Guitar Facelift/tone change...Finished (phew)

rkreisher · **Posted:** Fri Aug 21, 2009 10:36 pm

Strataholic wrote:

I thjink you might enoy this: http://www.tubedepot.com/solder.html

These guys are great and you can get the tools and supplies from them too.

Thanks for the link. Already have the majority of the supplies. Vid was helpful.

Still need to know if I need to solder the resistor directly to the selector switch or use another wire.

If anyone has replaced a 250 k pot (volume) for a 500 k pot and still using their stock single coils in the neck and middle I would love to see a pic of the back of your pickgard.

I will play around tomorrow until I get my guitar finished.

RK

Shredd6 · **Posted:** Fri Aug 21, 2009 10:40 pm

rkreisher wrote:

Martian wrote:

One more thing: I recommend the "$161 modification": That 500K pot MIGHT make the single coils sound rather nasty. If this be the case, solder a 470K ohm resistor (readily available at any Radio Shack) in between the hot wire of each single coil and its respective terminal on the toggle. This will make the guitar's circuit 'see' a (very close to) 250K pot when the single coil is selected.

Martin,

Tomorrow is the big day for the the soldering and changing the bridge pickup. Had a question about this reply. Did you mean to solder the wire(s) to the resistor and then the resistor to the terminal on the toggle for the single coils pickups, or am I reading this wrong? BTW very anxious to do this, but I have to learn some time.

RK

Now I'm intrigued by this as well. The way I'm reading it is that the wire would be soldered to one end of the resistor, and the other side of the resistor soldered to the switch terminal. I haven't seen this either, but it does sound like a cool trick of the trade. I love learning these kinds of things myself. That's the way I'm reading it anyway.

Strataholic · **Joined:** Fri Jan 11, 2008 6:28 pm **Posts:** 1956

Perhaps check out Radio Shack. They might have a solder course or a book or a small kit you could practice on.

rkreisher · **Posted:** Sat Aug 22, 2009 12:55 pm

It's all done (finially). Spent an hour putting her through her drills. It sounds very very good. Here are some pics:

Very beginning:

Phase 1:

Finished:

Back:

Up Close:

Thanks to all that replied and helped me on my first major project. I still need to practice my soldering skills, but the joins aren't going anywhere. As I mentioned above it sounds very good, and I think it turned out awesome.

RK

knotty · **Posted:** Sat Aug 22, 2009 1:56 pm

Kewl. I think the white pearl is over used in most instances, but I like what you did.
Im glad everything works for you. When do you start your next project? LOL

Craig

rkreisher · **Posted:** Sat Aug 22, 2009 4:22 pm

knotty wrote:

Kewl. I think the white pearl is over used in most instances, but I like what you did.
Im glad everything works for you. When do you start your next project? LOL

Craig

My next project is going to be a while (several months or longer). I may up-grade the tremolo and block on my Classic Vibe, maybe even change out the pick guard...I got this really cool white 3 ply that I just happen to have lying around (LOL). I'm going to leave the pickups alone on that one, they sound great, really good for Blues.

RK

Arcarix · **Joined:** Wed Sep 17, 2008 8:20 am **Posts:** 111

Very nice RK, got me motivated to finish up my own mods.

knotty · **Posted:** Sat Aug 22, 2009 11:01 pm

I know the feeling. I have a set of Lipsticks Im supposed to but on the curlyfriends MexiStrat.

Craig

Shredd6 · **Posted:** Sun Aug 23, 2009 1:25 am

RK, so how did you wire the resistors?

The Super Distortion should sound freaking great. I love em.

One thing I gotta say about your guitar is the sunburst is a really superb paint job. I can't stand when the red is too prominent. But yours seems to fade into the stain job perfectly. It looks like a freaking soft pillow. There's an old saying, "I musta got my work done on a Friday" when something doesn't quite look right. But your guitar looks like it was done on a Wednesday.. Hump day. Hahaha.

maxoom · **Posted:** Sun Aug 23, 2009 2:31 am

turned out great

rkreisher · **Posted:** Sun Aug 23, 2009 5:59 am

Shredd6 wrote:

RK, so how did you wire the resistors?

The Super Distortion should sound freaking great. I love em.

One thing I gotta say about your guitar is the sunburst is a really superb paint job. I can't stand when the red is too prominent. But yours seems to fade into the stain job perfectly. It looks like a freaking soft pillow. There's an old saying, "I musta got my work done on a Friday" when something doesn't quite look right. But your guitar looks like it was done on a Wednesday.. Hump day. Hahaha.

Well, I did not put them on. It already had resistors on it. Still sounds awesome...I figured I better hold off when I saw the others on.

Thanks for the kind words on the burst, it was one of the things that drew me to this guitar.

RK

Silverslack · **Joined:** Sat Oct 24, 2009 3:29 am **Posts:** 305

Martian wrote:

One more thing: I recommend the "$161 modification": That 500K pot MIGHT make the single coils sound rather nasty. If this be the case, solder a 470K ohm resistor (readily available at any Radio Shack) in between the hot wire of each single coil and its respective terminal on the toggle. This will make the guitar's circuit 'see' a (very close to) 250K pot when the single coil is selected.

Would you recommend this for SCN's? I recently installed a TB4 HB in my mahogany strat. It has a 500k volume pot. I like the resistor idea. On SCN's there are three wires, is the black one the hot one?

Martian · **Posted:** Tue Dec 29, 2009 6:10 pm

Silverslack wrote:

Martian wrote:

One more thing: I recommend the "$161 modification": That 500K pot MIGHT make the single coils sound rather nasty. If this be the case, solder a 470K ohm resistor (readily available at any Radio Shack) in between the hot wire of each single coil and its respective terminal on the toggle. This will make the guitar's circuit 'see' a (very close to) 250K pot when the single coil is selected.

Would you recommend this for SCN's? I recently installed a TB4 HB in my mahogany strat. It has a 500k volume pot. I like the resistor idea. On SCN's there are three wires, is the black one the hot one?

Definitely! A 500K pot on those pickups will truly make them sound anemic.

The black AND green wires on the SCNs are BOTH the ground/negative wires. The red, yellow or white wire, respective to the individual pickup is the hot/positive one.

Silverslack · **Joined:** Sat Oct 24, 2009 3:29 am **Posts:** 305

Martian wrote:

Silverslack wrote:

Martian wrote:

One more thing: I recommend the "$161 modification": That 500K pot MIGHT make the single coils sound rather nasty. If this be the case, solder a 470K ohm resistor (readily available at any Radio Shack) in between the hot wire of each single coil and its respective terminal on the toggle. This will make the guitar's circuit 'see' a (very close to) 250K pot when the single coil is selected.

Would you recommend this for SCN's? I recently installed a TB4 HB in my mahogany strat. It has a 500k volume pot. I like the resistor idea. On SCN's there are three wires, is the black one the hot one?

Definitely! A 500K pot on those pickups will truly make them sound anemic.

The black AND green wires on the SCNs are BOTH the ground/negative wires. The red, yellow or white wire, respective to the individual pickup is the hot/positive one.

Thanks Martian, I installed the resistors and the neck and mid sound beautifully rich and the bridge is a screamer. Excellent advice sir.

Martian · **Posted:** Thu Dec 31, 2009 1:51 pm

Silverslack wrote:

Thanks Martian, I installed the resistors and the neck and mid sound beautifully rich and the bridge is a screamer. Excellent advice sir.

Glad to help! Thank you and enjoy!!

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