Hey guys, so I'm gonna do a little modification to my Deluxe Blackout Tele in the next few days, and I thought I'd ask a few questions, and see who can help me out with the answers.

Edit: So all the other questions I had, I was able to figure out. My only remaining question is: How Do I rewire the tone control so that it will only control the bridge pickup? The wiring appears to be the same as the Deluxe Nashville Tele ( http://support.fender.com/service_diagr ... B_SISD.pdf )

Thanks in advance for the help.

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Yes, you should be able to set the tone control for the bridge only. This will make the other pickup a little brighter then it is now because it will have less load on it. Also, are you going to reverse your switch? You can just move the pots if the wires are long enough. I'm sure some tele guys have the info in their heads. If no one responds with the instructions I will help you make a working diagram. If you are getting to much noise and have a good ground, you may be able to do some shielding.

Edit: I see why you would reverse your switch.

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Thanks Matt...I think I've found the info I need via google, if I need any help with a diagram I'll be sure to ask.

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"3) I think I might have a ground issue that needs to be addressed. When I have my hands off of the strings or other metal parts I have quite a more noticeable buzz. I know this could just be interference from fluorescent lighting or even my tv...question is: Does this sound like a ground problem or just typical hum? There is no popping or crckling noise when I touch the metal parts, which is why I'm not sure what the problem is."

That's normal. There's a ground wire that runs to the bridge to ground the strings. When you touch the strings, your body gets grounded and becomes a part of the guitar's noise shielding (same when you touch the other grounded parts). Just about every guitar gets less noisy when you touch the strings (or other grounded parts). With humbuckers there's usually not a lot of extra noise when you're not touching the strings -- just a little bit of extra background noise. But most single-coils get noticeably noisier when you're not touching the strings.

Some single-coils pick up more noise than others. Some guitars have full shielding in the pickup&control cavities, others have partial shielding. Some environments have lots of big strong noise sources (fluorescent & neon lights, transformers, electric motors, CRT TV's, dimmer switches, etc), other environments have fewer, weaker noise sources. So you may be noticing the noise more on this one at the moment, but all or most of the other guitars* you've played get noisier when you take your hands off the strings.

Grounding the strings is a risky thing to do. It invites shocks and electrocution if you're touching your strings and also touch a mic, amp, or other musician that's connected to a miswired outlet. It's not "necessary" to ground the strings -- you can disconnect the string ground and your guitar will still play through an amp. The only reason that virtually* all guitars have dangerous unnecessary grounded strings is because they help cut down noise.

(*Piezos and some active pickups aren't any quieter with grounded strings, so not every amplified guitar has grounded strings.)

Back when Jeff Baxter was doing a lot of studio work and touring with the Doobies, he had detachable string grounds on his "work guitars". When he was worried about the AC wiring in a venue he'd disconnect the string ground. You can see it in this pic -- the yellow wire with an alligator clip that comes out of the control cavity and is clipped to the bridge:

Thanks Strayedstrater. Your prediction that there is no ground issue is correct, I pulled it all apart and double checked just to sooth my own mind.

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Ok...So I reversed the control plate, which actually ended up being more of a task than expected. I had to de-solder one of the wires that was connected to the switch that wasn't long enough to allow me to rotate the switch once the pots were reinstalled. That worked well, but my ancient soldering iron crapped out on me right as I was starting to solder the 'extension' wire into the middle of the existing wire...so I had to go old school and solder using a Bic lighter; anyone that's ever soldered that way knows it can be a pain in the 4th point of contact when space is limited.
Once the soldering and heat shrinking was completed on that wire, I screwed everything down to the control plate and put it back in place...that's where setback #2 occured. Turns out the control cavity was not deep enough to have the 5 way switch at the rear. There are two spots that are routed and the one that originally sat under the tone pot was about 1/8" shallower than the side that originally held the switch. So, I brought out my Dremel and went to work on deepening the cavity. Once that was done I finally installed the control plate, but realized that one of the screw holes was a little stripped out, so in went some larger diameter screws, and the job was done.

I haven't had much time to play it yet, but in the little time I did mess with it I already can tell that having the volume knob closer at hand is going to make a world of difference; and now I won't be knocking the switch out of position all the time.



I decided to leave the pickup switching configuration as it was and also determined that there is no ground issue. So yeah, I had a couple of small setbacks, and turned a 10 minute task into an hour task, but the end result was as I hoped.

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Ok...so after reading on a couple of other forums, it would seem that I need to remove the wire that runs from the tone pot to volume pot and wire it to the hot bridge pup wire. Can anyone confirm for me whether this will accomplish my goal of having the tone control only the bridge pickup?

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EDIT:

The Tone pot has three prongs on it. Usually the capacitor will connect to one then ground. Then one of the other prongs will go to the switch. You can connect it at the contact of the bridge pickup. You can also bridge the connection to any other pickup you want it to control as well. That is how a Strat is wired.

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Thanks again Matt. As far as I could tell that was what needed to be done. Thanks for the confirmation! Now I just gotta replace my soldering iron and I'll be back in business.

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