Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Wiring

 
     The next step and probably the most complicated is fully wiring the pickups, toggle switch, 2 volume pots, 2 tone pots, and the input jack. I have never dealt with any kind of free hand soldering of wires before so I spent days practicing and reading about different types of solder, the soldering iron, cleaning sponge, methods of soldering, and what not to do. I took this extra time to make sure I was descent at it because these parts were EXPENSIVE and I only had one shot to do it right. If I spent too much time on the wire then the part would burn up. On the other hand if I spent too little time on it, it would not be properly bonded. Just to give you an idea the pickups were $200 so it wasn't like I could just buy replacements.
     Again I used the trustworthy Stew Mac website to order a video that gave detailed steps on how to wire a Les Paul guitar. I'm not going to go into the details about how to wire it because it’s just too technical to explain each and every step. But I will say that in the picture you are looking at the back of the volume and tone knobs called Pots. These pots are what everything is wired to and then have a black connecting wire that runs to all the pots and to the input jack.

2 comments:

  1. I really like how you take it upon yourself to make or modify your own guitars. I really like fixing things as well as guitars. To tell you the truth, though, I have never thought about doing things like this. Maybe I'll start!

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  2. I read a few of your previous posts and I think its really cool how you are attempting to built you're own electric guitar from scratch and are doing a great job at it. I feel like this is a task that really takes skill, patience, and knowledge of guitars. If I was ever to start an activity like this I'd probably fail on the first step.

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