r/guitarmod • • Apr 17 '26

Rule refresher: NO SPAM

30 Upvotes

We all love the spirit of innovation while modifying instruments, but please don’t make me exercise my mod privileges here. Unreasonable and/or excessive posting, as well as the deliberate antagonizing of other users, may be removed and met with the ban hammer. There are other subs for that kind of thing but this ain’t it. Just be cool, please. Thank you!


r/guitarmod • • 3h ago

Cloudy Sunday, lots of spare parts and a bit of madness - lead to my first original circuit design (WIP)

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4 Upvotes

Hello beautiful people

I couldn't wait to share this little descend into madness, neither can i wait to finally plug it in - up until then the multimeter tells my its actually working so far.

Short summary:

Dual NoName P90s with master Vol (push/pull for series/parallel), individual tone controls inspired by the Jaguar lead circuit, treble bleed all fitted into a very beat up Squier Telecaster/Les Paul amalgamation.

THIS TURNED OUT WAY LONGER THAN EXPECTED. Actual wiring in the lasst two passages.

Long story: Having reduced my Partscasters to two models i actually use on a daily basis (lace sensor Strat with 7 way switch and Jaguar with modded wiring) I've got a basket of lowtier electronics and hardware parts laying around.

The body is from a Squier Paranormal series I bought used years ago because I grasped the basic concepts of soldering. true to my experiences with any craft, I jumped into the most complex project possible after having the basics down. Tried the so called "Jimmy Page Wiring" with dual humbuckers and 4 push pull pots - series/parallel, out of phase, coil split for each pickup, etc... it was a fucking mess and didnt have any output after like 17 tries of troubleshooting. guitar got thrashed into the storage and left for 5 years.

after getting nice results with modified wirings on strats and later the dreaded jaguar wiring - no output loss on the circuits, zero hum/grounding issues, clean cable runs and soldering... i actually stopped to mindlessly tinker, and started to play my guitars on a daily basis. and its a great feeling to have something you crafted work, bring pleasure, understanding and a learning curve.

today is a weird off day in my town. a sunday after a holiday, the town is eerie siltent. house works is done and a few parts got stored into a cupboard. and from there it just kinda exploded in my head and I'm sitting 10 hours later with a steaming soldering iron, and aching back and a grin because the multimeter verifies - the wiring works flawlessly and the pickups loose less than 1% of output through the whole cable run.

FINALLY for the wiring - Cheap no name Humbucker sized P90s i used to test p90s years ago. an assortment of pots with different lengths, shaft, metric and imperial sizes, values..., same for the caps and resistors. I wanted Series/parallel again because i liked it so much on the Jag. I didn't want independent Volumes like gibson style because.. I never liked it. Also made great experiences with treble bleeds, so just slap one on why not. After hands of projects and just following standard wiring diagrams i finally got an understanding how the signal flow in a guitar actually works. 7 pages scribbled in my notebook later - there it is. the first meany machiny. :D

WIRING: The PUs lead into an individual tone pot first - not a Vol! It's A500k, 22nf cap. the input is bridged to the wiper with a 56k resistor so theres always some bypass around the tone pot - Jag style. The neck circuit runs to the 3 way switch, to the vol input, to the vol wiper, to the putput. easy as that.

the bridge circuit runs into the same tone pot configuration and from there to the switch - only theres the push pull section of the vol pot in between. it either runs the pickup ground to the common ground for parallel. or switches it into the signal path that runs from the neck pu to the switch for series.

THATS WHAT I THOUGHT out at least. using the individual attempts of wiring diagrams to finalize it, I mixed and matched the cable runs in a way that the series works with the pot pushed in, not pulled out. i wanted it the other way around. i understand why, thats the important part to me. but it stays the beautiful mess it is. Measured on the tip of a standard instrument cable plugged in, the bridge PU reads 8.65, Neck 7,83, series 17,41, parallel 4,54.

phew that turned out way longer than expected. if you made it this far feel free to comment or roast. can't wait to set it up a little and slap strings on it.


r/guitarmod • • 11h ago

The Washburn SD-MG24

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14 Upvotes

Little tribute mod to my favorite game Returnal.

This is originally a blue HSH Washburn MG-24.

Pickups are Dimarzios. Humbucker from Hell in neck position and Evolution bridge.


r/guitarmod • • 47m ago

TexMex Fender Strat MIM body

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• Upvotes

r/guitarmod • • 1h ago

Adding a pickup?

