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Bill Diggen's mod, changes the function of the tone bypass switch from Varitone bypass to Treble Bleed Bypass - this will give you six new tones when you have both pickups selected - check the sound samples above
Bill has taken the greatest care with describing the modification he carried out on his own BluesHawk - the blueshawk has checked his description carefully - however, neither Bill nor the blueshawk can accept any responsibility for damage to your guitar, either directly or consequentially - |
With the standard wiring of the BluesHawk, you pull out the tone control to bypass the Varitone circuit. This is useful if you like to preset the varitone and swap quickly from 'straight' to varitone sound. However you can also bypass the varitone by setting it to position 1.
The modified circuit uses the switch to remove the Treble Bleed circuit which operates when the pickup selector is set to 'both'. With the Tone control pulled out, now you will get a warmer fuller LP-like sound with both PUs selected.
You need -
 | A Gibson BluesHawk guitar | ||||||
| A soldering iron and some resin-cored solder | ||||||
| A few inches of hookup wire | ||||||
| Some skill in -
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Before you start - read the instructions carefully and make sure you can definitely identify the soldering points and wires Bill refers to. If you understand circuit diagrams - look here for the modified circuit diagram...
Here are the detailed instructions for the mod...
Step 1
Find the wire from the bypass switch (piggybacked on the tone control), going to the Varitone switch. Remove the bypass switch end of this wire.
Step 2
Find the wire from the bypass switch going to the volume pot. Where this wire is connected to the bypass switch, connect the wire from Step 1 right there.
OK We're halfway there. The Varitone is no longer bypassed by the bypass switch!
Now for the tone bleed -
Step 3
 | The tone bleed circuit is a resistor and capacitor soldered in parallel between two adjacent contacts on the pickup selector - see photos left and right. Find which side of the network the switch wiper is on when the switch is in the Bridge Pickup position. |  |
Step 4
Get a new piece of wire and connect from this contact to the Bypass Switch - not the Bypass Switch contact you removed in Step 1, but the opposite one. Let me explain - there are two pairs of contacts on the Bypass Switch joined together, one of them you removed a wire from in Step 1. We want to connect to the OTHER pair (otherwise the Bypass switch will function in reverse - although you might prefer this!)
WOW, you're done. How easy was that! Now when you pull up the Bypass Switch, the Treble Bleed circuit is bypassed.
Note of course, that the Treble Bleed was only ever in circuit with both pickups selected - therefore you will only notice a change in tone when the pickup selector is set to the middle position.
Bill Diggens - November 2002
