rockabilly69
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2001
- Messages
- 2,875
I always wanted a Zemaitis with a Germanium Boost circuit in it (ie Rangemaster). I was selling one of my Zemaitis reissues, and no one was buying, so decided let it be the test pilot. Zemaitis guitars with these boosts were used by most of the players using original Zemaitis guitars, such as Ron Wood, James Honeymoon Scott, Marc Bolan, etc! Plus I am extremely fond of the PTB tone circuit in G&L Legacy guitars. And I had just chanced upon an article by killer guitarist Joe Gore, who said these two circuits work great together. So that was it, it was time to do some modding!
Well fortunately for me, I already had a small Rangemaster circuit that I bought on ebay from a guy in Italy. So all I had to do is figure out how to wire it in tandem with the PTB circuit. I found a good schematic for the PTB circuit on Premiere Guitars website, so I ordered the parts I needed, and they were here in 2 days!!!
So last night I started the project, but before I could wire it up, I had to totally disassemble the guitar, aluminum top plate and all, because I was going to do the soldering of the PTB right on the plate, and I had to hog some Mahogany out of the control area for the Rangemaster circuit board so out came the drill, the fostner bits, the Dremel, and wood shavings and sawdust started to fly. In no time there was a hole big enough to drop in the circuit board. That was enough for last night, because I wanted to solder in the light of the day.
So today comes and out comes the soldering stuff. But then I see that the shaft of the gain pot for the Rangemaster circuit is too long for the knob. I used my Dremel tool to shave about an 1/8" off of the shaft and a file to clean up the end. Then I noticed the shafts of all the pots were 1/4," not the typical 6 mm that I normally use. So I had to drill out the knobs. I did it with a hand drill and a vise-grip.
Okay I finally finished up all of the metal work that I never planned on, so I heated up the soldering iron, and wired up the PTB circuit, along with a 2 way switch, and gain pot for the Rangemaster. Then I mounted and wired up the Rangemaster. All I had to do was to install the pickups, and the three way switch, and I would be pluggin' in, and blasting the opening lick to The Faces "Stay With Me" loud enough to be heard in the next township. I got that stuff done in no time!
Well on to the jamming! So I plug my Z into the Clark 5E3 that was waiting in the bedroom for some action. And damn, the only thing coming out of the speaker is a Mexican radio station, and that's only when I kick the boost on. No guitar sounds whatsoever. Needless to say, I had to un-solder the circuit board to test just the PTB circuit. I found two things, first I had wired the pickup leads wrong, and second the treble cut was working in reverse. The second part was not of my doing, but was the fault of the guy who wrote the schematic. Dickhead! Okay, I rewired in the circuit board, and slap it back together. Now I am ready to kick out the jams that my neighbors deserve! I plug that bringer of holy noise in, and damn, nothing but a big fat hum! An hour later I find a mistake in the schematic for the Rangemaster. There was no mention of how to properly wire the ground side of TRS jack, but I figured it out, and finally got it all together. And yes, it nails the "Stay With Me" tone!
Nice Mahogany
Hoggin' It Out
Pot Trouble
Drillin' The Knobs
Pots And Switch Installed
Wiring The Plate.
Gettin' There
In Goes The Rangemaster
Electronics Buttoned Up
Time To Jam.jpg
Well fortunately for me, I already had a small Rangemaster circuit that I bought on ebay from a guy in Italy. So all I had to do is figure out how to wire it in tandem with the PTB circuit. I found a good schematic for the PTB circuit on Premiere Guitars website, so I ordered the parts I needed, and they were here in 2 days!!!
So last night I started the project, but before I could wire it up, I had to totally disassemble the guitar, aluminum top plate and all, because I was going to do the soldering of the PTB right on the plate, and I had to hog some Mahogany out of the control area for the Rangemaster circuit board so out came the drill, the fostner bits, the Dremel, and wood shavings and sawdust started to fly. In no time there was a hole big enough to drop in the circuit board. That was enough for last night, because I wanted to solder in the light of the day.
So today comes and out comes the soldering stuff. But then I see that the shaft of the gain pot for the Rangemaster circuit is too long for the knob. I used my Dremel tool to shave about an 1/8" off of the shaft and a file to clean up the end. Then I noticed the shafts of all the pots were 1/4," not the typical 6 mm that I normally use. So I had to drill out the knobs. I did it with a hand drill and a vise-grip.
Okay I finally finished up all of the metal work that I never planned on, so I heated up the soldering iron, and wired up the PTB circuit, along with a 2 way switch, and gain pot for the Rangemaster. Then I mounted and wired up the Rangemaster. All I had to do was to install the pickups, and the three way switch, and I would be pluggin' in, and blasting the opening lick to The Faces "Stay With Me" loud enough to be heard in the next township. I got that stuff done in no time!
Well on to the jamming! So I plug my Z into the Clark 5E3 that was waiting in the bedroom for some action. And damn, the only thing coming out of the speaker is a Mexican radio station, and that's only when I kick the boost on. No guitar sounds whatsoever. Needless to say, I had to un-solder the circuit board to test just the PTB circuit. I found two things, first I had wired the pickup leads wrong, and second the treble cut was working in reverse. The second part was not of my doing, but was the fault of the guy who wrote the schematic. Dickhead! Okay, I rewired in the circuit board, and slap it back together. Now I am ready to kick out the jams that my neighbors deserve! I plug that bringer of holy noise in, and damn, nothing but a big fat hum! An hour later I find a mistake in the schematic for the Rangemaster. There was no mention of how to properly wire the ground side of TRS jack, but I figured it out, and finally got it all together. And yes, it nails the "Stay With Me" tone!
Nice Mahogany
Hoggin' It Out
Pot Trouble
Drillin' The Knobs
Pots And Switch Installed
Wiring The Plate.
Gettin' There
In Goes The Rangemaster
Electronics Buttoned Up
Time To Jam.jpg
On my Gen II 22 fretters, the production model and the custom shop model there isn't any extra room under the control plate so I would have just routed under the top plate, which would have been even cleaner looking. Once the circuit is mounted, all you really need to have access to is the little switch that changes the input impedance of the circuit, so I would have just positioned that side of the circuit board to face the control cavity. I prefer mounting pots directly to the plate as it works better with the Zemaitis shielding/grounding system, which is actually pretty cool!
