From:
Boulder CO, USA
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Posted 20 Sep 2008 9:59 am |
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Finish my version of PMA, but in my case its a Harmonia, so it's really PMH. I replaced the lousy wooden nut with a 1/2" aluminum angle bracket, replaced the pup with a SD JB Jr with a 3 way switch (right next to the tone knob; yes, it makes the Speedy West bwaa move pretty tough), moved the jack between the volume and sound knobs, and installed legs. I painted the legs with Rustoleum metallic black, which really matched the lacquer on the guitar well. It plays really well, and I've found that I vastly prefer using the legs rather than my own legs for support. Now I need a little wrist pad and something cool to cover the old jack hole.
I know the JB Jr pup is kind of an interesting choice, but I wanted a humbucker that I could split or run parallel or in series, and it had to be in a single coil case. I did not want to route the pickguard, although I ended up having to do a bit of work on the pickguard because the JB was a tad too big. The wiring to the 3 way on-on-on switch is pretty tight, but worked flawlessly on the first try. The humbucker position ("in series") gives me a loud tone that I can dig into for a little dirt and distortion, and although the split setting gives me a bit of single coil hum (which I plan to deal with by lining the body cavity with the copper foil I just bought), the parallel setting still gives a single coil sound with the added benefit of hum cancelling.
The guitar was about $80 at a shop in Riverside, CA. Pickup was about $60, legs/paint/etc were about $30. This was a fun project for my first lap mod, with nothing to lose if I ended up sawing the thing in half.
Here are some pics. Impossibly beautiful day here in Jamestown CO (northwest of Boulder in the Rockies).
Regards,
Blake Wilson |
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