Did a pickup switchout tonight

[Duff]

Had great success in doing a pickup switchout tonight.

I had a set of nickel plated new humbuckers I took out of my new Epi LP standard plus top when I put SD's in it.

I installed the nickel plated buckers from the Epi into my Schecter Omen six that had some poor sounding open coil humbuckers on it. They tested out at 15.x Kohms but did not sound nearly as loud as the Epi alnico classic nickel plated ones I put in that were 8.x for the neck and 14.x for the bridge. There is more to the pickup output equation than ohms. There is inductance and the combination or ration of impedance (ohms) to inductance. Electronics is a deep and complicated science, and in our case, art.

I remember years ago when I would listen to Santana and Hendrix that electric guitar and amplification was the epitome of electronics; the taking of a pure science and transforming it into an awesome art that came from the deepest part of the soul thru the circuits and out the speaker in sound waves that could touch other people's souls like nothing else. It wasn't just Hendrix and Santana, it was a host of players, even us.

Well no the Schecter omen six has an awesome change in sound, tone is beautiful in all three switch positions and the neck pickup is beautiful, with the bridge being more striking but with beautiful tone and the middle position on the switch is fabulous. I can reach deep into my soul with this guitar now, even deeper knowing that I put part of my soul into it when I fixed it up.

One thing I noted is that the Schecter Omen six, although one of the least expensive Schecters was very well built. The routs were impecable and the wiring was the best I've seen. I replicated the wiring as closely as I could and did a good job. The basswood body is beautiful walnut stained and inside the routs the color of the wood is beautiful. They could have just finished the natural wood and it would have looked like mahogany but I suppose they use two or three pieces and the differences in color, although slight wouldn't look too good, hence the walnut stain.

I would venture to say that it is now one of my best sounding and playing humbucker guitars. Maybe influenced by the fact that I put some of my soul into upgrading it. Can't underestimate the psychological metaphysical aspects of the way we perceive things.

I love modding my guitars when I think it is a good idea and I haven't always been pleased with the results, but for the greatest part I have been astounded by the improvement in sound and playability.

This was an example of taking a 300 dollar well playing guitar to begin with and turning it into an outstanding guitar.

One of the keys I think to modding a guitar is to start with a well playing guitar to begin with. Not one with known problems like a buzz that can't be removed or high action that can't be lowered. Things like that. Start with a good solid guitar to begin with that just doesn't have that something extra to make it one you want to pick up and play because it sounds muddy or whatever.

I guarantee you I will be playing this 24 fret Schecter frequently now where before it was collecting a lot of dust.

I hope this encourages someone to try to fix up one of their guitars that might seem a little lacking in some regard.

The whole job took me about two hours from start to being completely finished and polishing up the guitar and lubricating the neck.

Sounds really deep and full thru my Delta Blues straight in.
Great, great resonance. That basswood must be nice and I think Schecter has it together and is not getting the recognition they deserve.

I have a 5 string Schecter Stiletto Elite that is neck thru the body and it is the best sounding bass I have ever played but I play my new Squire metallic red affinity four string bass almost exclusively and it is one awesome sounding bass, of course it's being played thru the new line Marshall bass amp MB30 practice amp with two channels, clean and distortion and manual adjustable compression and three adjustable voices and a four band eq plus boost and some other fine goodies, only 200 new. They have the big pro MB bass amps out now, I'm sure we will be hearing about. I also have a Fender Rumble 100 that I think is a real neat amp and great sounding but it's too heavy to take to lessons, etc., but it has a nice sounding 15 inch speaker and a tweeter.

I'm happy to report that my pickup replacement worked great.

Duffy

[Jimi75]

That's a cool thread! Congrats on tha pu change. You can not completely safe a bad guitar through a pick up change, but if there is a smallest sign of potential in the instrument like for e.g. good resonating wood, you can make it a good sounding instrument with new pick ups. That is the case with a lot of Squire guitars, but you have to play them and check them physically. If you just order online you will never have the chance to pick a special one. To be honest, I always brought my guitars to my guitar tech who changed pick ups, but I am always motivated by threads like yours to try it out on my own. I am currently looking for some nice new single coils, so maybe now is the time :)

[Duff]

You develop a knack. You get burned by the hot iron. You need about a 20 watt pencil type, straight, soldering iron, not one with a pistol grip. You need solder WITH LEAD IN IT, you get it at Radio Shack, no affilliation, and you should get it in thin diameter, like one mm diameter with a ROSIN CORE. You also MUST get a tin of paste flux and a brush and brush it on the things you are desoldering, the things you are going to solder to, and the things you are going to solder into place, just a moderately thin coat. It burns off impurities and makes soldering stick instead of rolling off.

I follow just exactly like the previous pickups were wired. I haven't split coils. When you have a pickup that you can split coils but you don't want to put in coil splitting pots, etc., you have to twist together two of the four wires and solder them and tape them off, then only the hot and the ground get soldered on to where the old pickups was. Directions usually come with them or you can call Seymour Duncan or whatever tech support if you have a problem figuring out the wires.

I should venture into coils splitting but don't see why I'd want to do it with a humbucker. I have single coil guitars.

The simplest way to put in single coils pickups is to get ones that have only two wires. That way there is no confusion. The bare one is the ground, usually bare sometimes insulated, the red or white one is usually hot. I have found that on humbuckers the neck often has a red wire coming from it with both the hot and ground inside its insulation and the Bridge has a black wire.

More wires equals more confusion. I have not had to change pots yet because of the design of the pickups. Tech support can help you on this because there are advantages to 250 k tone pots and 500 k tone pots. Plus, I believe those Samarium Cobalt pups require 1 meg pots and I think they ship with them; so then you have to put the pots in, probably no big deal, but more wires to get confused. I'm not sure about the Fender noisless, but the Texas Specials are probably just two wires as the '54's probably are.

