Different body woods, different bridges (note string through body on the ash one), different Series (I = ash, II = hog) but both non-E.
In playing the ash one today I finally realized the bridge bucker entirely by-passes the treble tone control. You only notice that selecting that bridge bucker while the little black toggle is pointing towards the bridge, the so-called "in-phase" setting for this phase switch, while the little red splitter switch is in the "humbucker" setting (pointing towards the bridge). You don't notice so much in any other setting because the neck pickup is part of the circuitry then so the treble control has an effect. Yeah, I have the documentation and likely it is somewhere on this forum too, so I could have known but ...
Yes, the early ones bypass the treble tone control when the bridge pickup is selected by itself. However, at some point they switched to the standard PTB control with the treble always active. My 1980 Candy Apple Red behaves as you describe. But my Clear Forest Green and Clear Blue have the treble control always active. My green has a body date of 1981 and neck date of 2-1-83. The Clear Blue was sold to me as a 1983, although I have taken the neck off to confirm. Both the green and blue have hex adjustments in the pickups instead of the slots found on the early ones. I speculate that when they changed the pole piece design, they changed the tone control.
My green and blue have the bi-cut necks and G&L logo tuners. The blue one also has the black crinkle control cover with the serial number on the back neck plate.
Yes, the early ones bypass the treble tone control when the bridge pickup is selected by itself. However, at some point they switched to the standard PTB control with the treble always active. My 1980 Candy Apple Red behaves as you describe. But my Clear Forest Green and Clear Blue have the treble control always active. My green has a body date of 1981 and neck date of 2-1-83. The Clear Blue was sold to me as a 1983, although I have taken the neck off to confirm. Both the green and blue have hex adjustments in the pickups instead of the slots found on the early ones. I speculate that when they changed the pole piece design, they changed the tone control.
My green and blue have the bi-cut necks and G&L logo tuners. The blue one also has the black crinkle control cover with the serial number on the back neck plate.
Chip
Hey Chip,
The dates the ash hardtail are FEB 5 1981 for the neck and JAN 24 1981 for the body. The hog one is a little older: OCT 2 1980 for the neck and SEP 30 1980. Both have slot head pole pieces.
Some great looking F-100s you have there! Great show!
Nice pair Jos! the blonde one is alot like mine. 2 screw bridge with strings thru body- "the missing link". I have noticed the inactive treble control for lead pup only as well.
I have finally gotten around to pulling out both my F-100s and yes indeed, on my 81 CAR F-100, when the bridge pup alone is selected the treble pot does nothing, regardless of where the little red or black toggles are set. I think. The Prototype F-100 with body date of Jan 1980 will let you adjust the treble pot in any configuration. Its an E series so that may make a difference.
As a prototype and one of the earliest F-100s, it might just do anything. I notice no real difference with it in active or passive mode but have not tried it with a very long cable. One thing that is strange is that the pole pieces in the pups are hex not slotted as you might expect from an early version. It makes me wonder if this is part of the prototype designation. Maybe Leo was already playing around with hex pole pieces that early on. Maybe someone changed the pups. I did take the control plate off because I was getting some odd drops in volume at times and traced it to a solder joint on one of the black wires from a pup (not sure which) to the volume pot base. All the other soldering looks un-molested so if the pups were changed, they did a pro soldering job. I am a pro solderer but have not done much in recent years and could not find one single piece of solder around the house or workshop to fix it. Gotta go get some tomorrow.
Does anyone know how to assuredly date those pickups? There are no markings on the outside at all. What might I expect to find on the bottom of the pups that might give an idea of a date. As a matter of fact the 1981 guitar has no markings on the slotted pole pups. Another mystery waiting to be solved.
BTW...never did hear anything back from Gabe or Greg or anyone from back in the day with any insight as to this guitar.
Beautiful F-100 prototype. That is quite a mystery on the pickups. I've only seen the hex poles on the later F-100's. I wonder why they would have switched? Interesting that yours has the regular PTB like my later ones. I know there is a lot of variability in the F-100's. How does the prototype sound in comparison to your production F-100? I think my later production ones sound better than the earlier one. I'm not sure if they changed the pickups slightly when they changed from slot to hex?
