It does come in handy when one cracks the finish on a body, or dents a guitar on the door, or files into the rosewood on a fret board......GRRRRRRRRRRRR.........Oh??? A Slab? of what?? I have a Slap Tele body somewhere Now out to to shop to work on guitars. One person asked where this guitar room is. When I built a shop to work on cars, I built a "clean" room inside the shop for audio and video editing, recording and for working on guitars (such as these builds.) Small, but nice and the whole bench is just has carpet on it that is stapled down with a small air upholstery stapler.

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Xhefri's Guitars
www.xhefriguitars.com

Sorry to learn that you lost your cat like that.

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"Another day in paradise!"

I was being cryptic as usual....

.......Relieves tension....referral Tim Curry's lines in RHPS...same as what's on a slab...as in mort

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"C'est parti mon Kiki "

BUILD #2 Mystic Black Ultra

Ok. I am going to take up where I last left off on Build #2. Also I warned you that I am going to go into a lot of detail on this thread, so for you more experienced guys, this will be a bit boring. For you just starting out, I think you will fine this helpful.

I am going to mount the volume and 1st tone pot. One of my favorite tools for tightening these down is a SnapOn socket mounted on T-bar. This way I can get the pots really tight so later they will not come loose. Also below you will see some of my favorite tools, such as two types of dental tools, small side cutters, small angle needle nose pliers, small screwdrivers, a jig to hold wires (off on the far left) and a magnifying glass. I use the glass to check every single solder joint to make sure they get good contact.





On choosing audio vs. linear pots (short for "potentiometer") depends on what you will be using the pot for. I always use audio pots for volume control, otherwise you will find that the volume does not change smoothly as you turn the pot up and down. With a linear taper pot, you will find that the volume increases slowly from 0 to about 60 or 70 percent, then increases rapidly from that point on. This is because there isn't a direct relationship between resistance and volume in a passive circuit (which is what a guitar with passive pickups is). Audio taper pots compensate for this, and give you a consistent volume change throughout the sweep.

A tone control, on the other hand, works best with a linear taper pot. The role of a tone control is to feed part of your signal to a capacitor that bleeds the treble to ground. In order to have a smooth transition from bright tone to mellow tone, the pot has to be linear. You can use an audio taper pot in a tone control, but you won't find the tone roll-off to be as smooth as it could be.

Note too that when these are mounted the lugs are too close together and need to be bent back some to give some room




Next is soldering on the cap for the 1st tone control. I like to keep all the soldering done really clean. This requires a HOT soldering iron. After the cap is soldered then the extra wire is clipped. Then a lead wire is soldered on for the tone control so it will be ready top connect to the switch in a bit.





before I even mount the single wafer 5-lug Super switch, I connect a wire to the two outside lugs and a wire that will run to the volume control. TIP: I use a sharp box cutter and roll the wire gently between my finger and the blade. It takes some practice, but by doing this I can remove the exact amount of the wire sheathing without cutting any of the wire. One wants to keep all the solder joints super clean. I fold the wires through a lug, take small needle nose pliers and crimp the wires down flat and solder. You can see the before and after.





Next is getting the TBX tone control ready to mount. A TBX is a stack set of pots that cuts either treble or bass instead of the standard style of tone that cuts treble only. T (treble) B (bass) X (Cut) thus TBX)..It is a passive, split-shaft, 250k/1 Meg tone control which extends the treble and bass frequencies when it is turned either way past "5". The detent is “5” which is considered to be “tone neutral.” I shows this before on a previous build a few years ago. first I will mount the resister, then solder on the cap, followed by a wire that will go to the 5-way switch.






I want to share a secret. Fender did something I could never understand. On a stock Ultra they wired the TXB to the far right outside lug of the Super Switch. This is crazy because the TBX then is directly wired to the volume control via the wire that crosses over to the far left outside lug. that means the TBX affects all the pickups, all the time!!!