I put Seymour Duncan single coil high class humbuckers in one of my strats: "hot rail" in neck, 'lil 59 in mid, and JB Jr in bridge. These are awesome pickups. 160 total dollars. Direct drop in's except I had to file with a chain saw file, out the corners of the squared off slightly JB Jr. These are high output humbuckers. I knew from working with Seymour Duncan pups before that I had to twist the red and white wires together and solder them and tape them because they are for coil splitting and I wanted full humbucker performance and to keep it simple. This strat sounds mega awesome with output and tone that is incredible, but yet somewhat stratlike believe it or not. SD must have had that strat tone in mind even thought they are humbuckers based on classic full sized humbuckers; they don't sound the same as a full sized '59 or JB humbucker. Great pickups. The SD tech helped advise me on which pickups to get and put in what position to get hot but smooth blues leads, a hot bridge pickup with smooth tone and plenty of bite, and a middle pickup of around the same output that would blend in well with the other two for great sound in 2 and 4 switch positions. It is a super versitile guitar with lots of available tones.

I would try not to have big piles of solder where you solder. Flux helps. You want to use as little solder as possible to get a good connection, not piles, they suck tone or something. The connection should be at the bottom of the pile of solder, not somewhere in the pile. The wire, for instance, should be in contact with the top of the pot and the solder should be on top of the wire and pot. The flux will make sure the solder penetrates into the wire and under the wire to adhere to the top of the pot.

It is really quite easy. Plan on it taking you about two hours. Lots of light and a flashlight. Protective towels or whatever under the guitar to prevent scratches. Loosen up the strings, you don't need to take them off usually, enough to slide the pickguard out and carefully turn it over, another small towel to keep it from scratchin the top of the guitar. Be careful not to pull ground wires off, etc.

A good thing about this is that you can check for poor solder joints, broken wires, loose jacks, find out what ohm pots you have, see the quality of the switch, look at the quality of the rout and see the quality of the wood inside the rout, see if possible routs already exist, as in if you want to put a humbucker in the bridge or neck or both. Having it already routed could make it possible to easily convert your strat into a super strat using some great pickups. I'd love to do that. I would seriously consider splitting the coils on the humbuckers if I was going to do that and I would use real good pickups because it would be a fairly big job requiring a new pickguard or routed pickguard and split tone pots. That would take longer to prepare and perform than just getting some two wire strat pickups of excellent quality and copying the old set up one pickup at a time.

Hope this motivates you. I'd start small with some really good two wire pickups or ones that you can solder off the other two of the four wires and tape them. Your tech could tell you which wires.

Doing a good job can give you a new respect for the guitar and make a closer bond with you, especially if it sounds incredible compared to how it sounded before.

Duffy

[tunghaichuan]

Just as a heads up, some single coils are very fragile so handle them with care when replacing them. I've damaged at least three swapping pickups in and out. The worst were those Fender 57/62 reissue picks from the 80s/90s. The wire in those would break if you looked at them wrong :( . I damaged two of those. I even tried to find the break, unwrap the wire and resolder it to the eyelet, but no luck.

tung



That's a cool thread! Congrats on tha pu change. You can not completely safe a bad guitar through a pick up change, but if there is a smallest sign of potential in the instrument like for e.g. good resonating wood, you can make it a good sounding instrument with new pick ups. That is the case with a lot of Squire guitars, but you have to play them and check them physically. If you just order online you will never have the chance to pick a special one. To be honest, I always brought my guitars to my guitar tech who changed pick ups, but I am always motivated by threads like yours to try it out on my own. I am currently looking for some nice new single coils, so maybe now is the time :)

[tunghaichuan]

I follow just exactly like the previous pickups were wired. I haven't split coils. When you have a pickup that you can split coils but you don't want to put in coil splitting pots, etc., you have to twist together two of the four wires and solder them and tape them off, then only the hot and the ground get soldered on to where the old pickups was. Directions usually come with them or you can call Seymour Duncan or whatever tech support if you have a problem figuring out the wires.

I should venture into coils splitting but don't see why I'd want to do it with a humbucker. I have single coil guitars.


My favorite setup for humbuckers is to run the coils in parallel. Stock humuckers have the coils wired in series. In parallel there is less output and some of the bass drops out, but the high end increases. It sounds more like a single coil but is still hum-cancelling. There is a way to wire a four-conductor humbucker so that you get the classic humbucker sound, parallel coils, and a coil cut out of one switch. Although I hardly ever used the coil cut position.

tung

[Tibernius]

You need solder WITH LEAD IN IT


Why is that? I've seen that mentioned a few times now in relation to guitar electronics, but what difference does it make?

[tunghaichuan]

Why is that? I've seen that mentioned a few times now in relation to guitar electronics, but what difference does it make?

In the UK and the rest of Europe there is an RoHS directive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROHS) that states basically newly manufactured equipment can't have solder containing lead in it. California has adopted this as well.

Unfortunately, lead-free solder sucks. It requires a higher melting temperature so it is possible that the components will be come damaged through too much heat. I've also heard that lead free solder can produce "whiskers" over time which could short to other components in the circuit.

Also stay away from plumber's solder. It contains acid and will eat away at the circuit components.

If possible, always use solder with lead in it. It just works better than the lead free variety. In fact I like eutectic solder which is made of 63% tin and 37% lead and is sometimes referred to as 63/37. It has no plastic range, it is either molten or solid. It seems to work better for me than the 64/36 non-eutectic type.

tung

[Tibernius]

In the UK and the rest of Europe there is an RoHS directive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROHS) that states basically newly manufactured equipment can't have solder containing lead in it. California has adopted this as well.

