+1 for Trevor's comments.
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+1 for Trevor's comments.
No worries, it's all going to get a water based poly sealer, irrespective of if I paint it or not! I'll do gloss on the headstock and satin on the neck. I'm just on the fence of whether to paint it all purple or leave it natural-colored. Because all the strat's and tele's I've looked at have the natural wood colored necks that have been sealed to whatever finish. It looks like the LP''s, double cuts, and fancier shapes, which have binding on the necks, are the ones that have painted/stained necks. I just don't know if I want to see maple or purple on the backside.
I think the reason that you see so many natural necks on Strats and Teles goes back to Leo Fender's design philosophy. A part of his genius was in making his guitars easy to manufacture and maintain. He didn't think there would be any need to re-fret an instrument if you could just replace the neck. So, they were designed to be interchangeable. At least initially, this meant they were pretty much all finished the same and all made of maple except for the skunk-stripe or fingerboard.Quote:
Originally Posted by ElleBrooke
Gibsons were designed in a more traditional way and finished with the necks on in a spray booth. Generally, particularly for clear finishes, the bodies and necks used the same woods. Either with stain or with solid colors, it is probably more economical to finish necks and bodies the same way.
By contrast, you neck is a work of art integral to your guitar. You should not feel constrained by petty economic issues ;-)
I am bad at making aesthetic choices...but... Maple is an interesting wood. Sometimes it's pretty boring. Sometimes its beautifully figured. How well you like its figuring may factor in. Even if it's not figured, it will look great natural. Still, you have already surprised us a lot with what you can do with paint. I am sure it will be great either way.
fender3x you are a wealth of information! That all makes total sense from a mass manufacturing perspective. And it gives me a lot to think about! Thank you so much for sharing that.
Hey, Son of the person who burned the guitar, after a long hiatus because of mental health issues I'm back and ready to finally put this thing together, but I need a little bit of help. Is there a guide specifically for the TL-1L wiring and hardware setup?Quote:
Originally Posted by colin2121
Coloring the neck is a tough call. It already looks so good - but you've got some serious skills. I don't think there's a wrong answer!
This wiring diagram should work...
https://www.solomusicgear.com/wp-con...NG-DIAGRAM.pdf
I am not sure if your colors will be the same as in the diagram. "Hot" wire from the pickups goes to the switch. The other wires go to ground. If there is a shielding wire (metal mesh that is wrapped around the wires coming from the pickups, that goes to ground too.
You may want to get a couple of "reverse audio" 250K ohm pots. The pots that come with the kit are probably either linear (stamped with a "B" usuall) or regular audio (stamped with an "A" usually). Reverse audio pots are usually stamped with a "C". You can use the pots the kit came with, they'll work backwards, I think.
Good to see you back at it.Quote:
Originally Posted by lotion5238
This is the link to the Pitbull wiring diagram.
https://www.pitbullguitars.com/wp-co...f/PBG-TL-1.pdf
I am about to start working on the same kit but it won't look anywhere near as good as yours.
I was looking for that one, but couldn't find it...then realized that Lotion might want the lefty diagram. Oddly there are some wires missing on that one...hot wire from switch to v-pot, wire from v-pot to t-pot, bridge to ground...Quote:
Originally Posted by colin2121
Found the correct one, I'm wondering now how the pickups are supposed to be mounted, as I can't figure out how deep in they need to be. I'm guessing screwing them in all the way is fine because the neck juts out about a centimeter but I want to make sure I get it right.Quote:
Originally Posted by fender3x
There is no lefty diagram unfortunately. I usually have to turn the diagrams upside down and then it's trial and error!Quote:
Originally Posted by fender3x
The neck pickup is mounted to the pick guard. The bridge pickup in the bridge plate.Quote:
Originally Posted by lotion5238
Doesn't matter where you set the pickup height to you will need to adjust them up or down when you do the final setup. Too high and the magnets pull on the strings, too low and you don't get enough of a signal. I adjust by trial and error and listening to the output. I keep fiddling with the height until I am happy. Someone else on here will have a formula approach so hang tight until they appear.
Had another look at the kit parts, those wires are already presoldered in place on the control plate. The diagram only shows the wires that need to be soldered.Quote:
Originally Posted by fender3x
cool cool, I'm wondering now what's up with this quote from the guide "The most common mistake made in wiring up guitars is getting the jack socket wired backwards. " How should I orient it in the hole it goes into or is it talking about not mixing up the wiring? Attachment 44467
Furthermore, I noticed the jack socket has 3 different prongs to it, two of them have holes which are self explanatory, they have holes for the wires, but what's the 3rd one for? Is it to hold the jack in or is it important?
Could you send a pic of the jack? Usually a tele jack would only have two lugs.
That solves the mystery ;-)Quote:
Originally Posted by colin2121
My Jack has the same layout as the pictured one, one prong with no hole and two without, one of said hole prongs is connected to the ground and the other is insulated just like the pictured one.
The solid prong is is the one that contacts the plug on the lead when you plug it in. Don't touch that one.Quote:
Originally Posted by lotion5238
The lug directly opposite coming from under the insulation is the active connection. Your hot wire connects there.
The other lug coming up from the metal plate is the earth wire.
You would be surprised how many people mix the two wires. If you get no sound that is the first part to check.
nice. some further questioning, I know now that earth is the guitar community's way of describing a ground wire, where is the right place to contact for the ground? It looks like it could be the bridge itself but I'm not entirely sure.
You are right with that.Quote:
Originally Posted by lotion5238
There is a small hole that comes through the back of the bridge pickup cavity. Your earth or ground wire comes up through that hole and is secured by the underside of the bridge.