So what I have done is wired it to the three left inside lugs (the same lugs that go to the mini-switch for the bridge. BTW, this same wiring concept, minus the mini switch, is used on the James Burton Telecasters. position #3 is the Neck + the Bridge. And that is what is happening on a Ultra as well. But with the mini-switch you have a choice of pickups on the Dually.



These on/on/on mini-switches come with a small tab to lock down the outside mount ring, but they do not work very well on a Strat pickguard. So I carefully grind off that little tab on a bench grinder and then always turn the mount slot downward when the switch is mounted. That way one can't see, if noticeable, the light grinding marks.




Here we have the components all mounted and the pickups ready to wire.




Enough already. I am getting bored with this. So the next post with be BUILD #1. I will be doing some drilling on that nice burl maple mahogany body….. more to come….

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Xhefri's Guitars
www.xhefriguitars.com

Cool stuff Jeff and those close up's are great. I'm learning things here by just following what you're doing. When you connect the ends of wires to a pot do you tin the two things first? or just position them and crimp them into place and then solder? That helping hand looks as though it's worth it's weight in gold!

Gary

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Luck won't do it and ignorance can't

George Van Eps.

Nicely done, but how long do you have to leave the haemostat in place.

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"Another day in paradise!"

Hey Gary, I just crimp and solder. The type of solder used is a rosin core that is designed for electrical soldering, unlike the solid core that one would use with flux when soldering copper pipe, or the like.


ZZDoc, the haemostat is always left in place until all the bleeding is stopped. You know that. (And you even spelled it correctly!!!!! that is a tough one.) Ok some guys back in the 1970s used these for other applications as well, but here, and now, and at this place, they will stay there till I can figure out where all those dumb wires go!

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Xhefri's Guitars
www.xhefriguitars.com

Thanks Jeff, this is one awesome thread, seeing these instruments built up from scratch, you're giving us a lot of great knowledge and tips here! This is the stuff! i'm so glad i joined the forum to see all this

Gary

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Luck won't do it and ignorance can't

George Van Eps.

BUILD #1 Flamed Ultra

Ok, lets move on to Build #1. Ok this is the scary stuff. Taking a drop-dead gorgeous body and drilling holes!!! Now i know there are the vintage guys that love the 6-screw bridges, wood shims for the neck and vintage routes….but in this case I am following the modus operandi of the Fender Ultra, which includes that natatorium under the hood and a micro-tilt adjuster on the neck. Look at the Warmoth body neck socket and look at the Mystic Black (Plus DX or Ultra) body and you will see the device.



Remember, much of what has been used on guitars over the years were either custom made or came from a hardware store! In this case this little device is found in many hardware stores and is called "4 claw t-nut" and has been used in furniture building for years.




It has simple Allen screw inside and when tightened it goes against the round metal end on the truss rod of the neck. This allows you to "tilt" the neck instead of using shims. The butt end of the neck below is not the one used on either of these builds but was a pict taken of another build I did a while back. I just wanted to show you what the Allen screw tightens against.



To get this drilled in the right place, I put on a Strat Plus neck plate and marked the hole with a black Sharpie. It is a little hard to see but gives me the right location to drill. I will use a small drill bit to make the pilot hole.






Now I will flip the body over and use a special wood drill bit that does not have edge cutters, and make a recess hole for the t-nut.




This is followed by drilling the hole for the Allen wrench and a hole big enough for the shaft of the t-nut to slide snugly down into. If the hole is a bit too small you could split the wood driving it in. If too loose, then it will not be nice and snug inside the hole. I like detail so I finish up with a tapered bit to finish off the hole.






using a small hammer (micro hammer!!) I tapped the t-nut into place. And she is done! the neck fit a little tight on this body so using adhesive sandpaper stuck to a paint stirring stick, I carefully sanded the insides of the neck socket (finishing with a fine grit..sorry not picts of this) until the neck slid into place nice a snug, but not too snug as to crack the finish.



Ok, more to come tomorrow some time……

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Xhefri's Guitars
www.xhefriguitars.com

I spelled it that way in deference to the crew on the other side of the pond. Who supplies you with your dental instruments. If there's any kind of gadget of that kind that you may need, if I've something lying around fallow I can arrange to send it your way.