Now that might be a problem. So if I built a guitar for sale, I'd have to use Lead-free solder?

[tunghaichuan]

Now that might be a problem. So if I built a guitar for sale, I'd have to use Lead-free solder?

I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that any newly manufactured gear for sale in Europe has to use lead free solder.

Can Europeans still buy leaded solder?

tung

[Duff]

I can't stress enought the need to use solder with lead in it.

You can use a regular 20 watt iron and 1.5mm solder with rosin core that you can get at Radio Shack. Almost all other places do not sell it.

Do they have Radio Shacks in your part of the world. They could probably ship it to you. Leaded solder is used in electronics the rosin core is correct for electrical circuits. The acid core will eat away at things.

The reason why the Fender Hot Rod Deluxe amps had cracked solder joints is because the dudes doing the soldering in China or wherever they make them were used to using the superior leaded solder. When they started having to use lead free solder they did not have the knowledge or skills to master the art of making a good solder joint.

Therefore, much to the consternation of HRDx owners, their pcb boards burnt out because of the heat generated at the cracked solder joint. Look at the pictures on that kid's HRDx site that is really an old site. I think the kid went on to become an engineer but his site is still up and of great value to HRDx owners.

He specifically shows the cracked solder joints, explains the problem and shows how the pcb boards are burnt out. This can cause other damage and be an expensive repair.

Fender, however, covers under the warranty resoldering all solder joints on the pcb board at no charge. The general consensus of advice was to take your HRDx in to a real good tech and have him resolder the solder joints. This will presumably greatly increase the life span of the HRDx. I did it and had a tube replaced and the reverb tank replaced. Mine is tweed with a Jensen P12N speaker.

Glad I went through the effort of getting that done and would highly recommend anyone with a HRDx to have the solder joints re soldered by a competent tech. You will be glad you did.

So, how are you going to melt lead free solder? Are you going to burn out the pots, etc., start fires or charring in your guitar? They use MAPP gas tourches around here for lead free solder. I don't know what you would use in a guitar. It is really hard to get to melt and when using it on copper pipes it commonly gets the pipe so hot that it desolders nearby and fairly distant other solder joints besides the one you are working on, causing them to leak. It burns rafters, charrs other things, and a whole host of other distasteful compliations.

Some electrical supply stores might carry leaded solder, but I doubt it. They are afraid of liability.

So, lead free soldering is an art that I have not completely mastered and I'm not good at it at all. Doing it to a guitar would be something I'd have to find out about and I'm sure you would have to buy way more expensive equipment like special irons, if they even make them, or mini MAPP gas tourches. Maybe you can find the lead free solder in real thin guages that would help in making it easier to melt, maybe.

Avoid lead free at all cost.

Duffy

I just used leaded solder about 1.5mm in diameter with my 20 watt pencil iron and it worked super great, with the use of flux of course.

[Tibernius]

Do they have Radio Shacks in your part of the world. They could probably ship it to you.


I don't think so, or at least I haven't seen one. There's plenty of places that sell the same things though.
I've seen places selling 60/40 lead solder, but it seems to be you can only use it for repairs. If you're building anything new and you're going to sell it, you have to use Lead-Free.

[dan P]

With lead free you will need a good 40 watt iron at least, bump the heat up to 780 use a little rma flux, get some solder wick and remove that crap...if you want dull, hard to manage joints use lead free, but in all reality you dont need to go through the hassel... use leaded solder and make it easy on yourself....!:rockon:

[Ch0jin]

....They use MAPP gas tourches around here for lead free solder. I don't know what you would use in a guitar. It is really hard to get to melt and when using it on copper pipes it commonly gets the pipe so hot that it desolders nearby and fairly distant other solder joints besides the one you are working on, causing them to leak. It burns rafters, charrs other things, and a whole host of other distasteful compliations....

Ah the penny drops.

I don't mean this to be insulting in ANY way, but your background with soldering is industrial (plumber/gas/fitter etc) rather than electronic right?

When I was young my father (a carpenter) taught me how to solder copper pipes and lead flash for guttering and the like. I used a huge iron powered by some compressed flammable liquid, shellite maybe, a pot of flux and huge rods of solder.

Later I wen't on to become an electronic engineer and work for maybe 15 years as a bench and field tech and for what it's worth I completely agree with you on using leaded solder with a flux core, but not so much the use of flux as a standalone product.

The only situations in component level repair where I'd even consider using flux would be in SMC jobs where you had to replace a large surface mount chip. The reason was that usually I'd use extremely thin solder with no flux core and I'd use hot air rather than a "typical" soldering iron.

Anything else I soldered in all those years copped leaded solder with a flux core using one of the three irons I had on my bench (small medium and large in terms of tip size and heat basically)

Also, in my experience, the most common causes of dry solder joints is a poorly prepared surface or incorrect heating. Sure, you can use flux on an oxidised surface to help solder stick, but (imho) you should be using a clean surface to start with. Your copper pads should be gleaming and so should your wire/component leg before you solder. As far as removal of components, it would still be very unusual of me to use flux, but I do know that de-soldering is the b*tch. Getting components out of cheap multilayered PCB's with anything short of a vacuum powered solder sucker is a huge pain. Again though thats about heat. Getting enough in to wet the solder, but not enough to fry the board or component. I mean when I was working as a tech I had a fancy vacuum solder sucker and it was STILL a PITA to remove components. (FWIW I think this is the real reason amp builders prefer the old turret board stuff)

Anyway, crazy long post to essentially say I think you'll be fine with flux cored solder for electronics. Worked OK for me day in day out.

