UNDER THE HOOD
Despite the complex switching options, this is a pretty simple guitar
Removing the scratchplate, you can see that the body machining underneath is a little rudimentary and there’s a ‘swimming pool’ rout, which certainly indicates future two- and maybe even four-pickup versions. There’s no ID on the pickup bases, but the wiring is really pretty tidy using 500k mini-pots, a single .015 microfarads (153J) tone capacitor and a .002 microfarads (222J) bass-cut capacitor, both common green Mylar polyester film types. Bearing in mind the seemingly complex control system, it’s actually a very simple circuit. Under those pickup covers we have a standard humbucker, although Alan Entwistle tells us that each coil uses a steel blade polepiece and a ceramic bar magnet, and they’re wound with 44 AWG wire. Measuring the DCRs at output we get 7.59kohms (bridge), 6.99k (middle) and 6.93k (neck). Like the guitar, the pickups are made in China, a part of the expansive Entwistle range. The original Watkins Rapier single coils pickups were very different.“They kind of have a relationship with the Burns Tri-Sonic,” says Alan of the original pickups,“in that they used a bobbin-less coil – a very messy one at that – and a magnetic baseplate. But the resemblance ends there; they certainly didn’t sound like a Tri-Sonic. They used four large Alcamax magnets and one smaller magnet with reverse polarity, which, in practice, gives a kind of ‘out of phase’ sound to the G, B and E strings. It almost worked, except that there was, understandably, some output loss on the top strings.” The vibrato is pretty simple here, too, with three small springs to counter the string tension. While there’s no tension adjustment, Alan tells us it’s good for standard 0.009 and 0.010 string gauges, although if you’re thinking of stringing up with heavier gauges you’ll need to add one or two more springs – as you would with a Strat-style vibrato.