AGD612 new build

[GreyFloyd]

Received my sixth PB kit mid-June. First glance a challenging set of wiring!! Three switches and metres of wiring (just kidding). Did a fair bit of sanding to remove the rough edges and gave it a coat of white undercoat. Applied sand sealer and then sanded the two necks. Chose some Black Japan prooftint and then varnish with about three coats followed by some Truoil. Happy with the necks, Three coats of Wildfire red on the body. Then came fitting both necks and the truss rod covers. Laid out some wiring to get a hang of the possible sizing through the many holes pre-drilled in the body. Then today used the supplied coloured wiring to lay out the routing of them.

[GreyFloyd]

Thought I'd give my poor soldering skills a workout today! After spending about an hour to attach the six-string switch, I figured out that if I applied some flux to the wire and point of attachment the solder began to flow a little better. (It's only taken me 13 kits to figure that out!!!). Managed to attach the twelve-string switch and the connecting switch in record time (for me anyway), and gave it a rest as I had surpassed my expectations! I'll leave it for a day or two (pending lunches to be had) then give the pots a look-in.

[Simon Barden]

Aren't you using solder with a flux core? That's pretty standard these days.

[GreyFloyd]

Yes it has a 2% flux content. Had tried lead-free solder on the Gretsch (previous kit) but found it harder to melt, so returned to the lead content for this one. Regarding irons, I first started kit no. 1 in 2010 with a 25 watt, then moved up to a 40 watt and more recently reached an 80 watt iron which actually tripped my house RCD! So I've gone back to the 40 watt iron and this (with my flux 'trick') seems to work as is supposed. Never been my forte. But I'm more than thrilled with current progress. Yes I've watched all the videos on soldering and they make it look so easy - one touch of the iron and hey presto - but that has never been the case with mine. Have read about oxidisation etc but to no avail. Onwards and upwards!

[Simon Barden]

80W shouldn't trip the house RCD unless the iron is faulty or the plug's wired incorrectly.

It really is worth investing in a variable temperature iron. Much easier to use as you can turn it down for delicate things and up for pot backs etc.

Something like this should be fine..

https://www.jaycar.com.au/60w-esd-sa...e38ff71587f407

Don't be afraid to change the tip type. The bigger tips have more heat capacity and don;t drop the temperature so quickly when doing big items like pot backs.

Keeping the iron clean helps a lot, so always wipe on a damp sponge after use to get the old solder off.

And tinning the surfaces to be joined first helps a lot.

[GreyFloyd]

Thanks Simon. I've been tinning the ends of the wires and yes it works very well. Today managed to get three of the pots connected before heading out for another lunch (Xmas present believe it or not!). Rainy weekend coming up so I'll attempt to get the 4th pot wired and the o/jack. Using orange drop caps on this one so hoping for a better tone. Was a bit sceptical about the 80 watt iron (Chinese - but isn't everything these days?) so have hung it up to give it a rest! With the recently-acquired third hand working to my advantage I'm actually quite looking forward to more soldering (never thought I'd say that).

[Simon Barden]

I'm not sure that an orange drop cap will give you a 'better' tone. I do use them myself, but mainly because their tolerance is better than the cheap kit caps, and with the thick lead wires, they are easy to position running between volume and tone pots. With the tone control right up, the cap is doing almost nothing anyway. You certainly wouldn't hear any difference between the kit and orange drop caps until you started to turn the tone control down quite a lot.

Different cap types do have slightly different frequency responses, but it's all quite subtle at audio frequencies (especially with the frequency limiting effect of a guitar or bass amp speaker).

Your pickup choice is always going to make the biggest difference to your tone.

[Trevor Davies]

Looking good GreyFloyd. My back hurts just thinking about picking it up though!

Re soldering, it is a skill that gets easier. The cold weather in Freo is possibly not helping though. My iron struggles a bit in the cold!

[GreyFloyd]

Completed wiring Friday. Sunday saw 23 screws in the front of body for the pickups and covers. Starting to look like a Gibson but I wonder what the difference is between the two? Gibson doesn't have the third switch (between the necks) which according to the wiring diagram is for the 12 string pickups. Just wondering whether Gibson offers the same flexibility/versatility as this kit? Feel sure it would but who knows?

[Simon Barden]

The Gibson switching (at least the 1965 variant I've seen - I think it changed in some reissues) does give quite similar flexibility, but you can't select the neck pickup on one neck and mix that with the bridge position on another. It uses a 4-pole switch for one of the toggles (both bridges/all pickups/both neck pickups), and a standard 2-pole toggle for 6-string neck /both necks/12-string neck selection (and the pickups selected on those necks by the other toggle). But as you can only play one neck at a time, it's not a big difference.

It's that particular 4-pole toggle switch which is only made by Switchcraft (AFAIK), and quite expensive, which is why the kit has 3 standard box-style toggle switches.

The other difference is that you have a neck pickup volume+tone and a bridge pickup volume+tone arrangement with the Gibson and the kit has a 6-string neck common volume+tone and a 12-string neck common volume+tone arrangement.

Just be aware that with the kit, if you turn one neck's volume to zero and select both necks, you'll get no output from either neck. Very much like a standard Gibson neck and bridge pickup volume situation, but this time with necks, not bridge or neck pickups.

If you haven't done one already, I'd do a tap test on the pickups with the guitar plugged into an amp and check the wiring is all as should be before you start stringing it up and making access a bit more difficult.