[Duff]

The reason I like to use flux is that I am good solderer but not an engineer and don't have the technical knowledge that you have. Knowledge is a good thing.

I have often had problems when not using flux that the solder would just bead up and roll off the surface of the pot or wires or whatever without penetrating and sticking. I found flux to be the answer and I did learn as a very young child to solder with a big old iron, probably still in use, using flux and flux core solder.

Seems I learned from your post that you should sand off the top of the pot or scrape with an exacto knife on smaller tabs, etc. to get down to the clean surface of the metal, remove oil, grease, dirt, etc. and that then the flux core solder will stick with no problem. Is this correct and is rosin core electrical solder a true flux core solder that would serve this purpose? That's what I use with the flux and it works good.

I have been doing electrical soldering for over 20 years and use this same, apparantly incorrect, method to good result, every time.

I have found that adding a little flux when removing wires, etc., causes the solder to melt faster; possibly an illusion.

Why wouldn't you use flux? Is there an inherent problem? Does it cause a layer at the base of the solder pile that isn't as completely adhered to the surface being soldered to?

I will always have flux on hand for especially problematic soldering problems that I don't have the skill to get around; but I do appreciate your input and I will try cleaning the surfaces really good before soldering and try it out. Thanks.

Duffy

[Ch0jin]

Haha, I'm just an electronic engineer, that doesn't really make me a solder expert :) Just saying in my experience it was rare to use flux. I should have better contextualized my experience though now I'm thinking about it. The bulk of my experience in soldering is the small stuff. Electronic rather than electrical if that makes sense. Over the years I've repaired gadgets from AM radios to CRT Projectors, but the huge bulk of it required soldering skills pertinent to installation or removal of small components and IC's to and from PCB's. In that context, I'd never use flux except in the SMD example I used. Same with the FX pedals I've made though, never needed it.

The big fat "however" is, I really don't have a clue about soldering stuff bigger than that from a professional point of view, and anything larger that I've worked on has just worked out through judicious application of both heat and heat sinks with flux cored solder.

It's interesting to see how someone else with slightly different experience approaches a job a different way though, hence why I posted in the first place. So what sort of stuff have you been working on to develop a flux technique?

Oh to answer your questions, in the work I've done, solder rolling off things the size of pots (assuming lugs not case) and wire is a result of tarnished wire or lack of heat. If your using new wire though it sounds like heat. Being that you've been doing this for the same time as me, this is probably obvious, but the only -real- trick to soldering is balancing the heat you give to all three objects. The solder and the surfaces to be joined. If they all have similar thermal properties for example (and I'm talking a very basic level, like are these two bits of wire the same gauge, or can this component take as much heat as the wire I'm attaching, that kind of thing) then I'll position the components to be joined so I have both hands free (ideally, this is often a compromise though) quickly melt the solder on the tip (Quickly so the flux core doesn't totally burn off) and simultaneously cover both surfaces in the liquid and as the solder is whetted remove heat. If the solder doesn't take instantly, melt a small amount of extra solder into the mix (thus releasing more flux) and then remove heat. Soldering to the back of a pot, yeah I'd give it a little sand or file to make sure there wasn't a coating on it that solder didn't like. Using flux might help here if it eats away whatever the pot is coated with. Regarding removing oil and grease, not a huge deal as typically the heat of the soldering process fries that off and there is flux in the resin, but -technically- you should. I had to do a high reliability soldering course as part of my training (although most of it was way overkill, all milspec and nasa spec kinda stuff) and we wore gloves and used alcohol to clean the surfaces immediately before soldering. We used a few kinds of solder during this training but they all had flux in the core and after the joint was made we were required to remove all traces of flux so we could inspect the joint under a lens. I -think- (man this was a long time ago) flux is corrosive and thats also the reason we had to clean it off, but it might have just been for inspection purposes. Hey if it IS corrosive then there's a reason I'd avoid it, or use it super sparingly. I would not be a fan of excess hot corrosive fumes around other electronics.

Why don't I use flux? In the context of electronic work (I've used flux plenty of times by the way, just not usually on electronic scale things) I've never needed to. I mean, just thinking about it, I don't even know for sure we had flux in any of the workshops I've been in!

Oh and I always just assumed rosin core solder meant the same thing as flux core solder (like the way Americans say "Soder")

[Duff]

How do you say it? We say it like this: sod (like in grass sod) er, like in brother. We leave the "L" out. How do you say it?

Tonight I'm putting a GFS 'lil Puncher in a MIM tele that is super dear to the heart of a friend of mine, young dude recently married and bought as a gift to him by his then girlfriend. They got married. Tell me tele's aren't powerful!

Any way this is a humbucker rail going into the bridge. I might have to file some of the metal on the bridge to square it out for the GFS rail. Should I push just down with my chains saw file or should I reciprocate? I'll try some of your professional ideas.

I am aware of the differences between electrical and electronic soldering and engineering but only took engineering classes in surveying.

Learned all my electrical and electronic soldering working on motorcycles for years and guitars more recently, plus the odd electrical appliance that just needed a little soldering to put it back in excellent working condition. Things like that.

Appreciate your concern, ideas, warnings, etc. It is always to have someone that knows a lot of theory covering your back; someone that knows things the average dude never dreamed about. How about that old qoute, "Knowledge teaches us things we wish we didn't know". Sometimes true but knowledge is a good thing and wisdom goes well with it when both are combined at the same temperature without burning something out. Lol.

Duffy

I'll let you know how the Fender comes out.

Thanks for the input dude. This is what we need. I was afraid to ask about cleaning the surfaces with alcohol for fear of sounding really stupid. Soldering around alcohol. Glad to hear I can wipe off the surfaces with alcohol and let it dry. That sounds like something I will implement.

