Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Tech => Topic started by: CJ on April 07, 2007, 10:57:37 PM
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how easy is it to take out my old pickup and install a new one? i'd have my dad help me. he has a soldering iron thats adjustable up to i think 50 watts. i've never even taken the pickguard off of my V before, so i'm not sure what i'm getting myself into...
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very easy (only fags dont do it themselves and people with to much money every good player should know there guitar) loads of info on here too :wink:
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There is a step by step instructional on Gibson's website on How to change your pick ups.
I swapped mine out in my Les Paul with my bro there for back up. He has more experience with a soldering iron.
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is there a possibility that i could break something or mess something up?
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no not really just go slow and follow some wiring instructions and you'll be fine....
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very easy (only fags dont do it themselves and people with to much money every good player should know there guitar) loads of info on here too :wink:
Hmmm...
That's why the guy who changed the pickups on my SG managed to drop solder on it and make a small crater in the front. To be fair, he didn't charge me, and he put a nice pic of Belldandy on (to cover it) (he also put extra vol and tone pots in) for £50...
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he didn't charge you at the special rate of £50? i wish i could do things for free like that! "special free offer! only £100!"
i'm cranky this morning, hangover. anyway, the soldering isn't too difficult, it's the panic that you're gonna do it wrong and the twisted brain from trying to work out which wire goes where that's the bugger... oh, and the sizzling noise when you accidentally put the hot iron against your thumb!
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he didn't charge you at the special rate of £50? i wish i could do things for free like that! "special free offer! only £100!"
i'm cranky this morning, hangover. anyway, the soldering isn't too difficult, it's the panic that you're gonna do it wrong and the twisted brain from trying to work out which wire goes where that's the bugger... oh, and the sizzling noise when you accidentally put the hot iron against your thumb!
He didn't charge me for putting the pickups in. He charged me for (fitting) the two extra pots (and 4 new knobs) and the painting. Since he would have charged £20 for changing the pickups... I'll let you decide whether that was £20 for changing the pickups and £30 for the other things, or whether changing the pickups was free and the other things cost £50...
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The guy who changed you pickups sounds like a real amateur!
Even i can do it right :lol:
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no not really just go slow and follow some wiring instructions and you'll be fine....
It is easy but i get a lot of people coming to me because they have tried it and gone wrong somewhere with no clue what to do.
First of all you need to know how to solder - make sure you at least read an online tutorial!
http://www.kingbass.com/soldering101.html
Secondly you need to understand the wiring diagrams - spend alittle bit of time getting to know your pickup, what each wire does and where it will go in the diagram- standard electronics diagrams do not always have every wire drawn on .
Also remember that the wire colours on your current pickup will probably not match the new BKP's so dont just swap a red wire for a red wire - there is no manufacturing standard for this.
If you dont fully understand the wiring diagram and what you are doing before you start then ask a question here!
once you have doen a little reading it really is an easy process!
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The guy who changed you pickups sounds like a real amateur!
Even i can do it right :lol:
That's the weird thing. He does all the guitar repairs for the local music shop.
Me, I've got CSE Metalwork. :)
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A few years ago i took one of the guitars i had made to my local guitar shop, they liked it a lot . . . so much that they offered me repair work, even though they had never seen any repairs i had performed.
I turned them down because i didnt have enough experience at that time to be confident repairing other peoples guitars, although i was doing all of my mates guitar repairs and setups at the time and had built quite a few guitars
It enlightened me to the fact that you shouldnt always trust a repairman just because the guitarshop gives them work. No qualifications necisarry to start calling yourself a luthier/guitar repairman.
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Experience builds confidence and hopefully competence.
I have been doing repairs for 20 years now and I still read as much as I can on the subject, I never assume I know it all
Sorry to hear about bad experiences with techs
Everybody can have a bad day when doing work, but some folks can be plain careless or clumsy.
A bad experience can be a one off (as in he guy was having a bad day) but but if you hear a few bad reports or if the shop or tech has an attitude too then I would steer clear
As far as doing it yourself goes:
Read as much as you can on soldering.
There is a knack to it and also some important techniques.
