Thanks as always :)
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Thanks as always :)
So, pots have arrived, along with an orange cap, so I can start on the wiring, once I've made some corrections:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Sa...8=w818-h613-no
Original pot on the right, new one on the left. Slight misunderstanding on a) what a mini pot was (I assumed the kit ones were standard not mini), and b) the website describing the length of the shaft as the threaded bit, and me assuming it was the entire length including the knurled top.
Ho hum.
Also in view, cardboard template for the wiring - which I hope to get around to this weekend.
Oh no. I’m assuming the pots shaft on the left is too long and we need to stick with mini pots. How was the left pot described? (For purely selfish motivation). I think my guitar will cost an extra $100 in mistakes. By the way, if you choose to order a pick guard bracket make sure you get the large arch top size (another one of my mistakes). I glued my neck into my body and found clamping it looks to of pushed it in tighter leaving it 11mm above the body rather than the 15mm I previously reported. Did you have the same experience?
Yep, I'm going to have to knock up a couple of spacers for sure. It was described as a long-shaft but had a 19mm length quoted. Further (post sale) reading of the description does indeed say '19mm threaded' so my bad. The width of the pot is fine to go through the pick up hole but I have had to widen the pot holes, which has not gone without incident unfortunately. I'm hoping it won't be too obvious when it's finished but it's vexing for sure.
I've made my own bracket so I think I should be ok there (still not convinced I'm going to fit it but I'm warming to the concept).
I haven't set the neck yet. Still got another couple of weeks of oiling to go I think. I don't have a lot of space to work on the guitar so I'm doing as much as I can before gluing them.
Today is hopefully going to be about getting the electrics sorted (almost wrote shorted there!) assuming I can get a little help from the experts here...
There doesn't seem to be a wiring diagram for a single p90 set-up on the pitbull site or here so a little googling has let me to this diagram:
https://www.stewmac.com/freeinfo/i-5414/5414_01.gif
I've found a couple more that confirm this but also a couple that look a little different, can anyone confirm this is the way forward?
Cheers
Drew
Yep, that'll work. The tone is wired 'vintage' style on the 'out' of the volume pot, so there may be some interaction between vol and tone. It's probably how I'd wire it.
Modern wiring would have the capacitor linked to the 'in' of the volume, so in the above it diagram would be to the bottom lug of the volume pot rather than the middle. Less interaction between the pots but may lose some highs (hence the addition of treble bleed caps in some wiring).
There are other options with how things can be configured, best to try one like the above and see if you're happy with the sound. Then, if needed, you can make tweaks towards the sound you're looking for
Thanks Weirdbits. I shall get off my hungover arse and get on with it. :)
Not a mock build, but here's a little pic of how she's shaping up so far:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/du...M=w719-h958-no
Oh yes! Looking good blinddrew.
Very nice.
A bijou pickguardette no less.
I know you've made it small to avoid the f-hole, but is it going to cover the area where your hand goes? It's rarely the pick that makes any marks on the body, but normally your fingernails (especially with long playing-hand nails like most guitarists have)
It's really just for aesthetics; I have virtually no fingernails and generally use a thumbpick so all my scratch-plates are pretty much unblemished. I just prefer the look with it (today).
Electrics:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/CU...=w1278-h958-no
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/rg...=w1278-h958-no
Not my best work but my hands are a little shaky today...
You can easily stuff all the electrics through the pickup hole, so you've got the luxury of being able to wire up and test everything outside the guitar. But don't forget that you should run an earth wire to the rear block to make contact with the metal of the trapeze tailpiece so the strings get grounded. A hole will need to be drilled to do this. I suggest slightly above the hole you'll need to drill in the trapeze for the strap button (they never seem to be pre-drilled).
To avoid making that ground wire a lot longer than necessary, you can make it shorter so that it's still long enough to reach the end block with some slack, then drill the hole and feed some cotton through and remember to tie it to the ground wire so that it can be pulled through once the pots are in position. I would suggest drilling out about 5mm with a wider drill so there's just enough space to knot the ground wire to stop it being pulled back into the body, but so the trapeze can sit flush on top of the hole on top of the splayed end of the wire.
Alternatively you can do it the other way; fix the end of the ground wire first by the trapeze, then leave enough slack so that you can pull a pot and the ground wire through an f-hole, and solder it to the back of that pot.
Whichever way, you'll need enough slack in the ground wire so that you can still pull the pot it's connected to out through an f-hole to de-solder it if you ever need to replace any of the components.
You could have a very long ground wire and both fix it at the trapeze end first and also pre-solder it, but that's a lot of wire which will flap around inside, and may end up visible through the lower f-hole.
Also note that the Stu-Mac wiring diagram has omitted the ground wire between the back of the volume and tone pot. Naturally you had spotted this, but without it, the tone control won't work and the pickup will sound brighter than it should without the extra low pass filtering of the tone cap+pot.
Hmm, tested it earlier but you say I should have an additional wire between the backs of the two pots?