You are a good dude man. A good dude.

[Ch0jin]

Thanks Duff. I've taken a lot of info from this forum and it's a pleasure to be able to offer something back. All my GFS parts arrived earlier today (still impresses me that it only takes a couple of days to get gear from the USA to Australia) so as I get stuck into the reconstruction of my Squier I'm hoping maybe I can help someone out with the knowledge I hope to gain doing the work myself.

For example (well you know this already having used GFS PU's before) I was looking at the instructions I got with the Fat PAF and the GFS Humbuckers use Seymour Duncan wiring codes! Very cool considering the wiring codes section of the SD site is fantastic. I just entered "Stratocaster-1H 2S-5way-switch tap" and out came a full wiring diagram! I plan to use one of the tone controls as my coil tap switch so I need to alter the wiring ever so slightly, but still. Very cool. The NeoVin's don't say they comply with SD Codes, but I'll check it out when I'm at home and can lay it all out.

Oh and we pronounce the "L" so with my accent it comes out like "Smolder" without the "m" of course.

We also say "Valve" instead of "Tube", although now with the internet, the prevalence of the term "Tube" means these days the words are totally interchangeable in Aussie English. All the older guys who helped me learn valve theory (they had removed it from the curriculum when I studied) would only use the term "Valve" or colloquially "Bottle". (The guys I worked with loved it I'm sure. Every smoke break or lunch time I'd be shoving old fender and Marshall circuits under their noses going "OK so what does this do?")

[Duff]

You've got some soul dude! You don't sound arrogant at all. I bet you get that soul into your music too. I need to listen to some of your clips and learn to put in some clips of my own. I'm good enough now to do it without feeling ridiculous, just a little embarrassed maybe.

Duff

Now to look at the Fender tele. Think there will be any complications joining the GFS wiring with the Fender wiring when it comes to the blend at the middle switch position? I never thought of that. See you engineers know the theory really well, or at least know there is a theory there.

Let me know if you forsee any problem putting this twin rail GFS humbucker in the bridge and using the stock Fender neck pickup.

Thanks in advance.

I really miss that alligator man though, man. He was an awesome dude. His surviving wife is from Pennsylvania.

[Ch0jin]

I really miss that alligator man though, man. He was an awesome dude. His surviving wife is from Pennsylvania.

Oh man, I stared at that comment for like 30s before I figured out who you meant. Over here Steve was know as the "Crocodile Hunter". Also he was actually far more well known outside of Australia than in. The TV series was originally aired in the USA years before we ever saw it. I mean when Southpark did an episode about him we were all scratching our heads saying "Um who is this guy with an accent that sounds like UK mixed with Sth African who's sposed to be Australian??" A few years later they decided to air the show here too. A little over the top, but by all accounts a great guy.

Regarding the Tele, I've never re-wired a guitar so I'm not sure what kind of problems you might run into, but assuming you get your wiring diagram worked out in advance and make double sure you have all your wire colour codes correct I don't see an issue. Well except maybe if the new bridge is hotter than the stock neck. You might get a bit of a volume imbalance, but you'd know about all that already given you've done this before :) Apart from that just the basics like being very careful with the pickup wires. They seem pretty thin which means pretty fragile and not able to take much heat. If you're soldering to pots or other hardware make sure you tin the heavier item first so you can make the solder connection to the PU wire as quickly as possible and thus minimise potential damage to the PU wire insulation.

Anyway, lets us all know how it goes!

[markb]

From my last guitar wiring job I learnt this. Make absolutely sure the switch is the right way up before soldering in the wire links :thwap:

I can second Chojin's comments about the SD wiring diagram list. There's almost anything you can think of in there. For really out-there stuff you wouldn't necessarily think of try http://deaf-eddie.net/

[Ch0jin]

Brief updates.
Got the switch wired correctly but managed to reverse the middle tone pot :)

Bearing in mind I've only strung up the low E to see if i got sounds, I'm not super happy with what I've achieved so far.

The 14K Fat PAF Zebra in the bridge sounds like it's got potential. It's hot (as you'd expect from a 14K PU) and from my one string noodling I'm expecting it to be nice and raunchy. I'm using a 500K volume.

Then there's the NAL9 NeoVin's I used in the neck and middle..... They come in at 8K and 9K, but they produce -drastically- less volume. Even wound right up so close to the string it'd be unplayable (you can do that with the neovins) the output was really low. The instructions say to use a 500K pot for "vintage" tones or 1M for "Louder/Brighter". Now I'm sure a 1M is going to make my Fat PAF bridge sound like crap so...meh.

Thats where I got to last night. The standard PU's i removed were only 5K ish but I'm going to drop one in and A/B it to the neovins and see what happens as I can't deal with it the way it is. I might even drop the DiMarzio I had in the bridge in as a neck PU. It was in there when I bought the guitar but I'm thinking it's a "chopper" and a quick scan of their website reveals..

"We originally designed it as a bridge pickup to combine with The Cruiser™ and Fast Track 1™, but it’s also a good neck pickup when you’ve got a hot humbucker in the bridge position"

Couple of other things..

The Wilkinson bridge and trem assembly seems like a great bit of kit.

As I think i mentioned, the one I ripped out was a Japanese steel block unit, but the grub screws were rusted up and the more importantly the string spacing was incorrect for my neck. I've not had -all- my strings on at once, but some quick checks seem to indicate the Wilky has perfect string spacing for my neck. I've screwed the trem down hard, the claw screws almost all the way in and used 4 springs (I don't use trem, kinda obviously haha) and I think I'll need to adjust it some so my action isn't critically low (i.e. saddles at top of travel and action still too low) but thats just based on me an my ruler getting busy. Once I've sorted the 'lectrics I'll string her right up and set action/intonation etc.