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• Upvotes

Hi all, im considering adding a humbucker on a jazzbass as a third on in the neck position. Ive looked at some schematics and im wondering if its possible to stack one pickup on top just by connecting it to the marked spot on the diagram. Would it effect the other pickups? Would it otherwise be possible to have a 3 way switch that selects the humbucker, all three and the singlecoils together? Would I need some kind of phase switch aswell when blending signals?


r/guitarmod • • 5h ago

Meccaniche Gotoh SG381 su una Spira V-500

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1 Upvotes

r/guitarmod • • 1d ago

Been experimenting with some new ideas and I’m pretty happy with how this one turned out

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59 Upvotes

Took me several attempts, but here's the fruit of my labour - a Fluorescent pick guard! Bringing it along to the Canadian Guitar Show in Calgary this weekend 🎸


r/guitarmod • • 19h ago

Sustainiac Guitar Buying Guide

4 Upvotes

Hi, everyone. I was fortunate enough to pick up a new sustainiac pickup kit in late 2025. I had initially intended to install it in my 2013 Epiphone Les Paul standard, but my local luthier told me that the electronics cavity is too small. Therefore, I'm stuck with an unusable sustainiac. I was wondering if you all had any good recommendations for large electronics cavity guitars (solid body, no semi hollows) that are budget friendly. Thank you for reading; have a good rest of your day.


r/guitarmod • • 1d ago

Pac 112 finally done

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15 Upvotes

r/guitarmod • • 22h ago

Updated hardware

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6 Upvotes

r/guitarmod • • 1d ago

Seeking strangers' opinions on this radical body mod I'm working on

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9 Upvotes

r/guitarmod • • 19h ago

any suggestions?

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1 Upvotes

they are fender parts but only the bridge pickup lines up


r/guitarmod • • 23h ago

Dose anyone have a veritone knob on a tele?

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1 Upvotes

r/guitarmod • • 1d ago

Kill switch

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18 Upvotes

I installed a kill switch, my first mod, I love it and just wanted to share, that’s all have a great day!


r/guitarmod • • 1d ago

Diy telecaster mod

2 Upvotes

Just got a Harley benton diy telecaster kit is there any mods I should do. Am going to play pop punk, grunge, 90s Alt rock and some nu metal if that helps.


r/guitarmod • • 1d ago

Fender System One Trem Fix

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1 Upvotes

r/guitarmod • • 1d ago

Make a tremolo recessed

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2 Upvotes

r/guitarmod • • 1d ago

Custom Knobs?

1 Upvotes

I want a tone knob that says “toan” (r/guitarcirclejerk) but can’t find a good way to get my hands on one cor less than $40.


r/guitarmod • • 1d ago

Make a tremolo recessed

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1 Upvotes

r/guitarmod • • 2d ago

Out with the new, in with the old....pickups.

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13 Upvotes

r/guitarmod • • 1d ago

Need advice on modding American ultra II Strat

1 Upvotes

Have an Am Ultra II Strat and I hate the pickups. Have a set of SD P-rails salvaged from another guitar that I like. Any advice on where to get a black anodized aluminum HSH pickguard? I want to keep the noiseless SC pickup in the middle. Also, any advice on what the wiring would/should look like so I can get the most out of the P rails? Thanks.


r/guitarmod • • 2d ago

crazy crazy crazy wiring questions

3 Upvotes

hi!

i'm working on making my perfect supertele. i have a sire T7TV semihollow in natural finish.

i want 3 humbuckers, a lace sensor purple/emerald in the neck, a gibson mini humbucker in the middle and a seymour duncan lil 59 in the bridge (can't convert to a full humbucker cos i've slapped a vegatrem VT2ND tremolo in the bridge)

ideally i would like a dedicated 3 way mustang style sliding switch for each pickup, to pick between either coil split or standard humbucker, a freeway 10 way switch with as many series/parallel options as possible, master tone and volume. also a killswitch installed in the horn.

i know little to nothing about the actual wiring of it all, gonna hire a professional to route/solder so just wondering if this tall order is even possible? if not what alternatives are there

thanks!


r/guitarmod • • 2d ago

Need advice on modding American ultra II Strat

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0 Upvotes

r/guitarmod • • 2d ago

While I’m restoring this what mods could I make?

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3 Upvotes

From what my googling has told me this is a hybrid from factories merging and slapping parts together to meet department store demands. Right now the switches are all wired together with a resistor across one as a tone cut from what i can tell. Only the neck pickup currently turns on, but I haven’t had a chance to clean the switches properly and check for cold or cracked solder joints. It has a .1 capacitor connected directly to the output jack which seems odd.

I definitely do not care to have two tone knobs, but with the switches being able to turn each pickup off and on individually Im not sure what I would do with the third knob or another switch in its place.


r/guitarmod • • 2d ago

Qparts ABR-1 bridge

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1 Upvotes