Some lesser known facts
Remember that solder flows towards heat so applying enough heat into the component is important but not too much heat as you can damage electronic parts.
Don't try to cool the solder too quickly as you only end up with a "dry joint"
Lead free solder is rubbish and hard to work with (no matter what the ROHS ruling says)
Hot solder splashes on the skin (or worse the eyes) bloody hurts and solder can spit when heat is applied. Think about protection!
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Also before you go straight in apply some solder to the tip of the iron so that it has a shiny silver colour on the tip, it's called 'tinning up the iron' well that's what my electronics teacher told me. It makes it a lot easier to de-solder the joint already there as there is already solder applied to the tip of the iron.
It also melts the solder much easier and quicker.
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well my dad is fairly good at soldering, so i'll get him to do that. i'm sure i could figure out the wiring if i look at some diagrams. but how exactly do i take out my old pickups?
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Melt the solder and pull the wires off?
Unscrew the pickups and extract....
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Melt the solder and pull the wires off?
Unscrew the pickups and extract....
ok. i'm not the experienced solderer so i wasn't sure if i just cut the old wires off or what. melting the solder off makes more sense though... And where are my pickups screwed in exactly? i guess i'll see when i take off the pickguard?
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when you take off the pick guard, you unscrew the pickups at the same time, because the screws go through the pick guard
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when you take off the pick guard, you unscrew the pickups at the same time, because the screws go through the pick guard
oh those are the only screws holding them in?
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oh, and is it possible for me to take a cover off of my other pickup, or will that ruin it? I heard it takes out the wax potting if you take the cover off, which i'm sure is true...
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oh, and is it possible for me to take a cover off of my other pickup, or will that ruin it? I heard it takes out the wax potting if you take the cover off, which i'm sure is true...
depends on the pickups, single coils have plastic covers that come straight off.
Humbuckers have metal covers that are soldered to the pickup base plate and its easier to damage a pickup when removing these.
It doesnt exactly take out the wax potting when you remove a cover, but removing a cover is easier if you melt out the wax potting first - but thats not an easy task to get right
You have to be very carefull because too much heat will destroy the windings on the pickup
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oh, and is it possible for me to take a cover off of my other pickup, or will that ruin it? I heard it takes out the wax potting if you take the cover off, which i'm sure is true...
depends on the pickups, single coils have plastic covers that come straight off.
Humbuckers have metal covers that are soldered to the pickup base plate and its easier to damage a pickup when removing these.
It doesnt exactly take out the wax potting when you remove a cover, but removing a cover is easier if you melt out the wax potting first - but thats not an easy task to get right
You have to be very carefull because too much heat will destroy the windings on the pickup
hmm... sounds tricky. i guess i'll cross that bridge when i get to it.
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mine will probably be a bit tricky since, as far as i know, my guitar was wired wrong when i got it. For example, one of my knobs may act as a volume knob when i have my selector switch in bridge position, but then when i change it to neck position that volume knob now acts as a tone knob.
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OK - a quick bit of common sense and straight talking here
Sounds like there are a few ISSUES to get straightened out before diving in and taking covers off this pickup and doing stuff.
1) are the volume and tone controls actually working correctly?
I'll assume 2 x volume and 1 x tone as you said it was a V
A mis-wired tone control will aacyt as a bad volume control
2) if they are definately not wired up correctly - make this your first step
Forget all the modifying the look etc - get the basic elecs working right
3) if in doubt take it to a tech or someone that can at least give you straight advice without robbing you for the benefit of their experience
4) Alternatively there are plenty of wiring diagrams for v and explorer guitars online- get the wiring checked first
No need for a new thread, or further discussing the pros and cons of stuff until you have the basic functions of the guitar working right.
Make it a priority and then start enjoying your guitar
THEN - consider what tweaks and modifications you want to make
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actually i remember someone telling me that the way i described was normal for a V. Either way, i'm not all into re-wiring it correctly. I actually like how it is, and i don't see a real need to fix it. It works fine. But, i'm wondering if it'll mess me up for putting in the new pickup. Couldn't i just wire the new pickup exactly how the old pickup was in?