The scratch plate fits better than the one that came from the factory. It's firm around the neck and bridge and looks great. Same thickness as the factory one too. Screw holes don't match but I expected that and as this is a beater I don't care about re-drilling.

Finally (for now) I had to route out a bit of the cavity to fit the new 5 way and I was horrified to discover it's got a plywood body. Kind of like getting that cute girl home and discovering we both stand up to pee.

Kinda put me off -ever- buying another Squier.

I gotta go look it up, but please tell me all these people upgrading electrics and hardware on Squiers aren't using a ply body as their base. It's like giving a corpse a boob job. I was bugging my guitar store about the CV tele's but if they are plywood then "fahgettaboutit"

[Tibernius]

I gotta go look it up, but please tell me all these people upgrading electrics and hardware on Squiers aren't using a ply body as their base. It's like giving a corpse a boob job. I was bugging my guitar store about the CV tele's but if they are plywood then "fahgettaboutit"

I think only the Bullet series are made out of plywood. I'm not sure about the old ones though.

I've used an Affinity Tele body for a partsocaster and it's definitely Alder. No way is that thing plywood.

[Ch0jin]

Thanks Tib :) This one is an '89 so -fairly- old.

A quick google of "Squier Plywood Body" reveals they seem to release them from time to time and also that there are as many people who stand by them (ply bodies) as those who do not. I also have a guitar with a solid maple body and whilst it may just be my imagination, the solid maple body feels more "alive". It's very audibly more percussive (you tap it, it vibrates) and I think it's resonance adds dramatically to the tone. I am also going to carve into my old $50 bass guitar and see what it's made of. The body is so light that the neck is actually heavier (i.e. when standing, if you let go of the fretboard, down she goes) and the body has the acoustic characteristics of a hunk of plasterboard (err I think you guys call it drywall).

Good to know I could still get a solid body at Squier pricing though cause that discovery freaked me right out :) It also makes those cheap after market bodies an even bigger temptation...

[Duff]

I'm sure you know that you can order longer saddle adjusting bolts with the hex heads. Probably get some that are laying around at a guitar shop because a lot of people don't like the longer ones digging into their palming hand. All of the threads are not the same specification I don't believe.

My '04 Affinity that I hot rodded is solid alder, supposedly, but solid something nonetheless. It sounds awesome.

On my "Black Pearl" hot rodded affinity sss strat I put a Seymour "hot rail" in the neck, actually done by some famous professionals according to the SD tech that helped me pick out individual pickups to approximate the sound I was trying to go for in my head and the variety of tones I wanted to get in a very versitile guitar. The "hot rail" is awesome in the neck and I use it for all kinds of smooth high gain stuff like blues leads, rythym chords for relaxation improvization, etc. In the middle I have the Seymour Duncan 'lil 59, another single coil size high gain humbucker that sounds super sweet and blends super well with the neck pup to produce yet another super usable tone. I have the Jeff Beck Junior, JB Jr, Seymour Duncan pup in the bridge that is very high gain and sounds really awesome, smooth, with bite, high output, all are high output, has character and is loud and has quite a range of tone on the tone knob, plus it blends super well with the 'lil 59 to produce yet another super great tone. This is a very versitile high output sss strat that is light and very well made with a super awesome flammed maple neck. I HAVE to post pics of the "Black Pearl", cost me 25 dollars.

I wouldn't care for plywood, but some people like them and Danelectro I believe makes a lot of them. My chemical background makes me turn off to things like plywood body guitars, photo finish guitar top finishes. This stuff is so fake I would be disgusted playing one during a chemistry experiment, even though I don't do chemistry experiments anymore. I still have my values.

I bought a new Squire Standard Cherry Sunburst sss and like it with the stock pups, not as high gain as my Squire Deluxe w the SD designed single coils, by far, but the "Cherry Burst" is a super awesome guitar for an inexpensive Squire, 179 US, but looks, sounds, feels, plays awesome.

I also just recently bought a Squire affinity Jazz Bass that blows my mind. It sounds awesome, is built of quality components, came set up perfectly, zero buzz, fabulous neck, nice and thin like a strat, super quality tone straight up or thru my Zoom B.1u fairly awesome bass pedal. Sustain like my Schecter Stiletto 5 Elite neck thru almost. I love that Squire affinity bass in metallic red with the stock pups. I bet some SDs would sound great in there or even GFS'es. For now it stays like it is.

All those mods to a plywood body guitar might build on me and result in me getting a used Squire with real solid wood that plays nice already and hot rodding it with the Dimarzio and the bridge pup you got. Get a hotter middle and you will have an awesome guitar that you can feel, possibly, more pride in.

The plywood could be like a "burr under my saddle", a cowboy term from the American Old West, meaning , irritating, progressively irritating, causing the horse to buck like crazy. Why not just avoid this and trade the Squire off or get a cheap good playing Squire, even an affinity like I did, they are lighter, probably just about giving them away. Mine is one of my best guitars by far and I take pride in it knowing that part of my heart and soul is in it and this might add some metaphysical mojo to the sound that is inexplicable but means a lot to me. Others, however, have played it and were TOTALLY astounded that it is an affinity. That's a nice feeling when you get good vibes from people for producing an awesome guitar from the least to be expected basic components.

Right now I'm going to put some stock Epi LP standard nickel plated HBs into my inexpensive ESP LTD EC-50 with stock open coil hbuckers in it now. This guitar sounds fabulous and is one of my least expensive but best sounding guitars with a bolt on neck but endless sustain. We will see if the Epi LP standard pups improve the sound. I bet they will improve the sound big time, like similar or the same ones did to my Schecter Omen six that sounds incredible now.

