naturally i spent a large chunk of yesterday researching stuff for the Kondor. some highlights:
--the DeLisle amp people, who i know and trust from years of interactions on the Gretsch Pages (R.I.P.), sell a vintage-correct Gibson varitone for only $60, which is well worth not having to figure out my own tone switch values. listened to a couple of Gibson varitone demos and i think it'll be really beautiful with the Kondor pickups. and i don't think i could source all the parts and assemble them for little enough to make DIYing worthwhile. so i'll put one in sooner rather than later.
--turns out i wired the pickup rotary switch backwards, which explains why the guitar seemed to sound so unusual. it was supposed to go neck->middle->bridge->m+b->n+b->all, so i thought the ALL setting was the neck pickup. i'll tell you, it sounds fucking hi-fi with all 3 pickups on, just a gorgeous balanced clean tone. so i need to get used to turning the switch the wrong way because i decided i'm not going to bother with replacing the rotary just so i can get neck+bridge which is the most boring subdivision of a 3-pickup array and a OFF position which the volume knob does fine at. the present-day guitar hacker refuses to overwork!
--then i need to find different knobs. i want to keep to the off-white/cream palette of the pickup shells, Guyatone pickup insert, and the world's greatest/dorkiest tremolo knob (i ordered that one specially off eBay because i wanted the Nerd/Absurd Factor), and want matching pointer knobs for the pickup rotary and varitone. i'd like to keep the standard volume and tone controls in the circuit after the varitone so i can roll off treble even when the varitone is being Squeaky Fromme, but the pickguard is awfully crowded control-wise.
theoretically there's enough room for the varitone between the rotary and the tone knob at bottom according to various stats and measurements of the guard, but it remains to be seen what would work. i won't know till i actually get everything in and pull the guard off the guitar.
--i'm currently involved in choosing different knobs. pointer knobs 1"-1.2" in diameter including pointer length are not common, cool-looking ones are even harder to find, and colors other than black are less available than i'd like. i think i've settled on these futuristic-looking pointer knobs from Amplified Parts. they look both space-age and cheap, which is exactly the aesthetic i'm going for. i think i'll keep the ivoroid Tele knobs for the volume and tone, though...they look nice and the extra height makes them easier to reach. i need to drill small holes in them for marker dots, though...i'm pretty fanatical about being able to read knob settings.
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waiting for the confluence of my next paycheck and my $1200 in tax refundage, at which point i'll get the varitone, the guard for the Duo Sonic, and the Höpf parts. that will sort the outstanding guitar project backlog excepting the Double Jet which i'm putting off until i feel ready to deal with all that wiring. i have to put a spending freeze into effect for now because Becky's birthday is Tuesday and Valentine's Day is coming, so we're going away next weekend and i absolutely cannot have my ATM freeze up. do you understand how hard it is not to order a metric fuckton of new stuff with the $6000 of room i have on my credit cards having paid everything off during long COVID when i didn't spend anything for a year and a half? but i don't want to go back to endless monthly payments, and need a new used car this year which i intend to pay for with cash.
turns out the Gemini pickups Telecaster could be way cheaper than i think. the PUs are only $89 each, a bound Sonic Blue body from GFS is $99, and i can probably find a useable Tele neck for less than $150. add some hardware and you have the Tele of Doom for no more than a Squier CV Telecaster. that might push up ahead of the Double Jet because it seems comparatively quite simple. a little bit of soldering, a couple of dozen wood screws, and Bob's your uncle. (yes, i have built a Tele in the past.) the bodies don't even require a Tele jack cup, you can use a plate.
i think all this might be bad for my hypomania, though.
back pages update:
i was having a clearout of my office nook early last year, decided the Musima bodies and necks were too far gone to deal with, and threw them out. i really should have kept the neck that i niced up because it could have been useful, but i was just tired of and frustrated with the stuff and wanted it gone. everything was beat up and needed sanding and refinishing, and i don't want to do that kind of work. it's an awful lot of effort and not really suited to apartment life. i still have a bag of pickups, bridges, rather primitive tuners, and other Ossie bits including a knockoff Hagstrom tremolo which may get recycled in some future project. i don't know what else to do with them because their resale value is essentially zilch even though the single-coils sound pretty good. i might get a
playable Musima De Luxe 25V at some point; someone in Baltimore is currently selling one for $250. there seem to be a surprising number of them around. and they're cool, weird offsets with the kind of unusual single-coil sound that's literally music to my ears.
Guild LB-1 mini-humbuckers
should fit the P-90 routs in the Guild Aristocrat, but i suspect there may be some cavity mods needed because the Franz pickups aren't as deep as the p-90s. once things get to that point in the projects this should also be pretty simple. i just have to wait for the black and gold-top versions they started selling recently to get into the used market because i would prefer not to have two vaguely identical Aristocrats.
it seems like bodies that will fit the extended heel on the Höfner neck are hard to come by. i think the most likely solution will be a bathtub-route Jazzmaster body with the back on the neck pocket bunged out. that's going way down the list until i find a 3d Höfner staple pickup. there's always the chance a suitable Höfner body will come up, but the Galaxie body would need a custom pickguard to cover up the switch array i wouldn't try to duplicate because i'd use a 7- or 8-way rotary. i'm really into the rotary switch concept for 3-pickup guitars.
the Starcaster and 70's Strat are on the back burner. there are technical issues i have to solve with the Starcaster design and its suitability for a tremolo, and i'm not entirely sold on needing CuNiFe WRHBs. as far as the Strat goes, i'm not playing stuff lately that wants me to sound like Curtis Mayfield. it's quite likely that i'd go with a custom wiring setup with a rotary pickup selector and a varitone-type device in place of the middle knob. i'm leaning towards a particular kind of pickup frequency profile that i can't quantify but can probably be inferred from my favorite pickups. for now the Kondor, the relocated bridge PU on the Duo Sonic, and the Höpf will give me plenty of new variations on single-coil sound to keep me busy for awhile. adding the varitone to the Kondor will give me a total of 36 potential combinations on that guitar alone. if it wasn't for Becky and work i might never leave the apartment again. if all goes well much of this will be done by the time the two pedals i'm waiting on to complete the pedalboard/looping setup. spring is going to be fun this year.