Invisible Gilmour Mod - Strat

Dan0h

Dan0h

Well-known member
Oh man I wish I would have know about this sooner.
The Gilmour Mod adds a toggle switch which allows the neck position to be turned on, which unlocks the neck/bridge combo and the all three combo on a Strat.
I rewired the five way switch so now I can get neck/bridge combo. It sounds so good. And is holding off my Tele gas for now.
My five way now goes B, BN, N, NM, M. IMG_0658.jpeg
 
Dan0h said:
Oh man I wish I would have know about this sooner.
The Gilmour Mod adds a toggle switch which allows the neck position to be turned on, which unlocks the neck/bridge combo and the all three combo on a Strat.
I rewired the five way switch so now I can get neck/bridge combo. It sounds so good. And is holding off my Tele gas for now.
My five way now goes B, BN, N, NM, M. View attachment 66488
Click to expand...
That’s an awesome mod. I’ve done it to a couple of my Strats.
 
I had a Mexican players strat years ago which had that wiring as stock. I loved the bridge and neck together but it was really let down by the vintage noiseless pickups.
 
If you don't need the middle pickup by itself setting you can buy a "super switch" and wire it so that the middle position is neck and bridge. Not hard to do and you can have the other four positions stay as usual.
 
My Yamaha is wired up in a similar way. Bridge humbucker or single coil with treble cut (on a push/push switch), BM, BN, MN, N. I've thought of adding a dedicated middle pickup switch but that little voice in my head says "leave the damn thing alone...it's perfect..."
 
I’d think the easiest way to do it would be to just switch the middle and neck pickups in the pick guard if you don’t mind losing the B/M combo 😂

I love B/M though so I’d have to do the toggle switch method, sounds really cool though.
 
Nostradoomus said:
I’d think the easiest way to do it would be to just switch the middle and neck pickups in the pick guard if you don’t mind losing the B/M combo 😂

I love B/M though so I’d have to do the toggle switch method, sounds really cool though.
Click to expand...
I found the easiest way was just moving the wire from N to M and vice versa on the five way switch. Also moving the tone pot wires. It only took 5 minutes.
 
It's done and it sounds great.
Oak-Grisgby switch.
MojoTone CTS A250K push-pull Tone pots.
MojoTone CTS J500K Volume pot (might change it to J250K).
Orange Drop 22nF tone cap.
Fender 3-ply pick guard.
Mother-of-Pearl inset knobs.
Cheap Chinese Alnico V single-coil pickups with pole-pieces that are spaced to actually line up under the strings (48mm neck, 50mm middle, 52mm bridge). They have clear bobbins like the ones Darrell Braun recommended on YouTube. $27 for three pickups(!). They work remarkably well.
I had replaced the crap Squier jack with a Switchcraft years ago.

[edit]
As per the drawing (I hesitate to call it a schematic), the Tone side of the switch is wired so that one Tone pot is dedicated to the Neck pickup and the other is shared by Bridge & Middle.

Squier Strat v4 - 02.jpg

Squier Strat 9-way innards 04.jpg

I had a small run-in with Bill's Law. The wiring passed inspection and resistance checks with the pick guard assembly out of the guitar. I installed the pick guard, and the resistance checks failed. Didn't sound right either. Those terminals on the very top of the switch had to be bent over to keep them from shorting to the conductive paint in the bottom of the control cavity. 😖
 
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