I love this modding stuff. I think I'll buy a used decent guitar and hot rod it again soon. Most of my current guitars are beautifully rigged up at this point. Played my stock pup Fender Hwy 1 fat strat last two nights with the greasebucket tone circuit and the Atomic hbucker in the bridge. It sounds awesome. I want to mod a strat copy with a hb in the neck, a single coil hb in the mid, and a hb in the bridge, for that super strat look and sound. I think that could offer some great possibilities. Maybe a JB or Power Rail GFS in the bridge and the opposite of the bridge choice in the neck with a "hot rail" SD or a 'lil Killer hot middle hbucker in the middle. That would be a probably great sounding and versitile high output super strat with some awesome tone, I'm sure. I just get these ideas off the top of my head.

Think I'll leave my Hwy 1 stock but thought about improving the pickups or some of them, but they sound incredible already. That is a nice guitar with a little bassier tone than a regular Fender strat or Squire strat. It isn't just another strat.

You might want to suddenly halt your plans and put the high quality parts you got in a little higher quality solid body guitar that has some great playability already and maybe a great price and some other outstanding characteristic to it. Why rush?

If you do and you get a burr under your saddle you can always replicate the job in a future acquisition.

Think about it.

Good luck and thanks for all of your great advice and knowledge.

Incidentally,

Concerning the Fender MIM high sentimental value tele I put a GFS 'lil Puncher bridge pup in two nights ago: the installation went great and I fixed up a jack buzz problem and touched up some solder joints.

The 'lil Puncher is silent and awesome sounding with clean and tube gain, heavy rough driven tone with extreme gain on the Palamino V8 with the gain maxed out; but, back off a slight amount on the tele's tone knob and it smooths out into some really sweet heavy distortion that sounds very rewarding.

I haven't talked to the guy yet but I think he will be impressed.

Now the neck and blended switch positions sound really noisy with high gain. I'm recommending a hbucker for the neck, full size Keith Richards type of rig.

The original bridge pup I took out is a Fender Custom Shop bridge pup. I was thinking he would give it to me but he wants fifty dollars for it. Is it worth it or should I just get a GFS rail or something for one of my tele's? It doesn't specify what custom shop bridge tele pup it is and I didn't check the impedance yet. Probably vintage level. Really poor looking soldering in the cavity. Whoever put in the new pups just clipped the wires off and soldered on the new ones, leaving nice gigantic piles of solder that looks ugly and seems to be the lead free type. Took an extreme amount of time to melt with my 20 or 15 watt pencil iron.

Bottom line: bridge GFS bucker sounds great and is silent high gain. Neck pup is unacceptably noisy, in my opinion, although you don't hear it when you are playing and the dude has a volume pedal. I think I know why he got a volume pedal. I think he will be chomping at the bit for me to put in another hb in the neck position; even if it's the neck 'lil Puncher.

Anybody have any knowledge about how the neck 'lil Puncher GFS sounds compared to a full sized HB like in the Keith Richards rig?

Input always really appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Duffy

[Ch0jin]

Just a quick one as I'm on my way out..

Replaced neck NAL9 with the DiMarzio that was originally in the bridge (found out it's a "Fast Track1").

Disabled tone circuit (for now)

Much better :)

The Fat PAF is pretty cool. I'd like to play something like a Les Paul with two of these. In the cheap ply body it sounds like a rougher version of the SD SH4 I have in another guitar. The Fasttrack sounds pretty good in the neck too. Far better than either the stock PU or the NAL9, but nowhere near as amazing as the SD1 I have in the same position in my other guitar.

[Ch0jin]

I'm sure you know that you can order longer saddle adjusting bolts with the hex heads. Probably get some that are laying around at a guitar shop because a lot of people don't like the longer ones digging into their palming hand.

I ended up floating the bridge just slightly and that gave me enough angle to set the saddles high enough to remove the excess bolt sticking up through the saddle and still give me quite a low action. All good there :)



In the middle I have the Seymour Duncan 'lil 59, another single coil size high gain humbucker that sounds super sweet and blends super well with the neck pup to produce yet another super usable tone. I have the Jeff Beck Junior, JB Jr, Seymour Duncan pup in the bridge that is very high gain and sounds really awesome, smooth, with bite, high output, all are high output, has character and is loud and has quite a range of tone on the tone knob, plus it blends super well with the 'lil 59 to produce yet another super great tone.

Oh I am -so- sold on SD pickups. My Maton has the SH1 and SH4 which I think are like the full sized '59 PAF and JB respectively and they are just amazing. The GFS Fat PAF is still totally decent though. As I mentioned, for a budget guitar that needs a set of full sized humbuckers you could do a lot worse than the GFS units. One area where the GFS Fat PAF beats even the SD SH4 is coil splitting. On my Maton, when you coil tap the SH4 it sounds weak and thin, the GFS one tapped sounds like a really hot angry single coil. Much more usable.



I HAVE to post pics of the "Black Pearl", cost me 25 dollars.
Yes you do...



I wouldn't care for plywood, but some people like them and Danelectro I believe makes a lot of them. My chemical background makes me turn off to things like plywood body guitars....


You wouldn't buy a speaker cabinet (Musical or Hi-Fi) made of ply or particle board and I'm pretty sure you'd struggle to find a classical instrument made of ply either. That'd be proof enough for me that it's tonal qualities are far from ideal even if I didn't have both a ply body and a solid body guitar at home to compare :)



All those mods to a plywood body guitar might build on me and result in me getting a used Squire with real solid wood that plays nice already and hot rodding it with the Dimarzio and the bridge pup you got. Get a hotter middle and you will have an awesome guitar that you can feel, possibly, more pride in.

