5 Position Rotary Switch Plate

[Chuck Raudonis]

I am changing the buckers in my solid body and I have a set of Seymour Duncans on order that have the four wire configuration. I plan on replacing the three way toggle switch that is currently in the guitar with a 5 position rotary so I can deploy the configuration:

Neck Bucker
Neck N/Bridge S Single Coil
Both Buckers
Neck S/Bridge N Single Coil
Bridge Bucker

I can find the 5 position rotary switch everywhere but I'll be darned if I can find the five position face plate numbered 1-5 to go with it!! I found a couple of sources for a 6 position for a Gibson 345 but no 5 position plates to match that switch.

Anyone have a source that they know?

Thanks!

[Mark Swanson]

I wouldn't even use one. It looks much cleaner with out....of course that is my opinion, but the player never looks at it- you just know what it does. Another alternative is to inlay 5 dots in the right places so that an indicator line on the knob would point at them when turned....you can use abalone dots, or fingerboard side dots for that. Looks real nice too I think.

[Alan Peterson]

Get the Gibson plate anyway and make an adhesive overlay for it using anything from thin sheet plastic to coated paper stock.

Determine the angle between switch positions and draw out a template using any graphics program (the open-source Inkscape works for me). Scale it, print it, stick it, bolt it down and wail. Go nuts with different fonts, colors, Roman numerals, Smilies ( = 1, = 5), whatever. Be creative! It's your axe, it's your music, have fun!

[Leon Van Bommel]

this guy sells something like that.

http://www.bigdguitars.com/varitone.html

[Chuck Raudonis]

Thanks guys!

I decided to go a completely different route with this.

I found this and put one on order:

http://www.guitarelectronics.com/produc ... lters.html

It looks interesting. Not only does it let me do the configuration I wanted, but in conjunction with the three way switch already in the guitar I can even do single coil individual bridge or neck. I just have to drill another hole. Actually two holes because I'm going to add a micro switch to activate the filter mode of this thing too.

I'll let you know how it works out.

[Chuck Raudonis]

Just an update on this. I installed two new pickups into the guitar. I installed a Duncan Jazz at the neck and a Duncan DimeBucker at the bridge. Now if that doesn't give the guitar a case of schizophrenia, nothing will. I also installed the Humbucker Control Pot into the guitar and added the optional DPDT switch to change the mode of the Control Pot.

This thing is incredible. With the switch on, the control pot allows a constant blend of the second coils of the humbuckers. With the pot on 10 you have full rowdy humbuckers (and with that DimeBucker it DOES get rowdy) As you pull the pot back towards 1, the control just rolls off the second coils of the buckers. When it is all the way down it is in full single coil mode. The control also has a push-pull feature to select WHICH of the two coils you want to use. Just in case you get bored I guess.

The neat thing is when you throw the little switch off, the control works in pretty much the same way, but rather than turning them off it just rolls a pretty stiff low pass filter into the second coils of the buckers. With that setup you keep the nice solid bottom end of a bucker as the second coil is still churning out itw lows, but the mid-upper is pure single coil. Really cool sound.

I'd say that little toy is a win for $30!