And the reason i need to know how to take off a pickup cover... i might be buying MDV's miracle man which has a black cover on it. My current pickups are chrome. I don't think a black pickup and a chrome pickup would match well. Also, off topic, but his pickup his 52mm spacing and i need 50mm spacing but he says it won't make a difference. is this true?
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actually i remember someone telling me that the way i described was normal for a V.
Not the way you described it it doesnt sound right
Two independant volumes and a master tone is what a V should have
the volume for one pickup will only affect the other pickup in the middle switch position when it will affect the amount of signal from that first pickup or will shut everything off if turned right down to zero
But, i'm wondering if it'll mess me up for putting in the new pickup. Couldn't i just wire the new pickup exactly how the old pickup was in?
I accept what you say about MDV's pickup, but for the exact reason you said i would want to know that my wiring was working ok if I was in your shoes.
Also maybe your V isn't incorrectly wired - as you also surmised
But you have run a couple of threads saying that it might be
So I was only suggesting you find out for sure
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actually i remember someone telling me that the way i described was normal for a V.
Not the way you described it it doesnt sound right
Two independant volumes and a master tone is what a V should have
the volume for one pickup will only affect the other pickup in the middle switch position when it will affect the amount of signal from that first pickup or will shut everything off if turned right down to zero
But, i'm wondering if it'll mess me up for putting in the new pickup. Couldn't i just wire the new pickup exactly how the old pickup was in?
I accept what you say about MDV's pickup, but for the exact reason you said i would want to know that my wiring was working ok if I was in your shoes.
Also maybe your V isn't incorrectly wired - as you also surmised
But you have run a couple of threads saying that it might be
So I was only suggesting you find out for sure
Well once i get my amp back from the shop i'll see what each knob does on each channel or whattever. I'm thinking it may have been wired like this on purpose for some reason because normally the V's have chrome inserts in the knobs saying volume or tone. But mine does not have any inserts... Or maybe they did that because they screwed up? I don't know, i remember talking to a gibson tech a while back and he said it was normal, but maybe i described it to him wrong...
Well how do i figure out if it is wired wrong? just look at a wiring diagram and opening up my guitar? where can i find a diagram for this guitar?
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Well how do i figure out if it is wired wrong? just look at a wiring diagram and opening up my guitar? where can i find a diagram for this guitar?
Ignore the Duncan colour-coding, but here's your basic 2 humbuckers, 2 volumes, 1 tone, 3-way switch wiring:
http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/schematics/2h_2v_1t_3w.html
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Well how do i figure out if it is wired wrong? just look at a wiring diagram and opening up my guitar? where can i find a diagram for this guitar?
Ignore the Duncan colour-coding, but here's your basic 2 humbuckers, 2 volumes, 1 tone, 3-way switch wiring:
http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/schematics/2h_2v_1t_3w.html
thanks for that, but damn thats confusing for someone whos never seen the inside of a guitar before. Could i also just use that diagram when i'm acutally just putting in my pickup?
Either way, i'll print this out and see how it matches up to my guitar.
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thanks for that, but damn thats confusing for someone whos never seen the inside of a guitar before. Could i also just use that diagram when i'm acutally just putting in my pickup?
Well, the Duncan diagrams are about as clear as you'll find, at least they look like the actual parts rather than using symbols. And to be honest guitar wiring doesn't get much simpler than that, unless it's a one-pickup guitar.
There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to use the diagram as a guide when replacing your pickup. Bear in mind on your V the physical layout of the controls will be slightly different, but the connections should be the same or very similar. Just take your time and follow all the wires to see where they connect, try to understand how it all works.
The good thing with a V, if it's a 60s/70s style wth a scratchplate, is that you can take the plate and pickups off as one piece and put the guitar itself safely away from solder splashes!
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well since my LP was right here i took out the backplate of that. i see how although there were 4 pots on my LP, it was basically the same thing. that and since my LP has coil splitters, there were twice as many wires if i'm not mistaken...
the thing is though, on the LP, i had access to the bottom of everything and thats how everything was connected. But on my V, i'll be going in through the top. Will that make it harder?