Well now it's mostly done I'm happy with the improvements. The string spacing issue is fixed and there is a audible improvement with the new trem. there is a bit more of a "bell like" quality in there now. The pickup changes have really added some new character to this old guitar. The GFS Fat PAT has a much, much better clean tone than the Dimarzio it replaced too which was an unexpected bonus. I'm still undecided how it will end up being wired though as I'm tempted to cut another pick guard to have just the dimarzio up on the neck and the FatPAF in the bridge and use a single volume and a blend control. It'd sure be unique then :)



The plywood could be like a "burr under my saddle", a cowboy term from the American Old West, meaning , irritating, progressively irritating, causing the horse to buck like crazy. Why not just avoid this and trade the Squire off or get a cheap good playing Squire, even an affinity like I did, they are lighter, probably just about giving them away.


I know what you mean, but as the Squier isn't my main guitar it's OK. If I want perfection I just have to reach for my Maton :)



You might want to suddenly halt your plans and put the high quality parts you got in a little higher quality solid body guitar that has some great playability already and maybe a great price and some other outstanding characteristic to it. Why rush?


Indeed :) I think I might even buy one of those new Xaviere's. Quilted maple semi hollow with P90's...M'mmmmmm. If I don't like it I can mod that too :)



The original bridge pup I took out is a Fender Custom Shop bridge pup. I was thinking he would give it to me but he wants fifty dollars for it. Is it worth it or should I just get a GFS rail or something for one of my tele's?


Only you can decide if it's worth it. Did you get to hear it before you replaced it? You could buy a couple of GFS units for $50, but it all comes down to tone and your own personal preference.



Whoever put in the new pups just clipped the wires off and soldered on the new ones, leaving nice gigantic piles of solder that looks ugly and seems to be the lead free type. Took an extreme amount of time to melt with my 20 or 15 watt pencil iron.


Yeah the soldering and wiring for the Dimarzio in my Squier was pretty average too. I guess some guitar techs just figure "out of sight, out of mind". Especially on a less expensive guitar.



Bottom line: bridge GFS bucker sounds great and is silent high gain. Neck pup is unacceptably noisy...


Is the cavity shielded? If not that might help if you -have- to keep a single coil in it. It's cheap and easy to do too.

[Duff]

The MIM is shielded well. The wiring was not very well done, spaghettilike job.

The GFS hot rail bridge is silent and hot. The owner says he will probably never use the other pup. I have talked to several kids that tell me they only use their humbuckers on their fat strats and tele's if they have one put in; they never use the single coils and don't like the sound of single coilsh. I just don't think they know much about single coils and how they could choose the right ones and get a better sounding guitar in the end and still have the option of using the hbucker alone.

I recommended to the owner to get his pearl white pickguard routed for a full size hbucker and that the combination with the hot rail bridge pup would be awesome. Or he could get the matching calibrated neck 'lil Puncher GFS, I also suggested.

It really hisses on the neck or combined. All the grounds looked good. Maybe the neck pup is damaged somehow. Or maybe it was a set of overwound Custom Shop single coils and that explains the loud hiss.

Anyway, I have not heard back from him as to how he likes how it turned out.

I'll let you know.

My Epi LP standard nickel plated pups got installed in my ESP LTD EC-50 last night and the difference is unbelievable. I'm playing the EC50 tonight and played it last night. It chimes and growls, but is also smooth like silk and clean as a bell. The tone master control knob has way more sensitivity and produces a full range of tone unlike with the stock ESP low end HB's. The job went great and it's an antique burst with chrome hardware and the nickel plated humbuckers look great in there compared to the black open coils that were stock. I really feel good about this job. I loved the guitar before I did it and was reluctant to mess with a good thing, but you should always start with a good guitar when you try to mod it anyway, I believe. In this case it rewarded me with a lot of pleasure.

Sounds like your plywoody came out great. It might just grow on you and I'm sure you take pride in it. One of those stacked middle pups might sound great in there and give you great 2 and 4 switch position sounds. Are they useable now? Maybe the stock one in the middle will allow for some awesome sounds.

You might end up being proud of that plywoody someday. It will probably blow a few minds the way you have it already.

What do you think about the ESP LTD EC-50 having a 500K tone pot? Sounds super great. Schecter seems to get underrated. Even this bottom of the line LP style one sounded great before it sounded greater.

Peace,

Duffy

[Ch0jin]

What do you think about the ESP LTD EC-50 having a 500K tone pot? Sounds super great.

Duffy

Well before I spent the last week researching guitar electronics for my project I'd have thought a 500K tone pot to be unusual as your "typical" tone pot is 250K from what I've read. However I have read of many cases where a hot pickup, particularly humbuckers, are used with a 500K tone control.

At the end of the day using a larger value tone pot is going to effect the sound as you vary the tone control. The larger resistance means less load on the pickup and altered frequency response of the RC network. Whether the altered tone is better or worse if of course subjective and extremely dependent on both the choice of pickup and tone cap.

I tend to run all my controls wide open so I don't really have much experience with what kind of tone control setup is best for what though. I'll be doing some more tweaking on the Squier though and I'll keep ya posted.

This weekend though I want to finish my tubescreamer clone and treble booster pedals and of course enjoy my Maton, having been deprived of it for 2 weeks while it had it's 6 month checkup and setup. There's also a sale at my local music store and I feel either a Champion600 or Valve Jr in my future :) (assuming I don't buy the super cool Epiphone Firebird they have there. Limited Edition all white. All cool :)

[Duff]

Don't forget to check out the Fender Super Champ XD. 299 US. Super great little tube amp with a digital modelling circuit and effects. Models like 11 Fender amps and the obligatory Marshall, Vox, etc. Tube preamp and power tube. Definitely worth checking out.

Duffy