Indeed. In the photo you've only got one connection to the tone pot via the orange drop cap. And you need two paths to get any current flow and a signal. The cap is connected to the signal on the volume pot, but it needs a connection to ground otherwise no signal can go through the cap and the tone pot to ground. You could take the back of the pot directly to another ground connection on the jack, but to the back of the volume pot is more common.
Gotcha, will do that tomorrow
Did it tonight, all sorted.
So it's tomorrow night already!
Does that mean tomorrow's Monday?
I've obviously got two days sleep to catch up on, so I won't care.
I’m thankful for your detailed wiring posts. I’ll be revisiting this section when the time comes to wire mine. Good luck with the soldering.
Cheers DarkMark, all done and tested. I used the StewMac diagram plus the additional earth wire that Simon described. Plugged into an amp and slid the pickup under the strings on my hofner, all working and a good range of tone.
Hardest bit is getting the solder to stick to the back of the pots!
Yes, I'm a bit concerned about your pot solder joints after looking at the pics more closely.
I always sand the back of the pot first to remove any oxidised metal, then run solder on the back of the pot. It needs to be got hot enough so that the solder melts and spreads out over the back of the pot. Then tin the wire for the connection, and then make the joint. Again, it needs to be got hot enough so that the solder melts properly and spreads out, and doesn't remain a blob that's lightly tacked to the surface as it's likely to come off in the future.
Oops, missed that (lack of) ground, thanks Simon... post then drink, not drink then post ;)
It's easy enough to miss when you've done a lot of harnesses as you know that wire has to be there and you'd add it as a matter of course. But if you're new to it, and follow the diagram religiously, then it does need to be 100% right.
I believe you had to drill wider holes to fit your standard sized pots. Did you use the linear taper pot for your tone control?Quote:
Originally Posted by blinddrew
Might start again for the pots then. Everything is testing ok, and i did score the back of the pots first, but i'll give it all a nudge with the pliers and see if anything moves.
Hi DM (quote function isn't working on this phone), yep I had to widen the holes to 10mm. I went with an audio taper on both pots because it was fractionally cheaper and i have no frame of reference to determine if one is better than the other. :)
It helps if you can clip something as a heatsink to the side of the pot you're soldering to reduce the heat transferring to the innards. I often use a pair of mole grips.
Think I've done a better job this time. Will check when it all cools down.
I've just bought these clip on tweezers to act as heat sinks. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2x-Fibre-...1a50%7Ciid%3A1
One on the body and one on the shaft of the pot. It all helps.
I used to have a small set of needle nose molegrips, which were perfect for this sort of thing, but some oik had away with them. :(
Previously we've talked about shaping the pick up* cover to fit the top of the body, I can't remember if it was in this thread or in DarkMark's.
I have a slight query on this. I had assumed that removing the cover would be a simple case of removing the two screws on the underside of the pick-up:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/1Y...o=w568-h910-no
However it seems that the pole-piece screws also hold down the cover:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/l5...U=w657-h909-no
But loosening all of them off doesn't result in any play from the cover either.
Will it be glued as well? Do I just need to remove all the pole pieces and then apply a degree of brute force? ULP!
Or is removing polepieces one of those absolutely-on-no-account-do-this things?
* Pick up? Pick-up? Pickup?
Blinddrew, I’ve already done it and I didn’t even bother to take the cover off. I put a sheet of paper overlapping the pickup hole (cut hole in paper) and taped it down with low tack tape - to protect the surface. Place a piece of sandpaper (about 180 grit) larger than the pickup hole (cut hole in paper) and tape the sandpaper down onto the first piece of paper. Poke the pickup wire into the hole and sit the pickup into position and get to work! I gave myself a head start using a very small block, sanding to a conservative rough shape to begin with.
That was going to be my back-up option. I shall make it my primary one instead!
Cheers :)
Obviously a method of using soapbar pickups as dog-ears by either gluing, or using wax, to fix the cover to the top of the pickup. There should really be a longer baseplate on the pickup with metal ears on it that fit under the ears on the cover. Interesting.
Ok, question for the hive mind. I've had a go at a laserjetandpackingtape logo, but the tape hasn't come out as transparently as i'd hoped. Here's a couple of shots from different angles:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/3L9JDYYzqrTmMAq98
https://photos.app.goo.gl/xT1fxD7dzUGkM5dQ6
The question is, will further oiling blend this in? Or do i need to look at another option?
Cheers.
P.s. sorry about the links, can't get pictures to work on my phone.
I doubt further oiling will blend it in. Even when you use proper decal paper you can have the same issue. The only way to avoid it is to trim as close to the logo as possible. Having said that, I'd live with it. You can barely notice it in the first picture, so you will only pick it up in certain light. Old Fenders often had the same untrimmed look on guitars that were worth a lot more money!
As Fretty said it can be hard to completely disguise the decal edges at certain angles.
Yours looks pretty good to me.
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