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Hi all,
I am looking at purchasing the LPA-1 guitar kit and am just wondering about the quality of the wiring harness. I've been looking at the "Gibson/Epiphone Les Paul LP 50's Guitar Wiring Harness K40Y-9 .022uf Cap CTS 500K" harness supplied by South Coast Sound Custom Shop in Mogo, NSW, and wonder if it would be a good addition to the stock kit?
Additionally I would need to know if the kit requires long or short shaft pots?
Thoughts?
Regards,
Rod.
Hi Rod, and welcome to our forum.
An upgrade containing high quality caps and pots is going to potentially enhance the quality of the kit you build, however, you might be surprised with the quality of the kit itself and then feel you could have saved your money. We usually recommend to our first time clients that if there is nothing specific that you want to include in your build, such as some high end pickups or a Clapton mid-boost unit, or specialised switches that you first finish your build and then decide on what you really need.
Gav
Welcome Rod, some good advice from Gav there. Having said that, we all love to modify and upgrade. Dont forget a build diary as well!
Rod - wiring isn't that hard that you can't pick it up yourself if you're worried about that - to be honest - given that the harness is ~$100 - I personally think you'd be better off with spending that on a couple of ToneRider or Entwistle 'buckers for around the same price - if you then want to upgrade the wiring, the component parts are less than $30 all from our good friends at PitBull. Only thing that they don't carry is the switch... If you are wanting to practice wiring - you could do yourself up a couple of Resistor Capacitor (tone bleed) gizmos (see the StewMac secret tricks archive) - you can build one of those suckers for about $0.20 @ and you can get the bits from Altronics / Jaycar / eBay easily. It'll give you a chance to have a go at soldering and if you stuff it up, it doesn't cost you all that much.
Thanks guys, all great info. I think I'll go with the suggestion of making the kit first then see what I would like to upgrade. I'm not a good musician but I do enjoy the guitar and being a technician I enjoy making stuff that has a technical bent. Sounds like I'll have to investigate the StewMac secret tricks archive.
Cheers,
Rod.
Just some food for thought Rod.
1 - The Chinese "metric" pots that come with the PBG kits have a smaller diameter shaft therefore the holes in the kit need to be enlarged before you replace with CTS 500k's or something similar.
Do you really want to be drilling holes in a finished body?
The same goes for the 3-way switch, if you decide to upgrade to a "switchcraft" it won't fit into the PBG kits and you'll need a "deep nut" adapter.
2 - Also "long shaft" pots are fine and mean you can work on you're electronics whilst they're in the guitar a lot easier than a short shaft which is typically screwed down at the very bottom of the cavity. Just remember you'll need extra nuts and washers for long shaft pots to put on the inside of the cavity.
3 - If you do decide to drill larger pot holes proceed with caution. Because you're talking a relatively thin timber surface area on the LP kits where the pot holes are located coupled with the shape/angle of the arch top, the chance of the drill bit biting in and destroying the hole is relatively high (ask me how I know this).
Personally if you've got the bucks to spend on a harness, pot, pickup upgrade I'd incorporate it into the build, why make more work for yourself?
Bargie has it nailed with that info. One trick I've used a few times when boring out holes is to go up in successive bit sizes but put the drill into reverse (anti clockwise turning) and go gently. This stops the bit from biting into the timber and ripping it.