Guitars

Building a Telecaster Dream Machine – Part 3 – The wiring

This blog post is about the next step in my Tele Dream Machine project – the wiring of all controls. The main difference to a standard Fender Telecaster wiring is due to the tapped Walk of Life pickups (or Schecter F521T / F520T in the original)

Unfortunately the original Omni Pots, those square conductive-plastic potis with the push-pull switch that Schecter used in the Van Nuys era, are no longer available. These were made by Allen Bradley – who are out of business for a long time – or by Bourns who also dropped these from their product range. The only alternative are standard push-pull potis. You can get these here in my online shop, also from Bourns by the way.

Generally, the original Schecter wiring is like the standard Tele wiring – with exception of some different component values and the Omni Pots that were required to switch the tapped pickups between their normal and the fatter sound. The potis had a 500k value, something that seems a bit unusual for a Tele (Fender first had 250k and later 1 M). 500k seems to be a good compromise for both the normal and the full coil of the tapped pickups.

The tone cap was a 0.02  uF ( sometimes also 0.025 uF or 0.01uF) ceramic disk cap. This value is much smaller than the Fender standard (0.05 uF).  Schecter used a 680 pF treble bleed cap with a 150k resistor in parallel on the volume poti (Fender standard: 0.001 uF = 1000 pF and no resistor).  The resistor changes the taper of the poti.

One problem is that normally all ground wires of a Fender Telecaster are soldered on the back of the potis. This was not possible with the Omni Pots as these had a plastic case, and is neither ideal with a standard push-pull poti. Schecters solution was to use a small brass soldering plate that was hold by the two potis. All ground wires were soldered to one point on this plate then. As an alternative to cutting such a plate from a metal foil, you can use two washers with ground lugs, and connect all ground wires to these instead (see photo below).

8 different pickup combinations on a Tele

Operation is like on any Tele, with exception of the push-pull potis. Pulling out the VOL poti enables a beefier sound on the neck pickup, while pulling out the TONE poti does the same trick for the bridge pickup. This way you can get 8 different sounds of the two pickups instead of 3 sounds on Fenders (n, b, n+b, N, B, N+B, N+b, n+B, with small letters for the normal and capitals for the fatter sound).

Here is a schematic:

(3-way connected in Schecter style)
3-way connected in Schecter style (click to enlarge)

Alternatively, the 3-way switch can be connected like this (Fender style), the result isthe same:

(3-way Fender style)
3-way connected in Fender style (click to enlarge)

The wiring on the two push-pull potis is shown in a separate drawing here:

push-pull diagram
Wiring the two push-pull potis. The one on the VOL poti switches the neck PU, the one on the TONE poti the bridge PU. (click to enlarge)

The following picture shows how you can use two washers with soldering lugs (included with my push-pull potis) instead of the brass ground plate that Schecter used.

Soldering all ground wires to washers with soldering lugs
Soldering all ground wires (black) to washers with soldering lugs (Note: Different from this photo, I now have the red and purple wires on top of the push/pull, and white and yellow at the bottom, which means the full coil is in the down position of the knob and the tapped coil when being pulled, see diagram above)

 

 

Dire Straits/ Mark Knopfler live pictures and videos

Gator Blood live on the white 1964 Strat

Mark’s Privateering tour has started, and they played the first 8 concerts around south-east Europe and Italy. One song that has been played on some of these  – compared to previous tours they vary the setlist a lot – is Gator Blood. I saw the picture of Mark with the white Strat – it seems to be the 1964 of Sailing to Philadelphia – some days ago and was wondering on which song it was played. The capo at the 3rd fret and the bottle neck are a hint of course, but I did not associate it with Gator Blood. In fact the sound of the album version is different from a typical Strat sound, maybe he played his Danelectro on the album, his main axe for bottle neck these days.

