2nd Build TLA-1

[grahamjohnston80]

I wired up the Tele last night. It was pretty straight forward, tested it by touching the pups with a screwdriver, it made the right clicks at the right time.

Sat down last night and thought, damn I forgot to shield the cavities. So, today I got the copper shielding tape out, shielded the cavities (pickup cavities, control plate cavity & input socket). I am waiting for a new pickguard to come home so haven't obviously shielded that yet.

Again, I tested, it all worked as expected, (if anything a bit noisier), until I screw the input socket into the cavity. It works right up until I tighten it up. As soon as the last few turns of the screws happen it cuts out - silence.

Is something making contact that could cause this issue? I tried moving the nuts as far out/in as possible but it didn't change anything.

Should the input socket be shielded? Is it anything to do with the pickguard being missing?
The bridge is grounded but when testing, I also noticed that when I touch the bridge it results in the same clicking sound as when I touch the pickups? All a bit weird??

Happy to upload images if that helps.

Any advice, as always, is much appreciated. Thank you.

[Simon Barden]

You are either shorting the signal out on the shielding (if you have put it in the output jack cavity), or there is enough bare signal wire at the jack socket connection to move and touch part of the grounded socket chassis. Tightening the snut up is also turning the jack socket, and making wires rub where you don't want them to.

This is where heat shrink is really useful, as you can run a piece over the complete 'hot' signal tab and solder joint, so that it can't touch anywhere, even if there is shielding. I also do the same with the ground wire connection, just to be on the safe side in case the tip of the jack can come into contact with it (more important if using exposed braided wire).

It does help (a bit) to have shielding in the output jack cavity, but if you can't fit it without grounding the signal out, then it's obviously better to remove it!

Clicks when you touch the bridge are quite normal. Probably because your body will be at a different potential to ground than the bridge is, and in that brief moment when the potentials are equalising and the charge is flowing from your body, you cause a brief spike on the signal from the guitar (albeit on the ground side). The intensity will probably vary depending on what you are wearing and how charged you are.

[grahamjohnston80]

Thank you again Simon,

Haven't heard of the heat shrink before but it makes a lot of sense. I'll have a look in my local electronic store:
https://www.jaycar.com.au/cables-con...ularity-desc&q
It's only open for click n collect at the moment so I can't be going in for a browse. What size/type would you recommend?

[grahamjohnston80]

or...
Could I just put some insulating tape around the joints?

[Simon Barden]

You can use insulating tape but it's awkward stuff to use in tight areas like jack sockets. Heat shrink is just so much neater.




I use a lighter to shrink it.

I bought a mixed box of heat shrink from Amazon as you never know quite what size you need to fit over lugs or cable joins. It shrinks to about 50% of the normal size. I did have about 4 different sized rolls of the stuff, but the pre-cut short lengths are so much neater. You'll hardly ever use the very largest sizes on guitar builds, but it's useful to have something that will fit over the solder lugs plus the wire/solder join on pots and jack lugs.

This sort of thing: https://smile.amazon.co.uk/gp/produc...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Jaycar have a few mixed size offerings, but they are quite expensive for far less product than the Amazon or eBay offerings.

Longer lengths of the smaller diameter heatshrink can be useful if you want to insulate the outside of a vintage-style braided wire, if you are running it a long distance through areas where there are exposed pot terminals. Also just to make that type of wire less visible if running inside a hollow body guitar.

[grahamjohnston80]

Thank you Simon,

That looks much neater indeed.
I found a mixed bag on eBay for $5.95.

[Simon Barden]

You can rub a soldering iron on it to shrink it, but you need to rub it all over to shrink it all as the heat remains very localised. You can use a hot hairdryer (or a low-heat hot-air stripper), but then you can get a lot of components warm if done in-situ. So a very quick run over with the flame from a lighter (I use a gas-stove lighter) is often the easiest and quickest way. A second at most and you're done, with the heat normally reaching all around the heat shrink.

[grahamjohnston80]

That's good to know. Thank you.

[grahamjohnston80]

Finally got around to completing the Tele project.

I was waiting for a few bits to get delivered before finishing it off. The scratch-plate that came with the kit was a really tight fit so I filed a bit off ages ago. I ended up taking a bit too much off and was never really happy with it. Ordered a 3-ply job from eBay which I'm very pleased with.
I was also waiting for the heat shrink so I could tidy up the input socket.

Both arrived on Monday so I set to putting it all together. I wasn't 100% happy with the position of the bridge. It seemed okay during the mock-build but now things just didn't line up right. I filled the factory pre-drilled holes and left that to dry for a day.

Finished it off tonight. I'm very happy with the finished product. The Tonerider pickups sound great (Vintage plus). I did initially have some bad buzz around the lower frets but a quick turn of the truss rod to provide some neck relief sorted that out. I still need to do the proper set up and intonation but it is sounding pretty good without it.

[Trevor Davies]

Looks great. Love the colours and the headstock pattern.