Rebuilding a Deluxe Nashville Power

[n0npr0phet]

I am just starting a project and wanted to get some feedback before I start cutting things. I acquired a very rusted MIM Deluxe Nashville Power Tele. The saddles were rusted frozen and the action was set to "obstacle course." The three pickups were rusty and these guitars have neck, strat, and bridge pickups as well as a Fishman bridge pickup all thru an active preamp. I don't like that if I leave the cable plugged in this guitar it will run a battery out of life overnight and once the battery dies you cannot play the guitar.

I got a new Fishman AST bridge to replace the existing rusted OEM one. I found a pair of Texas Special Custom Shop pickups on Craigslist for a song and an RWRP Texas Special strat pickup on ebay. I also got a new control plate so I could drill it for some switches.

I want to add a switch to bypass the preamp altogether so I can play the guitar without a battery and I was thinking I could get a standard center position tele sound by adding a switch to choose which which pickups mixed with the bridge pickup in position 4 of the 5 position switch. Normally the strat pickup mixes with either in positions 2 and 4.

Looking at the back of the new Texas Special bridge pickup it has a copper back plate that connects to the bridge and a bare wire that attaches back plate to the black wire. My electronics background tells me that I want to avoid ground loops to prefer star grounds.

As I was typing above I got confused again. Is a regular tele in position 2 wired in-phase or out-of-phase? I think I would make a switch that in one position will connect the middle RWRP strat pickup to the bridge and in the other position connect the neck and bridge pickup out of phase.

What I am confused about is do I cut the bare wire connecting the bridge to the black wire so I can use either as ground on the bridge pickup though say a dpdt switch?

I hope this isn't too confusing, its my first post here, and I am a guitar wiring noob. also If you have any other idea about my project please reply.

Thanks in advance.

[dconeill]

I can't answer your question. However, from Fender, these might:

http://www.fender.com/support/diagra...000_02APg2.pdf

http://www.fender.com/support/diagra...000_02APg3.pdf