Here are some youtube videos showing Gator Blood. The tuning is open G (D – G – D – G – B -D), capoed at the 3rd fret (key of Bb). Mark played a similar picking 34 years ago on a song called Do right unto others on Bob Dylan’s Slow Train Coming album by the way. Enjoy!

Guitar in general, Vintage guitars

Abigail Ybarra winding pickups

I recently watched this video on youtube and felt to share it with all readers of my blog. It shows Abigail Ybarra winding a pickup in the Fender custom shop. In case you haven’t heard of her, she started to wind pickups at the Fender factory in 1956, and again does so at the Fender custom shop today. She is the mother of pickup winding so-to-say.

 

The youtube video shows you what is meant with hand-winding a pickup, or scatter winding. Of course noone wounds a pickup by hand in the sense of laying single turns of thin wire around the coil, and neither by turning the coil by hand. For this always machine have been used, but the wire is led by hand. This way the person who operates the machine controls where exactly the next layer of wire goes, and also the tension of the wire.

Scatter winding means all the time the wire is  led from one side of the bobbin to the other, and back again. Such details are of importance for the sound of a pickup because they affect physical values, e.g. the capacity of the pickup. It is a mistake to think only the number of turns and the material of the magnets matter, it is much more. Even the insulation of the pickup wire – normally something like enamel or a material called Formvar – is of  importance, and both the thickness of the insulation and the material cause clearly audible differences. Of course it is still all physics and not vodoo, but a pickups is really a highly complex issue.

Guitars

Building a Telecaster Dream Machine – Part 2

After the Walk of Life pickups – a  reproduction of the Schecter F520T / F521T sound – are availabable now, I can continue with the next steps of my Dream Machine Tele project (see part 1 here). I meanwhile found a vintage Schecter brass Tele bridge some weeks ago, so – with my own highly-ploshed brass Tele pickguards  – I have nearly all essential parts for one guitar together now.

This is the body which I found on ebay some weeks ago. It is one-piece mahogany, not sure which (Honduras, Khaya,...) but it seems nice anyway. Here I put in the two pickups for a picture.
This is the body which I found on ebay some weeks ago. It is one-piece mahogany, not sure which (Honduras, Khaya,…) but it seems nice anyway. Here I put in the two pickups for a picture.

 

Here I installed the brass pickguard. I used the Schecter-style version with only 5 screws, and the pickup is attached to the pickguard (instead of directly to the body just like in a Fender)
Here I installed the brass pickguard. I used the Schecter-style version with only 5 screws, and the pickup is attached to the pickguard (instead of directly to the body just like in a Fender)
The face plate is black on this old Schecter neck. The plastic nut and the silver butterfly stringholder do not seem to be original and must be replaced with brass parts (which I don't have yet). One problem are the tuner holes which are too big for Kluson-style tuners (they are correct for Schaller tuners)
The face plate is black on this old Schecter neck. The plastic nut and the silver butterfly stringholder do not seem to be original and must be replaced with brass parts (which I don’t have yet). One problem are the tuner holes which are too big for Kluson-style tuners (they are correct for Schaller tuners)

Original would be Kluson Deluxe tuners but I will install a set of Japanese gold-plated Kluson-style tuners. These work fine, and originals are hard to get and more expensive. Schaller tuners are no option for me as I love the Kluson way to put the end of a string into the tuner and bend it into the tuner slot.

Here is my solution: I wrapped the tuner ferrules with self-adhesive copper foil until they fit nicely into the oversozed holes. 3 to 4 inches were enough.
Here is my solution: I wrapped the tuner ferrules with self-adhesive copper foil until they fit nicely into the oversized holes. 3 to 4 inches were enough.

 

Nice, problem solved.
Nice, problem solved.
Tuners installed
Tuners installed

 

To be continued soon…

Vintage guitars

No Vintage Guitars with Brazilian Rosewood at the Frankfurt Music Fair

I reported about the increasing problems concerning guitars with Brazilian rosewood (used e.g. for fingerboards on vintage Fender or Gibson guitars) last year (see here). As a consequence of this, Germany’s biggest vintage guitar  show last November was cancelled, as the CITES restriction does not allow to display a guitar with parts of Brazilian rosewood in public without a special licence.

