CE-100D w/new GFS pickups

[Scotter]

Well, I've been yakking about it in some of my other posts, but here it is, FWIW.

My '65 CE-100D with GFS NYii pickups installed. So far, I really like the tone as compared to the HB-1 pickups I took out. I didn't do any carving, so there will be no problem going back to stock if some future owner would like to. I also installed new pots, as the old volume pots were shot.

As can kinda be seen, the new pups don't completely cover the area where the old pickup rings were, so I have some rubout to do, along with getting everything aligned a little better.

Scottie

 

[jp]

Looks great, Scotter. I bet she sounds fantastic. Our illustrious leader Don has the same GFS PUs in a beautiful Starfire he renovated. According to Don, the owner of GFS had some sort of relation to Guild (I think he worked at Westerly). I'm going to eventually try out a pair of the NYIIIs on my Starfire.

 

[Scotter]

Thanks, jp

I can't compare the tone to, say, P-90s as I haven't played those for a long time. It's just me, but whether for clean jazz or dirty blues or rockabilly, I've always been partial to the snarly tone of a single coil. So far the NYIIs are sounding great and very useable.

I was already familiar with the Strat and Tele lines that GFS has (I've got a set in my Strat that have worked well), but Don was the one to recommend the NYII's, rather than me doing a carving job to install the GFS Mean 90s. I had screwed up and bought the Mean 90s earlier, as I had mistakenly thought the HB-1s were humbucker sized.

Oh well, I'll just have to buy another guitar to put the Mean 90s into!

Theres one black bridge position NYIII for sale at a local Music-Go-Round, but they want $40 bucks for it. Not sure if it's used or not. Hmmm... what could I put THAT into?

Take Care,

Scottie

 

[Zachary]

I know we're supposed to focus on the pups....but that's an awesome 'burst. Just beautiful!

 

[CurtO]

Another GFS Fan here. I put a set of Premium Vintage Alnico's in my strat. They really pull off the vintage Strat tone to my ears.

 

[Walter Broes]

Nice! It looks great, and I'm sure it sounds great too, I could never make humbuckers work for the music I play either.
Do the pickups balance nicely between neck and bridge?

Just FYI : a friend of mine had Pete Biltoft make single coil (very P90-like in construction and tone) pickups for his mid 60's CE100. They were custom made from measurements my friend sent in, and are a straight retrofit for the minibuckers, they even use the stock rings.
They were cheap too, not GFS-cheap, but still not expensive for something hand/custom-made.
Here's the link : http://www.vintagevibeguitars.com/pickups.html

 

[Scotter]

CurtO: Sounds similar -- I put the Premium Alnico II's in my Strat -- they sound great!

Walter: I knew about vintage vibe, but hadn't considered a custom build. I didn't know about that option. Interesting!

I haven't emailed Jay at GFS, but I used 500K pots (as recommended) in the CE-100, and I'm finding the tone a bit too shrill at times. The tone controls have to be down to around 3-4 to warm the tone.

I wanted to stay with 500K, as that's what the CE had originally, but I was surprised that 500K was recommended, as 250K is usually spec'd for single coil circuits, like they use in Strats. I'm going to experiment with adding some resistance across the pot to bring the overall load seen by the pickup down a little. You can do that without affecting the taper very much. I measured the new 500K CTS pots before they went in, and they measured out at about 700K. Tolerance on pots is pretty loose, so that's not uncommon. I will probably aim for the 350K-400K range.

Anyone ever deal with this? I ended up doing the same on my strat -- I experimented with using a 500K volume to get more snap and twang but then had to tame it a little using a parallel resistor. I found a happy medium, getting more twang than the average strat, but still in control, not overdone.

Now the only thing is -- I don't feel like pulling the harness out of the CE again! Arrgh.

Ah well, another job...

Thanks!

 

[Scotter]

Oops -- I didn't answer your question, Walter.

I didn't get the pickups perfectly balanced. The neck is still a little louder than the bridge, as I'm not able to back off the height of the neck pup because of it's height vs the height of the fingerboard of the CE. I have raised up the bridge pup using the mousepad trick, but the neck pup is still a bit louder. No big deal, though, to me anyway.

Scottie

 

[jp]

Just FYI : a friend of mine had Pete Biltoft make single coil (very P90-like in construction and tone) pickups for his mid 60's CE100. They were custom made from measurements my friend sent in, and are a straight retrofit for the minibuckers, they even use the stock rings. They were cheap too, not GFS-cheap, but still not expensive for something hand/custom-made. Here's the link:http://www.vintagevibeguitars.com/pickups.html

Hey Walter,
That's only about 100km from me. I've never heard of that company, which of course means nothing since I don't play out so often anymore. But it's nice to know about him as an option.