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"Another day in paradise!"

Hey ZZ, thanks for the offer. Actually i have all I need and due to my work the local hospital called and they have 4 big boxes of stuff for me to take and go through for our overseas work. A few months ago they gave us like 8 boxes and some of it is already being used overseas. I kept some of those heavy duty latex based rubber surgery gloves. Wow those are nice fore changing oil on the car and for working in the shop. They last a lot longer than those new cheaper types used in ER and sold at places like NAPA. No latex reactions here! Regarding dental tools, I get those from my wife's cousin. He works at a place that manufacturers them so i get 2nds and rejects.

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Xhefri's Guitars
www.xhefriguitars.com

BUILD #2 Mystic Black Ultra

The sun is setting as the crescent moon waxes brightly against the cold blue skies. A prefect time to saunter through the darkness to the catacombs of a guitar building room where lurks the Mystic Black Strat build.



I would like to get the wiring all finished up on this black/red/black Ultra pickguard assembly. Ok, boring, but more detail. First thing I want to do is get the mini-switch wired up. Here is basically what I am doing with the two Lace Sensors strapped together (a Dually, is what they are called, which makes sense, I guess).




I do not know if you noticed, but I work on these in such a way to make the soldering as easy as possible. Some people put all the parts on then try to solder all those small wires and it is a mess. Do as much as you can out in the open before things get tight, thus the reason wire soldered the bottom wire on the 5-way switch before mounting and now soldering the mini-switch while I still have some room to move. These are tricky due to the lugs being so small. I use my magnifying glass on every move and a vert sharp dental tool to get every little fiber of wire into place. i am going to start off with the wires from the lower pickup first and the hot wire for the 5-way switch. Here they are ready to solder.




Please note how i wrap all the wires. It make kind of a harness and holds them all into place. The wire below is from the upper Sensor and goes across 2 lugs on the switch. also a ground wire is added and the switch is done.






Wrapping the wires from the TBX to the hot wire to the mini-switch, they get soldered on the 3 inside lugs on the right side of the switch. As i explained earlier, i do this, despite the fact Fender solders the TBX on the lower right side lug affecting all the pickups. This way it is connected only to the Dually and the other tone control is connected to the neck and middle. Of course when you have the switch middling the bridge and the other pickups, one can use both tone controls.




To help you to understand what is going on , here is a simple diagram:



Need to add a black ground wire to the pots and the guard is pretty much ready to pop-in the body.




Here is it sitting in the body. Next thing to do is buff the body to a high gloss and get the neck ready to mount. Kind of Mystic looking, eh?

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Xhefri's Guitars
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This is looking great Jeff, love the whole look of it. Where did you learn how to do all this? This is pretty complex!

Gary

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Luck won't do it and ignorance can't

George Van Eps.

Hey there SKcoppertele, I use to have a copper colored 52 Tele, BTW.

I have bough the paddle switches a few times but use the bat-type because it is the same kind Fender used on all the Ultra and Tele Plus guitars. Just kind have stuck with that look I guess!

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Xhefri's Guitars
www.xhefriguitars.com

Oh wow! I haven't been around much recently, and even on my occasional visits seem to have missed this epic thread!

Honestly, this is as good as it gets. Better than any "how to" book I've ever seen. What an amazing resource to have: thank you so much.

There are many things I like about your threads, Jeff. Your amazing knowledge of the subject, your skill, your inventiveness, your fantastic photographs. But best of all is your taste. The choices you make are always completely perfect; I simply have never seen you put a foot wrong, here or on your website. Deep, deep respect.

For anyone who is new to Jeff's work, I promise you when these guitars are done they will seriously look better and more desirable than when they first came out the factory. And that ain't no lie. Get ready to drool, folks.

...Though on reflection the one thing I like even more than all of that about what Xhefri does is his spirit. He's just such a plain nice guy! What a pleasure.

This is the Forum at its best.

Cheers - C

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