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no - not at all - because once you take the scratchplate off with all the stuff still attached to it and flip it over so you are looking at the back, it will look just like the diagram
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no - not at all - because once you take the scratchplate off with all the stuff still attached to it and flip it over so you are looking at the back, it will look just like the diagram
really, so everythings just connected to the pickguard? i figured everything was connected to the main body and the pickguard just hided everything. well, i guess the pickups would still be routed into the body...
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which model v do you have ?
All electronics usually fitted to plate n a V
If its a 1958 style then pickups are mounted separately in mounting rings
Later 67 style have it all on a plate
Early 1980s style dont have a pickguard at all
Interesting site here:
http://www.flying-v.ch/
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i'm not sure what style i have. its a 2005 v factor faded. any clue what style it is?
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The Faded is basically a '67 style - so everything's attached to the scratchplate.
If you unscrew it you'll find (probably!) that there's just one wire holding it to the guitar, connecting the tailpiece to the back of one of the pots.
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In relation to the topic title:
You can do it too with Kandoo!
Couldn't resist.
Continue.
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ok still a couple questions refferring to the seymour duncan diagram...
whats with the red wires that go no where?
that random wire coming out of no where saying ground wire coming from bridge... what does that mean?
am i correct in that i do not have to worry about the volume pot when replacing my pickup?
it seems that all i have to do is solder one wire to the base of the bridge tone pot i guess, and one wire to one of those 3 little things coming out of the pot.
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whats with the red wires that go no where?
On 4 conductor wire pickups you will still solder connect two of the wires together and insulate them as shown if you are not going to coil tap etc
With Duncan it is the RED and WHITE
With BKP it is GREEN and WHITE
that random wire coming out of no where saying ground wire coming from bridge... what does that mean?
That is the Earth wire that Philly mentioned- you will see it when you take the pickguard off , and it needs to stay there- so if you have to unsolder it to get at stuff remember to resolder it back on
am i correct in that i do not have to worry about the volume pot when replacing my pickup?
it seems that all i have to do is solder one wire to the base of the bridge tone pot i guess, and one wire to one of those 3 little things coming out of the pot.
You will notice from the Duncan drawing that you will attach the Bare screening wire and the Green wire which will be the BLACK one from your BKP to the back of the Volume pot
The "hot" wire or output wire (Duncan uses Black but BKP uses RED) goes to the tag on the volume pot for that pickup
So you will have 2 volume contols and one tone as per the picture
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Beat me to it, Jonathan! I was just typing out almost the exact same reply. :lol:
that random wire coming out of no where saying ground wire coming from bridge... what does that mean?
That wire's important, it connects the bridge - and the strings - to ground. Have you noticed when you sit in front of the TV or a computer monitor the guitar hums a little, but it goes away when you touch the strings? That's your body completing the grounding circuit!
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whats with the red wires that go no where?
On 4 conductor wire pickups you will still solder connect two of the wires together and insulate them as shown if you are not going to coil tap etc
With Duncan it is the RED and WHITE
With BKP it is GREEN and WHITE
that random wire coming out of no where saying ground wire coming from bridge... what does that mean?
That is the Earth wire that Philly mentioned- you will see it when you take the pickguard off , and it needs to stay there- so if you have to unsolder it to get at stuff remember to resolder it back on
am i correct in that i do not have to worry about the volume pot when replacing my pickup?
it seems that all i have to do is solder one wire to the base of the bridge tone pot i guess, and one wire to one of those 3 little things coming out of the pot.
You will notice from the Duncan drawing that you will attach the Bare screening wire and the Green wire which will be the BLACK one from your BKP to the back of the Volume pot
The "hot" wire or output wire (Duncan uses Black but BKP uses RED) goes to the tag on the volume pot for that pickup
So you will have 2 volume contols and one tone as per the picture
ah, sorry, it was actually the tone pot that i was talking about. It appears that none of the pickup wires go directly to it, but it is merely connected by the thinner filament wire and the pickup switch?
and as for the random bridge wire, i understand what you are talking about, but where exactly is it coming from. I see on one end it's connected to the master tone, but where is the other end connected to?