With this short blog post I just want you to inform that in fact at this year’s Frankfurt Music Fair (the biggest trade fair for musical instruments worldwide) no vintage guitars were displayed at all for this reason. Last year there was a special display area with lots of vintage Fenders and Gibsons (see this blog post), like Strats from the 50ies and 60ies, even 50ies “bursts” (Les Pauls from 1958-1960) . The only exception was one booth by No. 1 Guitar Center from Hamburg, Germany, who had some old Fenders – but all with the required papers directly next to each guitar.

Last year you could see lots of vintage guitars- not this year
Last year you could see lots of vintage guitars at the Frankfurt Music Fair – not this year

This shows that the  EU law is really repected meanwhile. It is almost impossible to sell or even display a vintage guitar with the protected Brazilian rosewood – unless you have the proper papers for it. And as this is an EU-wide law (to be correct, even a world-wide law), it will soon be similar in all other European countries soon (German authorities are often said to be more correct than others so no wonder they made the start).

I also phoned the authorities office for my town to inquire how to get such CITES papers. I will keep you updated after getting these, hopefully soon.

 

Guitar in general, Guitars, Mark Knopfler gear

Walk of Life Pickups available now – Reviving the legendary Schecter F520T / F521T Tele Pickups

Mark started to play Schecter Dream Machine Telecasters as early as 1980. When he got four Dream Machine Strats (two red, one sunburst – which was soon stolen and replaced with another one, and one in blue) at Rudy’s Music Stop in New York that year, he also got a black Schecter Telecaster, black finish, black pickguard, black hardware, contrasted to a white binding and a birds-eye maple neck. This was the guitar he recorded Solid Rock of the Making Movies album with. On stage on the following On Location tour (1980/81), he used it not only for Solid Rock but also for Telegraph Road (the album version was recorded in 1982 with the sunburst Schecter Strat).

About 1984 he got a second Dream Machine Tele, the red one of Walk of Life (which he still has and uses regularly on stage).

The red Schecter Tele in 1984 - used extensively on the Cal album or on Walk of Life a year later
The red Schecter Tele in 1984 – used extensively on the Cal album or on Walk of Life a year later

Both of these Schecter Dream Machine Teles were equipped with the tapped Schecter pickups F520T (bridge) and F521T (neck). These were similar to the F500T pickups for Stratocaster. After reviving these for the loaded Schecter-style Strat pickguards (available on this site), it was logical for me to have a look at the Tele pickups as well. In fact I was able to investigate several original Schecter pickups from different years. Terence Reis of The Straits for example has these in a guitar which is said to be from the same run as Mark’s Tele (thank you for your help again, Terence). I found some minor differences between different years, and I took the ones from the 80ies as the basis of these reproductions.

Walk of Life pickups
Walk of Life pickups

The pickups are again manufactured by Harry Haeussel (of Haeussel Pickups) exclusively for mk-guitar.com. Harry already makes the F500T clones for us, and the high quality of his pickups in general is beyond question.

Unlike the Dream Machine Strats, Schecter Teles did not have mini switches for switching the pickups from tapped to full to off. They had the standard pickup selector switch, and each of the two potis was a push-pull poti that switches the pickup to the full coil when being pulled. For this reason you don’t need a special control plate, you can put these pickups in any Telecaster.

bridge-1-small

neck-1-small

Like the F500T, the F520T / F521T have the bigger 6.5mm (1/4″) alnico pole pieces (they must not be confused with the Schecter Monstertone pickups which have a ceramic bar magnet). These fat magnets create a unique sound with more bass and a more mellow, less harsh tone than the smaller standard pole pieces. And they have the same copper-shielding foil around the coil that is a big part of that magic look.

