Tele - single coil bridge - humbucker neck wiring

[fender3x]

Sounds like a really good first effort! You also ran into a bunch of common problems, and it is impressive that you solved some of them without power tools! The problem you ran into with the pickguard and control plate is a common one. Holes almost never line up with aftermarket. Also there are some small differences between Asian-spec parts and US-spec parts. I had that with a Jazz bass pickguard, where I had to modify pickguard to fit the control plate. Same with the pot holes. Although the CTS pots are made in Asia, the shaft is US spec, but your control plate is Asian-spec...so slightly larger where it meets the pickguard, and slightly smaller holes. What did you make the pickguard out of? It's very unique looking and kind of cool. I thought it was perloid at first... No one will ever see the cavity, but it looks pretty good to me!

Sounds like the Pentax prepared you well. It helps that you are using quality parts and going slow. I have found that I can do most things if I go slow enough...although going slow can also be a challenge!

One of the great things about starting with a kit or cheap guitar is that if you don't like something you can generally fix it. I am with your son on that. A well set up cheap neck can feel better than an off the rack expensive neck. Now he'll have a one of a kind guitar, with a classic Tele bridge, but some interesting switching and beefier neck pickup.

[Trevor Davies]

So I followed the 3d diagram for 4 way from 1st page, with 470k resistor to hot bridge single coil on pull tone pot, as both tone and volume are 500k. Took me few hours, as the most I soldered before were 2 wires on a Pentax camera solenoid (well 4 wires since i repaired 2 cameras). Deciding what to wire first, what wire to use, man, was tough first time experience, but in the end hoped for the best and pushed all back under control plate. As my guitar is a cheap Jet Guitars JT-300 (my son loves the neck by the way), had to enlarge the holes for control plate and the one for jack. Switch was fine, fitted without problems. One other challenge was the pickguard, as there is no official one for SH, and the tele Fender ones, while having the same number of screws, only 2 holes are on the same position, and the curved space for control plate is smaller. So I bought 4 boards 25x25cm (enough for a tele pickguard), 2 forex and 2 some harder plastic, 3mm. Since I don't have any electric tools or workshop, had to use a regular cutter, the forex board is not that tough. Neck humbucker cavity is rough, well I guess could and should have done a better job, but that's that, it is first try, I will try later on to do better. Went for a dirty look, don't know how to call it, probably ugly would be a fair description, but it had to do since all i had was a black permanent marker, some white paint and isopropyl alcohol.
Now for the is it working part - have continuity where I suppose to have, all 4 positions work, had a problem with tone knob doing nothing, open it up and saw that when i pushed the capacitor metal was in contact with pin 2, so i spread it a little further. Now it works. I'm waiting for my son to test the sound, probably the pickup height is the best way i have to balance a little the sound. 2 pictures attached, one with cavity shielding, the second with the finished-unfinished horror Thank you for all the info provided, I think I learned a lot from you guys! Attachment 46048Attachment 46049

+1 for looking good. Hopefully it all works well.