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It should go through the body to the bridge, on guitars with trems it goes to the trem claw
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It should go through the body to the bridge, on guitars with trems it goes to the trem claw
in that case since everything will be coming out with my pickguard, i'm guessing this wire will be attached to the bridge posts or something? And in that case i guess i'll have to melt it off before taking the pickguard all the way out? Or if not in that case, any other wires that will be attached to the body?
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in that case since everything will be coming out with my pickguard, i'm guessing this wire will be attached to the bridge posts or something? And in that case i guess i'll have to melt it off before taking the pickguard all the way out? Or if not in that case, any other wires that will be attached to the body?
As I said further up the page, "If you unscrew [the scratchplate] you'll find (probably!) that there's just one wire holding it to the guitar, connecting the tailpiece to the back of one of the pots."
You'll see the wire coming into the control cavity, from a small hole near the bridge or tailpiece. The body end of the wire's held in place by the metal bushing that the bridge/tailpiece post screws into - leave that end in place, don't try to disconnect it.
All you need to do is unsolder the end of the wire that's connected to a volume or tone pot, then you can take off the whole scratchplate and away you go.
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All will become instantly clear once you try to remove the scratchplate.
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All will become instantly clear once you try to remove the scratchplate.
yeah i'm sure it will. what philly said was important though. that one wire might've gotten me all confused and ish.
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so i got the pickup, it was a braided two conductor. It looks like one wire, braided together. do i need to strip it down a little to get the second wire?
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Unravel the braiding for about an inch rather than cutting it away. there will be the lead wire in the middle and the braid can be twisted back together
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looks like i did mine slightly wrong, but it works fine, so should be alright. Otherwise i'll fix it.
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then which wire goes where
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The braid goes to the back of the volume control, the wire goes to the left-hand tag on the same pot.
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nice, so all i have to do is unsolder that thin wire that will be attaching my pickguard to my guitar when i go to take out the pickguard. then i unsolder any wires attached to my bridge pickup, and then most likely just solder the new wires where the old ones were? or where you said philly? nothing else?
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Exactly what you said.
The old pickup (if it's the original Gibson 500T) will almost certainly have the same type of braided 2-conductor wire as the new one.
So it should just be a matter of removing the old pickup and putting the new one in exactly the same way.
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ok i just took out my pickguard and i see how clear everything is now. I'm guessing i don't need to unsolder the ground wire from bridge if i don't need to, correct? my soldering iron is adjustable up to 50 watts i think. what should i set it on?
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well damn i was just about to start unsoldering when i noticed that i think my original guess was right- my original wiring is all wrong. It doesn't even come close to matching up with that diagram. i'll take a pic in a second if someone could look.
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triple post. :oops:
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well, you can't really see this picture, but you should be able to see how its wrong. First of all, unless that duncan pickup wiring diagram was wrong, two of the braided cables shouldn't have gone to the same pot. the one with the red wire coming out of it and going up is the bridge pickup, and i thought that was supposed to go right to the volume pot tag. the lower left of the screen would be where the input jack is, so you know what you're looking at. the wire that comes from the left, and then loops under is the bridge wire. this is the wire that ends up going up to the other pot.
bottom line: gibson sucks and i'm taking this to the shop. I hope they don't charge extra for having to rewire...
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It's very hard to tell from the pic, but does that long red wire connect (a) to the black wire from the bridge pickup and (b) to the first tag on the second volume control? That should work OK. It's not wrong to solder both braids to the same pot, they just need to be soldered to ground "somewhere", but it's an untidy way of doing it.
There should then be a (brown?) wire from the middle tag of each volume control to the outer tags on the switch. The middle two tags on the switch should be joined together and wired to the third tag on the tone control.
Is the wire from the bridge connected to the back of a pot? If it is, that's OK too.
What I'm wondering is, what the hell is that red stuff on the back of the second volume pot?
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It's very hard to tell from the pic, but does that long red wire connect (a) to the black wire from the bridge pickup and (b) to the first tag on the second volume control? That should work OK. It's not wrong to solder both braids to the same pot, they just need to be soldered to ground "somewhere", but it's an untidy way of doing it.
There should then be a (brown?) wire from the middle tag of each volume control to the outer tags on the switch. The middle two tags on the switch should be joined together and wired to the third tag on the tone control.
