RVA
Ambassador
I am judging by your pic. Aren't those the braided pup wires on the toggle switch?
Les Paul Studio Project
- Thread starter smitty_p
- Start date
OP
Okay...now I see what you were thinking. The wires do look like the wiring you often see on a pickup, but they're just braided wires. Right now, they're not terminated in the control cavity; they're just there awaiting the rest of the parts.
I just bought lengths of braided wire from Stew-Mac to use for my connections between the switch and controls. When I get the pots installed, I'll solder the wires I identified as the Neck and Bridge wires to their respective volume pots. The wire identified as the Jack wire will, obviously, be soldered to the output jack.
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RVA
Ambassador
Very cool!Okay...now I see what you were thinking. The wires do look like the wiring you often see on a pickup, but they're just braided wires. Right now, they're not terminated in the control cavity; they're just there awaiting the rest of the parts.
I just bought lengths of braided wire from Stew-Mac to use for my connections between the switch and controls. When I get the pots installed, I'll solder the wires I identified as the Neck and Bridge wires to their respective volume pots. The wire identified as the Jack wire will, obviously, be soldered to the output jack.
ivan H
Ambassador of Tubes & Grooves
Hi Smitty, my LP was a little dark sounding, by no means the darkest I have seen but a little dark & I had read in a few places that the Faber kit would alleviate this. The Nashville bridge on it intonated with the saddles in the central area so I knew I wouldn't have intonation problems with an ABR-1 type bridge so thought I might as well go the whole hog with the complete Tone Lock kit & am glad I did. It is no longer darkish at all & the kit gives it an airy & lively quality, & of course sustain is better. String vibration can be felt through the body & neck a good bit more. Wound strings now have more of that "piano string twang" thing going on too. I used the bridge Inserts that press into the body in place of the Nashville's. I measured the hole depth first & used a drill bit in a hand chuck to deepen them as needed (1~1.5mm). No fancy titanium saddles or anything, just the stock Faber brass ones with the starter notches & used a triangular jewelers file to notch. One thing, I used to top wrap (double ball), though with the Faber aluminum stop bar I had to triple ball to keep the wrapped part of the string inside the stopbar & it still almost didn't on a couple of strings so I went back to the normal method. The Faber locking method for both bridge & stopbar gives much more positive contact between the components & thus the body than the Tonepro's grub screw method. Hope this helps. Cheers
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OP
Gather round, chil'ren. Uncle Smitty has updates!
I installed the electronics and knobs. As usual, the process is documented below:
These are the newly-arrived parts from Stew-Mac. I have CTS push-pull pots for the volumes. These will be used for coil splitting. Then I have two regular CTS pots for the tones. The capacitors are .015 mfd orange drops. Finally, the black speed knobs will finish things off.
You will notice this guitar required the long-shaft pots.
Here are the parts installed on my wooden template. You can see Smitty_p's own Super Buss Wire of Grounding Awesomeness which I've soldered to all the pots. All those little loops and hooks you see formed in the buss wire are eyelets and mounting points that I will use to solder the grounds and braids from the various wires. I prefer to do this rather than bunch everything onto the back of a pot. This allows me to get the same grounding result while subjecting the pots to a LOT less soldering heat throughout the installation. The buss wire takes most of the heat, not the pot.
The little black wire with the eyelet will be screwed to the inside of the control cavity to make a solid contact with the copper shielding.
Here is everything soldered in, awaiting the pickups. It's a little hard to tell from this pic, but I'm wiring for 50's Wiring.
As per usual, we finish up with a full-frontal of the guitar, with knobs installed:
I installed the electronics and knobs. As usual, the process is documented below:
These are the newly-arrived parts from Stew-Mac. I have CTS push-pull pots for the volumes. These will be used for coil splitting. Then I have two regular CTS pots for the tones. The capacitors are .015 mfd orange drops. Finally, the black speed knobs will finish things off.
You will notice this guitar required the long-shaft pots.
Here are the parts installed on my wooden template. You can see Smitty_p's own Super Buss Wire of Grounding Awesomeness which I've soldered to all the pots. All those little loops and hooks you see formed in the buss wire are eyelets and mounting points that I will use to solder the grounds and braids from the various wires. I prefer to do this rather than bunch everything onto the back of a pot. This allows me to get the same grounding result while subjecting the pots to a LOT less soldering heat throughout the installation. The buss wire takes most of the heat, not the pot.
The little black wire with the eyelet will be screwed to the inside of the control cavity to make a solid contact with the copper shielding.
Here is everything soldered in, awaiting the pickups. It's a little hard to tell from this pic, but I'm wiring for 50's Wiring.
As per usual, we finish up with a full-frontal of the guitar, with knobs installed:
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eSGEe
Ferengi Ambassador of Trade
what color blue is that wall????? We painted my office that color years ago-----it was referd to as "institutional blue" for its "calming effect" --- hence why MY OFFICE was painted that color .......sometimes......i just need "a minute" --- if you get my drift?
Nice work Schmitlap --- coming along well. --- you can always "BAIL" and send it ot me ya know----just making that CLEAR to you---in the event there was confusion ......sit in the room look at the wall.......breath........breath........good Smitty
Nice work Schmitlap --- coming along well. --- you can always "BAIL" and send it ot me ya know----just making that CLEAR to you---in the event there was confusion ......sit in the room look at the wall.......breath........breath........good Smitty
OP
what color blue is that wall????? We painted my office that color years ago-----it was referd to as "institutional blue" for its "calming effect" --- hence why MY OFFICE was painted that color .......sometimes......i just need "a minute" --- if you get my drift?
Nice work Schmitlap --- coming along well. --- you can always "BAIL" and send it ot me ya know----just making that CLEAR to you---in the event there was confusion ......sit in the room look at the wall.......breath........breath........good Smitty
It's some custom color my wife picked out. This used to be my second son's room. When he moved out, I moved in with my music gear!
OP
Thanks! My next step is to order all the plastics. Then I'll get the bridge and stop bar. Finally, I'll get the pickups.
I wouldn't say I'm on the home stretch, yet. But, I'm getting close.
OP
Yes. There's a little weird deja vu with this guitar. My Les Paul Custom is a 2007. Out of sheer coincidence, this Studio is also a 2007.
That's significant because...well...I don't know why it's significant, but it's crazy, man, crazy!
Very nice looking....
OP
Thanks, Robert!
Sp8ctre
Ambassador of Steel
Alrighty...boys and girls....
As promised, here are a few pics of the completed shielding job on the Les Paul:
Just a shot of the back:
Here's a close up of the control cavity;
And...shot of the switch cavity:
Moving to the front, here's a pic of the pickup cavities:
As you may expect, the wiring channel was the most challenging. I used a set of forceps to work several overlapping strips into place. Eventually, I got the channel completely covered.
I used a multimeter to check the resistance between the switch cavity to the end of the control cavity...essentially the full length of the shielding job. The resistance is under .1 ohm. That conductive adhesive is really conductive. I was a little concerned about that.
I'm glad that's done. Now, on to the next step...
Can someone tell me why everyone is doing this?
Not one of my guitars have this shielding and not one of my guitars has any grounding or noise issues at all...
OP
For me, it's just a bit of insurance, especially since I'll be coil splitting, which will defeat the humbucking properties of the pickup when the coil split is activated.
Plus, there was part of me that just wanted to try it!
