DrNomis_44's Gold Standard STA-1M Build.

[DrNomis_44]

So, as you can see in the pics, I put a lot of shielding on the Scratchplate to create a great big ground-plane, hopefully that'll make my guitar relatively noise-free, you can see where I have soldered the individual strips of copper-foil together where it's a silvery-colour, all over the Scratchplate I'm getting a reading of 0.02 Ohms which is good, I linked the three pots together with some copper-braiding I salvaged from some old microphone lead, this is to ensure that there is still a ground-path if the copper-foil wears through underneath where the pots mount on the Scratchplate, all I need to do now is wait for the new pickups to turn up in the post so i can install them, the output-jack is going to be attached to the Volume-control pot via some vintage-style shielded cloth-covered wire.


You can also see the Vitamin Q .1uF/630V DC Tone Cap installed on the scratchplate, I had practically no issues with overheating while soldering the cap in place, you may also notice that I put a piece of cloth-wire insulation on both solder-tags of the cap, that's partly to prevent unintended short-circuits, and partly for aesthetics, hopefully everything is working correctly.


Incidentally, I have wired-up the Scratchplate Eric Johnson style so that it follows this setup:


Pickup Selector:


1, Neck Pickup + Tone 1.

2, Neck Pickup + Middle Pickup + Tone 1.

3, Middle Pickup.

4, Bridge Pickup + Middle Pickup + Tone 2.

5, Bridge Pickup + Tone 2.


Note that Tone 1 on a Strat is the one closest to the Volume control, and Tone 2 is the other Tone control next to Tone 1.