With these pickups Mark recorded the famous Walk of Life rhythm picking on the Brothers in Arms album (pickup position bridge & neck).  When you pull one (or both) of the potis you get a much fuller, fatter sound, ideal for rock stuff – Solid Rock.

Available for the neck position, for the bridge position, or as a set (bridge & neck) – exclusively on mk-guitar.com.

Guitars, Vintage guitars

Mark Knopfler’s Martin Acoustic Guitars – Signature, Vintage, different models

Mark Knopfler played a lot of different acoustic guitars in his career: different borrowed ones on the first Dire Straits albums (e.g. a David Russel Young on Love over Gold, or a Greco on Bob Dylan’s Infidels), different Ovations (e.g. Custom Legend, Adamas), Gibsons (e.g.  J45, or a Southern Jumbo), Guild, and many more. These days he uses mainly Martins on stage, and also a lot in the studio.

If you watched the promo video shootage that came with some editions of Mark’s latest Privateering double CD, you will have noticed a vintage Martin D18 acoustic guitar on which he played the song Privateering in the control room of his British Grove studio. I cannot tell when he acquired this valuable guitar but I guess it is a rather late addition to his guitar collection. Unfortunately I don’t have any details other than what we can see in this video, but with this article I am trying to put together some general info not only on on this model, or his signature Martins, but also on vintage Martin acoustic guitars in general.

Mark-D18
Mark with his vintage D18
Martin HD-40MK - Mark's signature dreadnought model
Martin HD-40MK – Mark’s signature dreadnought model

 

Body size

The D in a model name like D18 or D28 stands for ‘dreadnought’, and this refers to body size, or the ‘style’ of the guitar. In fact the prefix – like the D in D18, or the 000 in something like 000-18 – is a code for the body size. There are quite a few different sizes available, and even more in the past, but the most important ones might be – from small too large – 0, 00, 000, D, and J, with J for Jumbo being one of the largest. You will find different notations for the small ones,  written as O (‘oh’) or 0 (‘zero’). What you say is ‘Oh’ – like ‘triple-Oh’ for 000 – but as Martin themselves use the number and not the letter on their website, I guess this is the ‘official’ version.

In the past the guitars were 12-fret models, but in the late 20ies of the last century Martin introduced the 14-fret style. This means the neck/body joint is at the 12th or at the 14th fret, with the latter ones having a shorter body for this reason. There is a nice overview on the different body sizes here on the Martin website.

The letter H before the body size stands for ‘herringbone’ binding, a special binding made of different woods in the past that was later replaced with a plastic binding but was reissued for several models.

The one seen on Privateering – also used for e.g. Dream of the Drowned Submariner – is a D18. Another dreadnought – with the herringbone binding – is his HD-40MK signature model. The other signature model – the ‘Ragpicker’ is a 000-40MK. The smaller bodies produce a slimmer bass and are ideal for fingerpicking. The one Mark played a lot in the late 80ies/early 90ies that was build by his friend Steve Phillips , was also a copy of  12th-fret 000.

Mark with his vintage D18
The 000-40S – The “Ragpicker” signature model

 

Woods

The suffix number has to do with the woods used, and with various construction details. Generally the higher the number, the more expensive the guitar. Here are some examples:

15:  Top, back, and sides are mode of mahogany. The fingerboard and bridge are rosewood. No binding.

18: Mahogany back and sides but the top is spruce. Dark binding.   The fretboard and bridge on early models was ebony, from the ’50s on  rosewood.

28:   The back and sides are rosewood with a spruce top, bound ebony fretboard and bridge . Early guitars, before 1947, came with the herringbone wood  border around the top, which was later changed to alternating layers of  black and white plastic . The herringbone binding was reintroduced  in 1976 with the production of the HD-28 (H for for herringbone).

