TL-1TB Telebilly

[WeirdBits]

Wokka, you diabolical thread-jacker, the answer you seek lies here

[wokkaboy]

thanks heaps Weirdy, I know I am probably the worst thread-jacker on the forum but how else do you achieve over 3200 posts ? haha
I edited my comments on page 5 and removed the diagrams, your thread has been de-jacked !!

Where are you based Weirdy ? If you are in the Perth area I'd love to catch up and get some wiring pointers !

[WeirdBits]

hehe sorry Wokks, Perth + 3000 km

[wokkaboy]

bugger, I'd deffo do a drop by if you were local. One day we will have to organise a long weekend national forum get together, probably on the east coast

[bargeloobs]

Man Scott, absolutely loving the custom touches, pure skill!!!

[stan]

great work Scott, especially with the binding

[gavinturner]

Man, awesome work Wierdy!
As usual, your mind-blowing attention to detail is truly humbling. Love the binding in the f-hole, it really makes the difference, and the bigsby + surf 90s are going to be killer. This is going to be a fantastic build when complete! I'm watching your progress with keen interest.

cheers,
Gav.

[WeirdBits]

I'm using GFS Surf 90 pickups on this build along with a 4-way switch, which means I need to do a 'Tele 4-way mod' on the neck pickup. Basically, you need to have the pickup's negative (or ground) wire separate from its shield/casing if you want to use a 4 way switch. On a normal Tele neck pickup the negative wire is usually connected to the chrome case lug, so all you need to do is disconnect that link and add a separate wire for the shield. Like so:



Unfortunately, things aren't quite that simple with the Surf 90s as their connections are internal… so some surgery is required, but only on the neck pickup.

First step, remove the pickup mounting ring (I'm using some chrome rings on this build).



Next, the chrome casing needs to be removed to get access to the internals. This is held in place by two spots of solder connecting it to the baseplate. You can either cut the joins, or use your soldering iron to melt the solder and then gently pry the side away before it hardens again. In this case, melting the solder is probably the better option as there is actually a wire embedded into one of the solder points (as you'll see in the next post). The trick, of course, is not overheating the pickup while you're melting the join… otherwise all of the potting wax will melt and you don't want that.

[WeirdBits]

With a bit of care you should be able to free the casing without melting the wax. As you can see, a link wire for the internal copper shielding in embedded into one of the solder joins on the baseplate, and that needs to be preserved for when the pickup is reassembled.



The Surf 90s have a waxed black cloth 'hot' wire surrounded by the bare braided shield wire. The black cloth 'hot' wire is connected to the coil's positive in under the copper shielding tape (wasn't expecting to see the copper tape there when I opened it up), but we don't have to mess with that. The bit we're interested in is the thin black plastic covered wire that connects the coil's negative to the shield wire on the base plate. As shown here:



All you need to do is very carefully disconnect (or cut) the end of the black plastic wire where it joins the braided shield wire on the baseplate (don't pull on the wires at all). Like so:

[WeirdBits]

Once the black plastic negative wire is disconnected from the shield, all that's needed is to connect it to its own individual wire. I chose to use to a shielded wire to connect to the negative, so I fed it through the baseplate hole, connected the core wire to the black plastic negative wire (and heatshrink'd it) and then connected the new wire's shield to the existing shield wire connection on the baseplate. To minimise the risk of things getting wrenched around I also cable-tied the negative's new connection to the cloth wire, as shown below. Normally, I would just snip the old wire and replace it with a single multi-core wire, but in this instance I wanted to use a second wire in case I decided to revert back at some point. If you have a multimeter it's a good idea to check that everything works and that you don't have any shorts from you new connections.



Once you're happy with you're new connections, just reverse the process to reconnect the cover ensuring the link wire stays in place. While I had mine apart I actually made the link wire connection to the baseplate a little more robust, just in case I ever had to disassemble it again. Even though I've stripped the shield wire on the new wire (see pic) I'll either be clipping it off or insulating it as it shouldn't be connected (the other end of the shield is already connected in the pickup). The pickup is now ready to be used with a 4 way switch or with phase reversing etc.