Right.......I did this myself and I'd just like to state that I'm no guitar technician, rather a very happy amateur who enjoys ripping the guts out of his guitars and sticking them back together. Therefore some of you pros out there might like to take issue at my technique for doing this, but I'd just like to say that there are no hard and fast rules about doing this, and if a complete amateur can do it then any of you can.
Firstly........the guitar.
This is a brand new Washburn HB35 in Cherry Red that I picked up only recently from Rich Tone Music. It's a well made guitar with a solid maple top with a flame maple laminate on top to make it pretty! Acoustically it's really got fabulous tone, It looks the absolute business with the fancy split inlays, and the custom binding, but it's when you plug the thing in that everything goes downhil rapidly. For some reason the guys and gals at Washburn decided to stick cheapie electrics into this thing.....probably to save money after blowing the budget on good wood, good tuners (Grovers), and good construction. Ceramic high output humbuckers are not the things for a 335!......at least not in my eyes.
Step 1Take the plastic top hats off the pots, and then place a piece of cardboard over them. Push the pot shafts throught the cardboard until they poke though. This will then give you the exact positions of the holes in the guitars top. Now gut the whole guitar! :twisted:
Any holes that need to be enlarged (typical far eastern pots are the mini versions and have skinnier shafts than the better CTS versions) can now be done. I used a dremel type of drill with a cutting bur in it to gently enlarge the holes gradually until the new pot shafts were a snug fit.
Step 2Pre-wire your pots and capacitors prior to going anywhere near the guitar. Push the new pots through the cardboard as if they were being pushed through the body of the guitar. You can now wire into place the capacitors, the earth wires, and the pot tags that are earthed to the pot body. Cut off the small metal protuberance on the top of the pot (the side that will be flush against the wood of the guitar) so that they don't get in the way.
Step 3Pre-wire the switch. I always use Switchcraft originals as they're so damn reliable.....the choice however is yours. Apparently Gibson original 335's use the standard straight switch as used in Les Pauls, but as the Washburn is a bit different to the Gibson, in-so-far as the switch is on the upper horn of the guitar in the Les Paul type of position, I decided to go with a right angled switch. I didn't feel like finding out there wasn't enough space up there for the straight switch!
Step 4Remove the old humbuckers from the rings and replace with whatever your chosen weapons are to be (Bareknuckle products of course!
)
Step 5Wrap a piece of soft wire around the tip of the switch. I had specialist wire, but soft wire you can buy in any garden centre for tieing up plants will do just as well. If you make the mistake (as you can see here) of tieing the wire below the switch tip you'll find that when you come to pull the switch through the body the switch tip will hinder things as the position of the wire will act like a pivot. Remove the switch tip and wrap the wire around the exposed threads as close to the end as you can manage.
Step 6Take your wires from the switch and run them through the cavities in the body (those are your 2 wires to the pots and your final wire to the jack.......I measured the length of wire I needed and pre-wired my jack plug too!
Give yourself enough length of soft wire so that you're not going to run out, turn the end up slightly, and then slide the wire in through the F-Hole (this would be the same in a normal 335 with traditional switch placement). The upturn in the end should then hopefully find the hole in the body for the switch without too many problems as long as you're not the kind of person with an aim to scare an entire pub if you play darts!
Once the wire is though the hole pull it through and if you've wrapped it well enough around the end of the switch tip the switch will follow it through.
Here is where muggins found the first umplanned issue! Washburn use a maple top with a laminated flame maple veneer, so it's actually a bit thicker than the Gibson original. Switchcraft switches don't have a huge amount of thread on them! The damn switch hardly had enough thread to stick through the top, let alone screw the nut onto it! As you can't strip away wood behind the top on a 335 (as I have done when converting cheap Les Pauls to take switchcraft switches), this meant careful but drastic carving of the top! :?
After drawing around the washer of the switch I VERY carefully trimmed out the necessary wood with a very fine bur in my drill. The bare wood was then refinished (Cough :roll: ) with my wifes best bright red nail varnish which concealed the operation quite nicely!
The switch was then pulled though as described above, and the washer and nut applied and tightened up so that the switch was firmly in place.
Step 7Taking the wire off the top of switch tip I then found that the spiral effect of the soft wire was a good match for the inside of the jack socket. Now Wez and others have informed me prior to this undertaking that an old jack plug is an ideal tool for this, but I didn't have one so this did instead! Once pushed inside the jack socket I then made a number of attempts at what is probably the most long distance aim you'll have to make with the wire threading agent! It took me a couple of attempts, but if you have some good lighting and you look closely through the hole in the bodywork for the jack you should be able to see where you're aiming the wire. Now again this is easier on a standard Gibson 335 as the jack socket is in the top not far from the controls......again Washburn choose to be different and far more awkward! Pull the wire gently through the hole and the jack socket will follow like an obedient little dog. Just make sure you have your washer and nut ready to slide down the wire and thread onto the jack. Tighten with a spanner and the Jack is in.
Step 8Place your humbuckers into the guitar. Run the wires through and out the bottom F-Hole. Hold the pickup surrounds in place with only 2 screws at this time in case you have to come back.
Step 9Take your pre-wired pots for the neck volume and tone. Wrap a piece of wire around the shafts of both pots. Now with a cloth over the guitar to protect it in case you're not that steady solder the switch wire and humbucker wire to the volume pot. I marked which wire was which for the switch with a yellow wax pencil before placing in the guitar, but chalk or even a good black marker would work just as well. You want to avoid any c--k-ups with this as you really don't want to have to undo it all to correct a mistake. (spot the man who once wired a Les Paul switch upside down!......that confused people :roll: )
Step 10Take your guitar complete with its pots now attached but hanging out of the guitar to your amp. By running a screwdriver over the exposed screw polepieces you should be able to verify now that all your electrics are working. If you have a problem now it's easy enough to check your solder joints, and re-verify against whatever schematic you're using. Saves a lot of swearing later once you've got everything in!
Step 11Push first your bridge tone pot through the F-Hole, then use the soft wire attached to the shaft to find the access hole for the pot. Then push the whole pot further into the body of the guitar so that the capacitor and then the volume pot follows. Find the volume pots access hole with its connected bit of soft wire. Push the volume pot fully into the guitar.
Step 12Pull on both soft wires which should now be sticking though the holes in the top of the guitar and the pots should follow though. Slide washers and nuts down the wires and tighten the pots in place.
Step 13Repeat steps 11 and 12 for the neck volume and tone. The only difference being that I chose to solder my bridge earth onto the bridge tone and volume assembly as it was closer.
Step 14Turn on your amp, plug the guitar in and then tap your humbucker polepieces again with a screwdriver. This should make sure that everything is still working properly before you go about the laborious task of fitting the finishing hardware, and adding strings. If you don't have any problems screw in the pickup surrounds properly, add knobs to your pots, replace the bridge and stoptail, and re-string
Step 15 Enjoy.........Lots..........with a smug sense of self satisfaction.......
Step 16Treat yourself to a nice dram of something from the drinks cabinet. If you have nothing I'm sure the posters on the 'Macallan' thread in Time Out will be sure to reccomend something!