Is the wire from the bridge connected to the back of a pot? If it is, that's OK too.
What I'm wondering is, what the hell is that red stuff on the back of the second volume pot?
yeah sorry about the bad pic, i just wanted to take one real quick. anyway, yeah that long red wire goes to i think the tag on the upper pot in the picture. The red stuff is a piece of tape, which i'm not sure why its there. There was also some black tape holding stuff together. I don't know what the hell was going on.
Anyway, my dad left for a business trip so i don't have any help. I just took it down to the shop down the street, i don't feel like messing with it, its not worth it. The guy said he'd put in the new pickup exactly the same as the old one was in, he didn't want to rewire it. I told him that was fine since i wasn't really having a problem before. He said that someone had been in my guitar and gibson definitely wouldn't have done that. i'm not so sure these days. Anyway, he said it'd only cost about $20-30 bucks and he'd have it done by the end of today or tomorrow.
Oh, and i asked him about the pickup covers, he popped them right off. Apparently they weren't soldered on.
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there always seems to be something holding all of the wires together, i think thats just for neatness.
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Oh, and i asked him about the pickup covers, he popped them right off. Apparently they weren't soldered on.
Eek! :o I guess they weren't original! Which makes sense, the Faded Vs don't usually have covers.
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Oh, and i asked him about the pickup covers, he popped them right off. Apparently they weren't soldered on.
Eek! :o I guess they weren't original! Which makes sense, the Faded Vs don't usually have covers.
i thought i said i put them on? What happend was i threw them on there, and then all of a sudden my guitar kept shocking me. So i took it into guitar center and they charged me like 70 bucks so i figured they put them on there right. I'm wondering if it was they who screwed up my wiring.
oh, this was all a while ago when i had no clue about anything.
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eh... i think the guy put it in wrong. the poles that look like screws (not the flat ones) should be nearest the bridge right? cuz they're facing the middle of the guitar.
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Well it's not wrong to have it the other way round, but conventionally the screw poles would be nearest the bridge. It's a strange decision for him to make.
If the cable's long enough, you could just take the guitar apart again and turn the pickup round, without disconnecting it. Wait until you need to change strings, I guess...
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he never actually put the guitar together. i kept all the pickguard screws and everything so he wouldn't charge me extra. i just switched the pickup around, but there was so much wire that i had to shove some in the cavity with the pots. will it cause problems if that wire is touching the pots and/or other wires?
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It doesn't matter if the braided cable touches ground points like the backs of pots, but you don't want it to contact the "hot" points where the pickup wires are connected to the tags on the pots and/or switch.
See if you can loop the cable so the excess length is sitting in the cavity under the pickup, away from the controls. And it wouldn't do any harm to tape it in place.
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ok, its fine if its touching the bottom of the pickup right?
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Yep, no problem if it touches the pickup baseplate - in fact that's where the pickup end of the braid is soldered to.
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oh yeah, and i got some strange buzzing on the bridge on the high e now. any ideas? the string is rattling between the bridge and the tailpiece. it looks like the string is touching the bridge, but i don't see how it couldn't. nothings different then it was before
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Only on the high E? And is it there when the guitar's unplugged, or is it an electrical buzzing?
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Only on the high E? And is it there when the guitar's unplugged, or is it an electrical buzzing?
unplugged, check my edited post. i've only put the high e and the low e strings on right now because i'm trying to figure out why its buzzing. it looks like it could be fixed if i moved that little thing on the bridge back (that adjusts the intonation), but, it would do exactly that, and mess up my intonation.
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The two E strings often touch the back of the bridge because those two saddles are lower to accommodate the fretboard radius, but I've never seen it cause a rattle. Maybe the tailpiece is a little too high (or low), so the high E is only just touching?
I wouldn't move the saddle (assuming the intonation is OK). You could try the Zakk Wylde approach of loading the strings from the front of the tailpiece then wrapping them over the top. That way the E strings won't touch the back of the bridge and (apparently) string bending is a little easier. It'll scratch up the tailpiece though.
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i think it did get a little high and was maybe just barely touching. i fooled around with it a bit, not sure what i did, but its fine now.