possible mods/hot rodding my go-to axe

[Joshua Levin-Epstein]

I'm with Greg and Mark. Get a Les Paul knock-off (same controls and pick up types), a soldering iron and go to town. It will be a lot easier than rewiring your (hollow body)guitar. The point that Greg makes about the configuration being intuitive is central. For Gibson style set ups, i like the switching to be symetrical (again, like Greg suggests). For Telecasters, I like the switch to go from loudest to softest (whatever soft is on a Telecaster).

But, to get back to Mark's original premise, it is almost impossible to make one archetypal guitar sound like another (LP sound like Tele, etc). That's why we keep buying guitars (instead of practicing).

Joshua

[Chuck Raudonis]

Another simple thing to consider, get a cheap guitar (a cheap electric guitar these days is actually pretty good, and can be made quite playable) and use it to experiment on. Try everything you want on that and when you find the sounds you like, build them into your good axe.

That is the best recommendation I've heard all week....

Besides, doing it that way you'll always have something to play around with in the future.....hmmmm....how would 6 pickups sound?

[Samuel Hartpence]

6 pickups! Wouldn't the additional magnets start to dampen the sting vibration?

Perhaps I need to build a FrankenStrat...

[Warren May]

A sacrificial "test" guitar sounds like a pretty good idea. I recall someone years ago routing out the pickup area and putting some sort of rail fixture on it so they could play around with different pickup configurations and placements. I think he/she was experimenting on the effect of putting pickups under a node but folks were very interested in the little experiment.

[Mark Swanson]

I was at a workshop once with TV Jones, who made a guitar that had interchangable pickups. Any of his pickups would just slip right in there, so you could try all of the differences. It worked a treat.
A test guitar can really teach you a lot, it's an idea that I still use.

[Art Davila]

Have you ever checked the wiring circuit of a BC Rich.
It has most if not all of what you looking for.
Try going in to a store that sells them and check out the circuits and see if that's the kind of versatility you seeking. If it is then revise the circuits to get rid of the mini toggles and use the rotary switches.

[Eric Baack]

You could possibly add a piezo bridge and use the holes for a volume and selector switch for that. Then use some push/pull pots for parallel/series switching on the magnetics. That could get a bit complicated though.

[David King]

Fill the darned holes already. I do this all the time. It's not hard and it's a lot faster than anything you could wire up. Use a bandsaw to cut a flat-sawn dowel of matching wood. File it round with a slight conical shape. Fit it and rotate it in the hole and file off all the shiny spots until it fits nicely. Glue it in with yellow glue and slice it off with a razor saw. I put a thin coat of shellac over it and color it with Mohawk wood pens or mix up a custom spot of stain on a cotton ball starting with a large dollop of alcohol. Drop fill with thick CA or brushing lacquer. This takes all of 10 minutes if you have a lathe with a 3 jaw chuck or a drill press.

[Dave Locher]

Not to revive a dead thread, but why even bother filling the holes at all? Switch over to one volume, one tone and just leave the other two pots in there with no wires running to them. The guitar looks stock, you get your simplified controls, and everybody is happy?

For what it's worth, I am on the side of everyone who is saying "less is more." I've owned two guitars with coil taps on humbuckers and they were great to play with in the basement but I never ever used them on stage because it would have required changing the amp settings to compensate for the drop in volume and the change in tone. And I owned one with a great out-of-phase in the middle position guitar and also never, ever used that sound on stage for the same reasons. So adding more sound options to your guitar will likely increase your frustration because you will have even more great tones on tap in your bedroom that cannot be easily used on stage.