Hi Candice, as you may have seen Im doing the same project, my suggestion is dont do any leveling until you have had the strings on and the necks under tension for a while, the neck is definitely going move around for a while.
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Hi Candice, as you may have seen Im doing the same project, my suggestion is dont do any leveling until you have had the strings on and the necks under tension for a while, the neck is definitely going move around for a while.
Great advice soundguy! I was looking at your build yesterday actually looks great, I really like the finish you used!
I am hoping to put this thing together over the weekend and set it up for the first play. Can't wait!
this came out sweet, great work
Ok so I thought I'd got this all together and I've gone to give it a play before I level the frets and I have no sound... Soldering wasn't my strength in this whole exercise but I was hoping I'd at least get some sound... Any ideas?
Here are some pictures.
Hi Candice, there are only 3 solder joins on this kit. Follow the wires but 2 wires are earth wires should be soldered to the volume pot casing. One to the tremelo spring claw and one to the output jack. The hot wire comes off the volume pot lug and this should go to the hot tip of the output jack. I suspect you need to reverse the hot and earth wires on the output jack
EDIT just saw the pics you posted. While the output jack is out of the cavity push a guitar lead in and make sure no wires touch the lead tip.
The little 'ear' on the trem claw is to put the earth wire under so might be worth re-soldering it to there. Lift the flap with a screw driver, loop the earth wire around that and push the flap down and re-solder.
Your hot tip doesn't look like you looped the wire through the small hole, so it could be dead solder making contact. Might be with re-doing the hot tip connection (white wire)
Thanks Wokka I'll give this a go tomorrow and hopefully have some noise!
no worries Candice, I'd cut the connections to the jack and expose some fresh bare wire on the hot wire and loop the bare wires through the holes. Try and remove all the existing solder on the jack connections. The solder doesn't have to be too heavy, just enough to hold them in place and make sure no stray wires are contacting the jack tip.
Also just check none of the solder joins have come loose under the pickguard, mainly the 3 pots and the switch is connected to the 3 pickups
The trick to soldering, make sure the iron is hot enough, make sure the 2 parts to be soldered are "tinned" that is, heated and had a drop of solder applied, then, put the 2 together, heat, add a tiny dab of solder, and blow on it to cool, if the join looks like silver, all good, if its dull then you have a "dry" joint that will fail. Simply reheat and its all good.Quote:
Originally Posted by candice
I used to run a recording studio and have installed 3 different consoles, so all in all I have made many many MANY 1,000 solder joints, and I probably weight 8 kilos more than I should from breathing in lead fumes!
I agree with Soundy..
It is vital to pre tin the wire. This can be a challenge at times as the Chinese wire has a lot of impurities from manufacture that needs to be burnt off before it will take the solder....
Sometimes the plating on the metal used to make the contacts of those output sockets, doesn't let the solder "take" or wet it properly and I've found that if you rub the surface of the solder tags of the socket with some sandpaper (say 360 or maybe 400 grit) the solder will wet it better and the solder joint is much improved.
When it comes to preparing a piece of wire for soldering to a solder tag, there are four steps that will help to improve the solder joint:
1, Cut the wire to length.
2, Strip-off the plastic insulation from the end of the wire.
3, Twist the individual strands of the wire together so that they make or form a single strand.
4, Tin the bare wire end with solder so it looks shiny.
When you solder the wire to the solder tag first make sure the joint is mechanically strong since solder is soft, secondly you need to use the tip of the soldering iron to heat the bare wire and the solder, then apply the solder to the joint while the soldering iron tip is in contact with the bare wire and solder tag, a good solder joint should only take about 4 or 5 seconds to make, also, never use the soldering iron tip to transfer the solder to the tip because the rosin-flux core in the solder will have gone up in smoke, the rosin-flux core of the solder is there to clean the oxides off the surface of the metals to be soldered so that the solder properly wets the metals.
A tad bizarre to quote myself, but Im doing so to add the info I missed, "tinning" actually means adding a solder "flux" to the wire/solder combination, its a kinda glue to aid the reaction, most solder nowdays comes as a hollow tube with a core of gelatinous flux, so you solder and flux at the same time.Quote:
Originally Posted by soundguy4033
The most important thing to do when making a good join, heat each wire, apply the solder so it sucks itself into the stands, the place to 2 together, add heat and a tiny touch more solder, remove heat and keep the join VERY still for a moment until its cooled, do that, and you
have a join that will not fail!
What he sed!!Quote:
Originally Posted by DrNomis_44
Thanks for all of the updated. I have had success!
I just de-soldered it all and threaded things to the correct spots and soldered again. Was all good after that.
I still need to level the frets (lots of fret buzz) and play with the set up but I am really happy with the overall sound and feel. Looking forward to playing with it once it's all set up!
good news Candice. Play the neck in for a few hours then looks at a fret level. It's important the neck is level when you fret level it.
The stock pups still got a pretty reasonable sound hey
Well done, Candice! That looks pretty cool!