Attachment 44479Quote:
Originally Posted by colin2121
also I am very confused about this diagram, the Neck, and pickup wires seem to have 2 inside of them, one is insulated and the other is not, how am I supposed to connect something like the yellow pickup wire because it seems to split in two?
I also forgot to ask, the jack is supposed to have a hot and earth wire but mine only came as a single one
Okay I'm starting to lose my mind, is there supposed to be a ground wire for the Jack because I CANNOT FIND WHERE IT GOESAttachment 44480
For the pickups there is one wire that comes out from the pickup. The hot or active wire is the one that is insulated, the other is the earth or ground wire. Both earth or ground wires solder onto the back of the volume pot. The insulated wires are connected to the pickup selector.Quote:
Originally Posted by lotion5238
For the jack, the solid prong is is the one that contacts the plug on the lead when you plug it in. Don't touch that one.
The lug directly opposite coming from under the insulation is the active connection. Your hot wire connects there. That is the yellow wire from the control plate.
The other lug coming up from the metal plate is the earth or ground point. One of the black wires from the control plate is connected to that lug.
If you have any problems locating the correct lugs post a photo as sometimes the jacks can be different. A photo of the pickups is also helpful as sometimes the factory uses different wires.
The yellow wire is the hot wire to the jack.Quote:
Originally Posted by lotion5238
One of the black wires goes to the ground lug on the jack. The other goes through the body to contact with the base of the bridge. It doesn't matter which you use for the bridge plate or the jack as the ground wires are all looped together.
Any problems send a photo of the jack as well.
With the shielded pickup wire, the outer exposed braid is used as a common screen + ground wire. the central insulated wire carries the 'hot' signal. The end of the wire from the pickup as it comes direct from the kit should look something like this (though the end may be cut off cleanly so no braid is showing):
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/8...924/MI1cik.jpg
There is unlikely to be enough slack in the wire end to be able to solder the braid to the back of the volume pot and for the inner signal wire to reach the correct tab on the selector switch. So you need to make the ends longer.
What you don't want (and what the wiring diagram implies) is for there to be long lengths of exposed braid wire floating around inside the control cavity. As it's grounded, all it takes is for it to touch any exposed signal tab or wire on the switch and you get no sound. So you want a short length of exposed braid which you connect to the back of the pot, with a much longer length of the central signal.
Work out how much signal wire you need to comfortably run from the back of the volume pot to the switch, then gently score round the insulation at that distance from the end of the wire. I use a scalpel, but any sharp craft knife will do. Gently, because you don't want to cut through the strands of the brain, but just enough so you can pull the insulation off the end of the wire:
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/8...922/fHHiLI.jpg
You'll be left with a long length of braid around the signal wire. You should be able to pull the signal wire out through the strands. Twist the strands together then cut the end of this braid so you have maybe 15-20mm left, leaving the long length of central wire untouched like so:
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/8...924/oejZSa.jpg
'Tin' (which just putting a bit of melted solder on the item to be tinned) the end of the braid wire and then the back of the volume pot. This makes it easier to solder the two items together as you end up connecting solder to solder, which is easier to do than connecting solder directly to two bits of metal at the same time.
Then solder the braid to the back of the pot. An extra pair of hands is useful here to hold the wires in place (but beware hot soldering iron tips and hot wires as the heat travels up the braid quickly). Tape can be useful, as long as the tape isn't near the soldering area. The exposed braid is now too short to move anywhere, and you can safely then solder the signal wire to the relevant switch tab.
I always add some masking tape to the cables with 'bridge' or 'neck' on so I don't get confused.
Thank you guys for the responses, I actually already figured out through intuition that on the Left Handed Tele, or at least the one I got, the ground and lead wires for the Jack are split, and the 2nd black wire was to be run to the bridge as a ground. I ended up getting the whole thing working before you guys responded even though I am still grateful for the tips for next time. However I think my shitty soldering must have messed something up (I was having some issues with my soldering iron because mine was either A. Too Dirty, or B. Not Strong enough.) because I can only actually get sound from flipping the switch to the top position. I probably need to check some diagrams on the switches to figure out where the problem lies and which part is actually messed up. but I can actually get it to make sound now, even if it is just with one switch position.
The output wire from the switch must be ok because you get sound from the one pickup.
So it’s either the ground wire making a bad contact with the back of the volume pot (soldering to the back of a pot isn’t easy), or the hot wire to the switch isn’t going to the right place, or the grounded braid from the working pickup is touching an exposed part of the switch or exposed signal cable from the non-working pickup. Easy enough to undo the cover plate and check on the last one.
Less likely options are a faulty switch or a faulty pickup with an open circuit/broken wire.
Do you have a multimeter at all?
It is done
Attachment 44492
I plan to put a set of Elixir Heavy strings on it, right now I'm using standard 42 - 9 strings
My issues with the switch were in fact, shitty wiring too.
Looks great!Quote:
Originally Posted by lotion5238
Not only ‘yee’, but also ‘haw’ as well!
Fantastic work. Now if you can just practice and improve your soldering from ‘shitty’ to ‘OK’, you’ll be knocking your next guitar out in no time!
See I had spent time to learn it, uhh like 3 years ago. I should have probably practiced again in hindsight but I actually needed to swap Irons because my beginning one straight up was not getting hot enough to melt the solder on the back of the volume pot, which was frustrating me and making my ability to work worse.Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
That looks amazing! Great teamwork!
Luc was having some issues getting photos to load, so I took some pictures of the guitar completed, and thought i would share them He did a bangup job getting all the hardware installed. I'm really grateful to this community for the help and advice you guys gave. Thank you all so much, from the both of us.
https://i.imgur.com/DkjBFto.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/PJXfiki.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/481KY0x.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/XECAy1n.jpg
Thank you guys again for making this a successful build!