Hola!

[chkneater]

Hi, I'm new here, but I just recently purchased a beautiful Kimberly. After tearing it down and cleaning it, it has some minor nicks, but the finish is still beautiful all the way around and the guitar is perfectly intact. In fact I couldn't stop playing it the thing sounds so awesome!

Now the question part: I have seen one of these retrofitted with a tuneomatic bridge from Gibson. While I like the idea, and the look would fit in, Im worried what that would do value wise? Also I would like to wire the two rear singles into a humbucker that can be tapped and leave the other two singles alone. Are these things possible or worth doing?

Also, would it affect value to change out the pots and the switches to newer less klanky ones?

[johnnyb]

4 pickup guitars usually have a switch for each pup enabling you to choose any configuration. if you want to add a switch that will enable one of the rear pups to be reversed. that may be your best/only option for noise cancellation. and while you have them out, wax pot them.

as long as no new holes are made in the guitar, go for it. you can always put the old bridge back on. as far ad pots, put in 250k vol and tone and a good cap in there, youll be glad you did. just keep the old stuff in tact in case you want to sell it someday. a push/pull pot will allow you to reverse a pup without making any new holes.

john

[cheepaxes]

It would be helpful to see a picture of the guitar so we know what type of Kimberly we're discussing. Plus we like looking at pictures of guitars. :)

If you could find a way to put a tuneamatic on but still be able to go back to the original parts, I wouldn't worry about collector value. Depending on the guitar, I'm not sure I'd worry about collector value anyway. My concern is that many Japanese guitars have thinner necks/bridges and a Gibson-sized tuneamatic will be too wide. What's the distance from one E string to the other?

Re: humbuckers. Are you talking about wiring two existing pickups so they cancel noise, or installing a humbucker? I would think if you changed the polarity of one of the pickups and turned both on at once they would cancel some hum. I don't think they would sound like a humbucker and, in fact, may sound pretty thin when played together due to phase cancellation. If you're talking about installing a humbucker on the guitar, I'm afraid standard humbuckers are going to be too deep. If you have the kind of Kimberly I'm picturing, the pickups are essentially surface mounted. So you would have to rout the body to put a humbucker on it, and those bodies are pretty thin. By the time you've gone deep enough for a humbucker there may not be much left underneath it. If you *did* install a humbucker with two sets of leads, I would think you could use the existing switches to turn each side on or off and turn both on for humbucking mode.

-Scott

[johnnyb]

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/OLD-STYLE-ELECTR ... 1435wt_932

cheepaxes is right. modern bridges wont fit. this is the only one that you can buy that will. it may or may-not be an upgrade.

[chkneater]

you read my mind johnnyb, my next question was are these pickups waxed cuz the dont' sound like it, so I will definitely be waxing them.

I like the sugg. on the cap and the pots, will probably try this also.

Now as far as the humbucking situtation goes, it's not as simple as changing the polarity, because the ground of the normal p/u must wire to the ground of the altered p/u, making IT'S lead the ground.

Thats why I was wondering about value and such. But I figure the third and second p/u tone are idientical, so why not just reverse the polarity of the third one, and wire it some way that 1 and 2 are unchanged, 3 has reversed polarity and the lead is the ground, and 4 is unchanged. However, when 3 and 4 are on at the same time they are humbucking, but when either alone is on, they are solo p/u.

Does any of that sound right or possible? Any suggestions on better ways of accomplishing this? I like the idea of Gibson style push pull pots since I'm going to be putting a tunaMatic on it regardless of the complications!!

I have some pics but don't know how to upload them, but it is a greenburst Kimberly with the four gold foil pups.

And what is the best thing to wax them with? Paraffin?[/list][/url]

[chkneater]

I'm looking for the saddle portion of the bridge, the part that yuo adjust for intonation. I've seen pics of tuna's on these Kimberlys but I don't know if any adjustments were made to get it to work. I don't want to make any changes to the guitar, just upgrades that can be reverted if necessary.

[johnnyb]

need pics.

[chkneater]

don't know how to upload them

[chkneater]

Here's link, you can see it pretty clearly:
http://s520.photobucket.com/home/chkneater/index

[Mgeek]

[chkneater]

[chkneater]

Another thing, the tunomatic bridge helped ALOT with the buzzing that emanates from the rollers, and all the original parts can still be replaced easily, so anyone with one of these should definitely look into it, just make sure to get a prenotched bridge!!