40 – Rosewood back and sides witha  spruce top,  ebony fingerboard, all kind of fancy ornamentation, e.g.  a mother of pearl C.F. Martin Script Logo Inlay

The herringbone binding
The herringbone binding

The bracing

One important constructional and tonal aspect of Martin guitars is the special kind of bracing. Martin made the X-bracing famous, which “consists of two braces forming an X shape across the soundboard below the top of the sound hole. The lower arms of the X straddle and support the ends of the bridge. Under the bridge is a hardwood bridge plate which prevents the ball end of the strings from damaging the underside of the soundboard. Below the bridge patch are one or more tone bars which support the bottom of the soundboard” (from Wikipedia). Better check out the picture…

D18 (1974)
D18 (1974)

Here is some info from the Martin website that explains the standard X-bracing and the scalloped X-bracing, as we find it on the MK signature models:

bracing-patterns-martin

Scalloped braces on a D18 from 1943
Scalloped braces on a D18 from 1943
Guitars

Building a Telecaster Dream Machine

With the help of my Dream Machine-style  pickguards and the Dream Machine brass tremolo I was able to built myself a kind of Schecter Dream Machine Strat (the one I compared to Mark Knopfler’s sunburst Schecter Dream Machine in these videos). What I am working on at the moment is a range of products for the Telecaster to upgrade any T-style guitar to a Telecaster Dream Machine, or to build one from scratch with aftermarket bodies and necks.

I already have the brass or white enamel aluminium pickguards, and the tapped Telecaster Dream Machine pickups will come any day now – the final prototypes I have are really great :). I decided to install these into two different guitars: one will be a project with a genuine Schecter vintage neck and a fine one-piece mahogany body. The other project is based on a  neck and body I just found on ebay for really little money, it just looked right (with a kind of sunburst very similar to the one on Mark’s Schecter Strat), and a neck without dot markers. When these arrived I was pleased to find out that both are very light and seem to be very resonant (knock, knock,.. 🙂 ) so this second project seems very promising as well.

I already started to plan a brass Tele Dream Machine bridge and will likely also produce some control plates in brass. As it seems I will put golden hardware on these two projects, but I will also release a chromed version for those who want to build their own Walk of Live Tele 🙂

I will report about building these two with a little blog post series, with this post being the first, and others to come as the project advances. Here are some pictures of what I already have:

The Schecter neck with the mahogany body
The Schecter neck with the mahogany body
The second one with the sunburst body
The second one with the sunburst body

 

Both necks - note the different colour of the rosewood fingerboards
Both necks – note the different colour of the rosewood fingerboards

 

The Schecter neck has a painted peghead - like Mark's Walk of Life Tele which is in red. Not sure what to do with this one but I guess I will keep it like this to preserve the decal and originality.
The Schecter neck has a painted peghead – like Mark’s Walk of Life Tele which is in red. Not sure what to do with this one but I guess I will keep it like this to preserve the decal and originality.
I wonder if the fingerboard of the Schecter neck is Brazilian rosewood or Cocobolo. This info must be in the neck code which says F773S but this code is not included in the (older) Schecter catalogue I have.
I wonder if the fingerboard of the Schecter neck is Brazilian rosewood or Cocobolo. This info must be in the neck code which says F773S but this code is not included in the (older) Schecter catalogue I have.
Those grains indicate a South American rosewood, and the wood has a typical oily shine. Cocobola is often lighter than Braz rosewood but the latter can vary to a large extend.
Those grains indicate a South American rosewood, and the wood has a typical oily shine. Cocobola is often lighter than Braz rosewood but the latter can vary to a large extend.

 

The no-name neck has little dots on the upper edge, I am thinking to remove these and fill the holes with brown wood filler so that you have some help with finding the right fret without changing the look of a board without dot markers.
The no-name neck has little dots on the upper edge, I am thinking about removing these and fill the holes with brown wood filler so that you have some help with finding the right fret without changing the look of a board without dot markers.

