As part of my electronics course at school, we have to design and create our own electrical circuit of some kind. Naturally, the more complex the better, and I thought "well I'm a guitarist, here's a good excuse to mod my guitars". My Jag-Stang's my main guitar, so I figured I'd mod that, but also because my other guitars don't have scratchplates, which naturally makes them a lot trickier to mod, you can't tuck away your mistakes behind the pickguard!
So anyway, here are my dilemnas:
1) A mod I've wanted for a long time is to add a decent toggle switch to one of my guitars so I can play some Tom Morello style toggling. The thing is, the Jag-Stang already has two 3 way switches and figuring out how to add another switch may be difficult! I figured the best way would be to keep my current wiring as it is (giving me the phase options), and the third switch could act as a simple killswitch, just to cut out the circuit. Another option I have with this though is to get a three way toggle switch, giving me a couple more options than just a killswitch. I'm upgrading to a SD JB in a couple months giving me some options with the humbucker wiring too. Here's the problem, there are so many options! I could do just about anything! So to summarise, what would you do in this situation? I want an easy to use toggle incorporated, but how do I wire it to get the most options?
2) Now, where the put this third switch... I'm going for a simple 3 way toggle from Guitar Parts Resource I've decided. It's only small:
And initially I wanted to fit it on the lower horn, a la Morello. I want to keep all my stock Jag-Stang parts in mint condition (I might need to sell her one day, heavens forbid!), so a new pickguard seemed like a necessity. I looked on Guitar Parts Resource and I noticed the cheapest Jag-Stang ones were either white or black. White looks alright, but when I photoshopped black on, I thought, wow!
But, in my naivety, it wasn't until I opened up the pickguard that I remembered there was no routing down there. Adding it down there would mean re-routing, a mod I'm not entirely sure I want to do just yet, like I said I want to keep it stock for now. I decided the best place to put it would be between the two pots on the control plate, requiring only a new control plate. It will fit there I'm sure, and it's an easily accessible place. But the thing is, I really like the new pickguard! In my situation, what would you do? Get the pickguard anyway? Put the switch elsewhere?
Sorry about the long post, I just wanted to see if I could get any advice from you guys as I know you all know what you're talking about. Thanks for your replies, if any. 😁
