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.

[Gogu]

Pickguard was made out of a Forex board, is a light foam structure plastic. Not very durable as it it a little soft, but will do until I get or make a better one. My son told me that everything works on the guitar. So between last time I posted here and now I did his main guitar also, a Fender Player II that was SSS, and he wanted a humbucker on bridge. Since it arrived, Seymour Duncan JB TB-4 if I remember correctly, I did that too, got previously on reverb an old pickguard HSS. Had to enlarge a little bit the cavity and drill a new hole on one side. Annoyingly factory wiring I guess is done by twisting the wire and solder, so it was a pain to desolder bridge hot from the switch. Kept as much of the original wiring as I could, changed volume pot with a 500k with treble bleed installed and one of the tone pots, had another CTS DPDT push/pull. Left the middle tone pot 250k. Changed the capacitor to 0.022. He didn't wanted coil split so I wired, soldered and isolated red and white from humbucker together. Wanted to see how it works without 470k resistors for middle and neck single coils, so did not put those.
Everything works, he's happy with the sound, so if he want's later to add some mod there is the push/pull there. Before I uninstalled the pickguard I measured the height of the pickups, left and right side, installed at the same height in the new pickguard. Funny thing, original pickguard was white, the old second hand one was initially yellowish, but from UV I guess ended darker, on the red side, no idea what that color is in English. The body is carved for HSH under the pickguard and I think they used black conductive paint.
The screw holes for the pickguard, some of them are loose, this was the first time the pickguard was removed, that is a little on the down side, quality wise, would have expected a better solution than just drill a smaller hole and screw in. Used some shrinking tube on some of the screws, unheated, just small enough so i can screw into the tube. Stayed a little better into the hole, not a permanent fix. Read about that, guess some toothpicks, wooden, some wood glue and drill again would do the trick, but that's for another time, as it takes time and patience is a rare commodity at almost 15 years.
For the pots I removed I ended up cutting the wires, found it hard to heat the original solder and did not wanted to go too hot near wires I was needing to stay on. Will clean it later, the cut was short at the pot, to preserve wire.
Also the pickguard, on the left side where I had to drill a new hole, i have to fill those as now there are 2 and 1/2 holes visible near the screw .
I am happy I had the chance to learn something new and understand some things along the way, that's for me one of the most rewarding experiences.