To be continued, stay tuned …

Guitar in general, Guitars, Mark Knopfler gear

Custom Shop Fender Stratocaster resembling Mark Knopfler’s maple neck Strat

Some weeks ago I visited a local music shop – the Music Store in Cologne – who have a dedicated custom shop showroom. Lots of custom shop Fenders, expensive Les Pauls, and other fancy stuff. In the upper right corner of their wall full of guitars I immediately spotted a red Strat that looked nice – can’t help but red guitar always seem to attract my eyes quicker than any others 🙂 . I took it down and played it, and – WOW – it not only played great but had an absolutely stunning sound! (In fact in such situations I don’t need to plug it in, the acoustic sound is enough for me – just as a sidenote).

All pictures courtesy Music Store Cologne
All pictures courtesy Music Store Cologne

What was striking about that guitar were some unusual features that immediately made me think of my all-time favourite guitar – the one that made me start to play in 1979 – Mark’s red maple-neck Strat ‘80470: a laminated maple fingerboard (instead of a one-piece maple neck, thus no skunk stripe), a 1959-62 style pickguard (the position of that screw…), otherwise vintage specs. One difference was the colour which was fiesta red (Mark’s was more towards what is called hot-rod red today, or even dakota), and the relic finish (Mark’s was refinished and looked like new). I asked for some information on that guitar and learned that it was a limited run (of 20 guitars) by the Fender custom shop.

cs-strat-2

cs-strat-3

Here is a list of the features:

a sorted alder 2 piece body with 1956 shaping, maple board, pickups were a 69 at the neck, fat 50’s in the middle, and a Texas Special at the bridge, a greenish celluloid (!!!) pickguard (yeah, Fender has limited quantities of these again), nitro finish (body and neck), 6105 frets, a rather fat neck with 9.5″ radius, price: 2549 Euros

I admit I was thinking about buying for some time, but finally decided not to do  (I really can’t say I am  in dire need for another red Strat…).

I finally plugged it in but not into an amp but into my PCM recorder to have some sound samples  to compare it to other Strats. My wife filmed some minutes with her mobile, I reamped the samples and put them in sync with the video so that you can see and hear it on the following video. By the way, the guitar is already sold meanwhile, and so is a second one they got right after the first, and this was the last. 🙁

Dire Straits/ Mark Knopfler live pictures and videos, Mark Knopfler gear

Dire Straits at the Paradiso, Amsterdam, October 23, 1978

Recently another diamond was dug out: an uncirculated early Dire Straits recording appeared out of nothing, from the Paradiso, Amsterdam, October 23, 1978. Unfortunately it is “only” an audience recording, nevertheless the sound quality is really nice. And it is the complete show.

This gig was only a few month after the release of Dire Straits’ first album. They had played some gigs in the UK in summer 1978 (e.g. the one of the Live at the BBC CD) but the ones in Belgium, France (e.g. Chorus TV), the Netherlands, and in Germany in October were their first gigs abroad. Compared to later years, there were much more spontaneous elements at that time, like improvisation or different guitar licks.

While Mark played his maple neck Strat on the summer gigs, he played his 1961 rosewood Strat in the second half of that year. It seems he had it just painted red (it was a bare wood finish when he got it about a year before) so that it was ready for the international stages now. At the same time he switched from Fender amps to the Music Man HD130 212 combo, and he still played his Morley volume pedal and the green MXR Analog delay.

I found the recording on the tracker of our Spanish friends but it seems it was first available on Dime. Unfortunately the recording runs about 2.5% too fast. These old recordings are often too fast or slow as analog tape recorders varied a lot from their specified speed of 4.75cm/sec, so most recordings run somewhere in the +/- 5% area. I recommend a software like the free Audacity which allows you to adjust the speed (Effect menu – change tempo / pitch). Below you will find a sample of Follow me home which is already speed-corrected. Note how this early version (two month before it was recorded for Communiqué) differs from later ones, played much faster and with a different drum beat. I absolutely love it!

MArk Knopfler on stage in late 1978
Mark Knopfler on stage in late 1978


Sample Dire Straits – Follow me home, October 23, 1978