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Post subject: Frank Potter and the Pickup Cavity of Secrets
Posted: Thu May 08, 2014 7:07 pm
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So my Old Faithful guitar, the 1988 US Strat has had switch issues for a long time. The original switch had become bent and crackly and it was getting to the point where I'd spend 5 minutes playing for ever 10 minutes of rattling the switch around to try and get it to make contact. Time for a replacement.

Now this guitar has only been opened up once before in its history. The bridge pickup went microphonic a year or so after I bought it so we're looking at 25 years since it was on the bench of Manchester's "best" repairman who I shall refrain from naming. Let's just say he can't have been having an A1 day when this arrived in his workshop.

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What .. the ... ? Pickup wires not even cut back, spaghetti everywhere and a mysterious blue box next to the switch? Wait a minute, I remember now. I asked him to fit a Bill Lawrence tone filter in place of the capacitor on the non-TBX tone control. It's all coming back to me now.

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This is odd, the red and blue hot wires for the original neck and bridge pickups are soldered to ground and the replacement Seymour Duncan bridge pickup has the black wire to ground. Obviously the guy hit a problem with phasing someowhere along the line.

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Nice of him to join the pickup wires using, wait for it, paper sticky labels. I kid you not. He must have ran out of heatshrink tubing and just grabbed whatever came to hand. I've been playing this for 25 years with sticky labels insulating the wires.

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Post subject: Re: Frank Potter and the Pickup Cavity of Secrets
Posted: Thu May 08, 2014 7:11 pm
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Cleaned up, replacing the dodgy poly coated wires with cloth covered pushback wire. Sealed with proper heatshrink. On a whim I wired the TBX and the Bill Lawrence tone filter as two master tone controls.

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I even managed not to lose the original switch tip. Can't have shiny white plastic spoiling the nicotine-stained aura of street cred this guitar has.

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I never really investigated the tone filter before, it was wired on the neck pickup only and wasn't really suited to the task. As a master tone control I have to say it is astonishingly good. And that's from a man who habitually disconnects tone capacitors. It just tames the wild highs of the bridge pickup without ever letting it descend into muddy fart noises.

I'll still probably forget it's there next week. Interesting experiment though, if you use your tone pots then I'd recommend one of these things (assuming they're still available!)

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Post subject: Re: Frank Potter and the Pickup Cavity of Secrets
Posted: Thu May 08, 2014 7:29 pm
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Looking good!


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Post subject: Re: Frank Potter and the Pickup Cavity of Secrets
Posted: Thu May 08, 2014 7:36 pm
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The moral of the story is always check someone's work, however good their reputation as a repairman may be.

Although the other moral of the story is that even terrible repairs may last 25 years.

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Post subject: Re: Frank Potter and the Pickup Cavity of Secrets
Posted: Thu May 08, 2014 8:52 pm
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Lesson learned!


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Post subject: Re: Frank Potter and the Pickup Cavity of Secrets
Posted: Mon May 12, 2014 9:24 pm
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Good job. 8)

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Post subject: Re: Frank Potter and the Pickup Cavity of Secrets
Posted: Tue May 13, 2014 5:41 am
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If the repairman is who I think he is (and his initials are A E) he died a few years ago , he refretted my neck for me
It should be documented here

http://www.manchesterbeat.com/

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Post subject: Re: Frank Potter and the Pickup Cavity of Secrets
Posted: Tue May 13, 2014 6:32 am
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He was a rough diamond was Ady.

Last comment on this page is actually from me ...

http://www.manchesterbeat.com/shops/music/a1/a1.php

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Post subject: Re: Frank Potter and the Pickup Cavity of Secrets
Posted: Tue May 13, 2014 8:00 am
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All hell broke loose one Saturday
Apparently a gang of thieves were taking guitars to "try out" upstairs where the amps were at one stage , They picked mainly Fenders because although there were bars on the window in there , it being mad hot that summer, the window was left open, so they were unscrewing the tremolo arms and tying string to the headstocks , passing them through the bars and lowering the guitars to a waiting van parked in that little alleyway round the back
As far as I can remember, they got about 6 and then got caught trying to sell them at Reno's the week after !

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Post subject: Re: Frank Potter and the Pickup Cavity of Secrets
Posted: Tue May 13, 2014 9:56 am
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Wow, they were true criminal masterminds, selling hot guitars quarter of a mile from where they were nicked!

Last time I saw Ady Edelson would be around 2005 or 2006, he put together my first partscaster for me. He was downstairs in the workshop next to the young amp repair guy who just blasted Rush and Black Sabbath at him all day. He wasn't best pleased!

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