Scotter,
Interesting to hear about your experiences with the CE-100 harness because I've been going back and forth about how I want to rewire my Starfire. With your 500Ks, do you also have the resistors--.047mf on the neck and .01mf--between the volume and tone pots shown in the Guild schematics (for newer Guilds from the current site)?

 

[Scotter]

Interesting to hear about your experiences with the CE-100 harness because I've been going back and forth about how I want to rewire my Starfire. With your 500Ks, do you also have the resistors--.047mf on the neck and .01mf--between the volume and tone pots shown in the Guild schematics (for newer Guilds from the current site)?

jp,

You must mean to say capacitors? I haven't seen the Guild schematics. OK -- I just went to the Guild site wiring diagrams and looked at a Starfire III diagram. Is that it?

The original caps on mine were ceramics, .047uF and .005uF, and I can't remember which was used on what pickup, but I would assume that the .005 was used on the neck, since it usually doesn't need as much treble rolloff.

I went with 0.047uF on both for the new setup, and I reused the old harness -- my wiring is the same as what Seymour recommends when using his Phat Cats or P90 pickups:
http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wi ... l_2t_3way2

BTW -- I reused the old harness, and wired mine like Guild did it in '65, with the cap connected between the tone wiper and the pot body, and a wire connected from the high side of the tone pot back to the volume pot. It's electrically the same, but easier to wire that way. The cap stays with the pot. See Seymour's diagram.

You can also experiment with switching the top and the wiper leads on the volume pots, like they do on some Gretsches. That way the output won't go to nothing if you're in the middle position and you turn one of the volumes down. Oops -- I just noticed that that's how the Starfire does it. The Guild X-175T shows it the other way, like a Gibson (and like my Guild was/is). My CE is wired as original, ie like a Gibson. I may change it over the other way, the "Gretsch/Starfire" way.

If you wonder why I'm kinda anal about schematics, I'm an electrical engineer, so I tend to notice trivial wiring details.

Scottie

 

[jp]

Oops! Yes I did mean to say caps. Got resistors on the brain--doing some reading on amps. Wish I was an electrical engineer.

I'm starting my harness from scratch. Get this--the Einstein who messed with my Starfire removed a tone pot and moved the input jack there, and also removed a volume pot and replaced it with another input jack. :?: :?: :?: The PU covers were gutted and literally stuffed with different PUs. Didn't even match up the holes for the magnets. I just ripped everything out. Still pondering what and how I'm gonna do it--considering everything from a varitone to a master volume. Don't want to drill in the top, though.

 

[coastie99]

Nice job Scotter, and that 'burst looks terrific.

I started "projecting" a Danelectro U2 about 12 months ago with NY pickups. Hopefully, sometime soon, I'll get it finished !!

Your comment regarding 500 pots is interesting. Looks like it'll be 250's in the Dano !

 

[dklsplace]

Your comment regarding 500 pots is interesting. Looks like it'll be 250's in the Dano !

If you remember, I experimented some with the NYII's on my '64 SF. On the all mahogany body, I opted to stick with 500k pots because they responded better to the "darker" mahogany tone.

 

[jp]

Wow, coastie! That really is awesome. :wink:

 

[coastie99]

Wow, coastie! That really is awesome. :wink:

Here's the best bit........

And my first Danelectro project.............

 

[CurtO]

Scotter, I see you own a 77 Model Hohner HG. I own a 76 model HG320 Dreadnought. I'd be curious to see what the difference is. Any chance you could post a pic?

 

[Scotter]

Coastie,

Great Dani's!

Just got an email from Jay at GFS, and he does recommend 250K volume pots for the NYIIs.

I am going to stay with the 500Ks so i can go back to stock if I ever want to. I have it apart right now, and I'm going to put 1M resistors across the vol pots, which will bring the resistance that the pickup sees down to about 325K. This will give me a little bit more twang than usual, but that I can tame with the tone controls.

Right now I have to turn the tones way down to 2-3 to tame the shrillness.

Good luck with the Heinelectros!

Scottie

 

[Scotter]

I own a 76 model HG320 Dreadnought. I'd be curious to see what the difference is.

Curt,

My HG-905 is basically a D-18 copy (mahogany back and sides) but with rosewood board and wood bindings. It was the first decent (all solid wood) acoustic I could afford. This is the best I could find that could compete with the nice Guild dreadnought that my guitar teacher had.

I've never been able to find a Hohner serial number list, so I'm actually not sure what the year is. It has stood that test if time pretty well, and still sounds good!

Take Care,

Scottie

 

[CurtO]

Scottie, my Hohner has been so awesome over the years. It's really held up well.
Her'es a pic of a 32 year old guitar.

 

[Scotter]

Curt,

Looks great!

I don't know if we should keep going on about flat-top Hohners on a Guild forum, much less the archtop thread, so I'll pm you.

Scottie