Challenger wrote:Beautiful F-100 prototype. That is quite a mystery on the pickups. I've only seen the hex poles on the later F-100's. I wonder why they would have switched? Interesting that yours has the regular PTB like my later ones. I know there is a lot of variability in the F-100's. How does the prototype sound in comparison to your production F-100? I think my later production ones sound better than the earlier one. I'm not sure if they changed the pickups slightly when they changed from slot to hex?
Thanks. You mention the PTB system and it confuses me somewhat. There is no push/pull knob and I thought the PTB system was somewhat newer than any of the 80's F-100s. Do yours have push/pull knobs? My '81 F-100 does not have this either.
As far as sound goes, They are quite similar. There is the difference with the bridge pup position eliminating the treble control as well as slight differences in sustain between bridges, but for the most part they sound alike. I should take a reading of the different pups and see if some have more resistance than others.
None of mine have push pull knobs. By PTB, I mean passive treble bass controls. The F-100's I have with the hex poles behave life my Legacy, or any contemporary G&L with dual tone controls. The bottom knob cuts the bass frequencies for either or both pickups regardless of the settings or pickup selection. The middle knob (top tone knob) cuts the high frequencies for either or both pickups regardless of what the other settings are at.
The instruction sheet for the F-100 states that the treble tone is inactive when the bridge pickup is selected. Only my 1980 does this and it has the slot poles.
Challenger wrote:None of mine have push pull knobs. By PTB, I mean passive treble bass controls. The F-100's I have with the hex poles behave life my Legacy, or any contemporary G&L with dual tone controls. The bottom knob cuts the bass frequencies for either or both pickups regardless of the settings or pickup selection. The middle knob (top tone knob) cuts the high frequencies for either or both pickups regardless of what the other settings are at.
The instruction sheet for the F-100 states that the treble tone is inactive when the bridge pickup is selected. Only my 1980 does this and it has the slot poles.
Is this early version of the PTB system the same as current circuits? I found a thing on the back of a 1997 price sheet below but not sure when the actual PTB system was developed and used. My assumption was that it was a more recent development than 1980. Technically the early F-100s have a passive treble and bass adjustment system, but is it the actual PTB as it's known today.
Good question on the PTB. I may have been incorrectly referring to my tone controls as PTB on my F-100's. I'm not real techie, I just know how they work. To me they work the same. Top tone cuts the highs and bottom tone cuts the lows. So, I called it PTB. I'm sure the tone controls may have evolved over the years and it is likely that different pickups have different parts behind the tone controls.
I know I like the tone control on G&L over Fender. I was playing my '91 American Standard Stratocaster earlier today. It was my first electric guitar and I didn't know about G&L at the time and there is too much sentiment to let it go. Anyway, I had a hard time dialing sounds in with the TBX tone setup. I kept assuming that I had two tone controls for the pickup I was on.
Challenger wrote:Good question on the PTB. I may have been incorrectly referring to my tone controls as PTB on my F-100's. I'm not real techie, I just know how they work. To me they work the same. Top tone cuts the highs and bottom tone cuts the lows. So, I called it PTB. I'm sure the tone controls may have evolved over the years and it is likely that different pickups have different parts behind the tone controls.
I know I like the tone control on G&L over Fender. I was playing my '91 American Standard Stratocaster earlier today. It was my first electric guitar and I didn't know about G&L at the time and there is too much sentiment to let it go. Anyway, I had a hard time dialing sounds in with the TBX tone setup. I kept assuming that I had two tone controls for the pickup I was on.
Yeah, I know it's a bit confusing and I wish that the knowledgable old school folks on the forum would chime in and tell us when the "as we know it now" PTB system first came about. Like I mentioned I think the system in the early days could technically be called Passive Treble Bass control, but was that the intent back then or did it evolve into something better/different.
This is what I thought and is cool to know and have documented, although I have seen this paperwork before. I just never put 2 and 2 together and realized that this was PTB even before that called it that.
The ash F-100 has a string through body Saddle-Lock bridge with the high-E saddle replaced by what I think is a Fender saddle. Although functional, esthetically I find it not all too pleasing. Any of you have any spares like the ones on the left laying around you might want to part with?
Thanks!
- Jos
P.S. I also posted a wanted ad in the Marketplace but that needs to get approved by Craig first. Which will take until next year. This route might give a resolution before year's end
As theses saddles are different from the current ones, it might be difficult to get one. Some of the ones in my Mahogany F-100 are still waiting for new threads, which destroyed with a drill by getting the rusty screws out. But just one screw works, thanks to the saddle lock.
