By-Tor.com

CygnusX1 wrote:Get on it Zed! Lemme know how the rebuild goes.

Parts are in, soldering iron and solder bought, waiting for the UPS man to deliver the pickup I ordered (it'll be here today) and once I feel up to it the guitar will be renovated!

I'll take lots of pictures to show the progress.

Make sure your soldering iron is hot enough to boil the flux first (even if
the solder is rosin core)

Put some flux on the SITE and heat the SITE first. When the flux boils,
touch the cold solder to it AND the iron at the same time. (The solder
flows SO much easier.)

Grounding the pots can a challenge. That's a lot of metal to heat, but it
should be a piece of cake with a hot iron.

CygnusX1 wrote:Make sure your soldering iron is hot enough to boil the flux first (even if
the solder is rosin core)

Put some flux on the SITE and heat the SITE first. When the flux boils,
touch the cold solder to it AND the iron at the same time. (The solder
flows SO much easier.)

Grounding the pots can a challenge. That's a lot of metal to heat, but it
should be a piece of cake with a hot iron.

There's a ground built into the guitar that works well - I may just transplant that.

YYZ30 wrote: There's a ground built into the guitar that works well - I may just transplant that.

I was gonna say, if you're not replacing the pots too, just go wire-to-wire
with the pickup gound wire(s) and the main guitar ground wire and
you're muh-ney.

Just make damn sure you have a GOOD ground connection. It's the only
thing keeping you playing safely - or doing the "60 Hertz Shuffle" from
a "open" ground.

CygnusX1 wrote:

YYZ30 wrote: There's a ground built into the guitar that works well - I may just transplant that.

I was gonna say, if you're not replacing the pots too, just go wire-to-wire
with the pickup gound wire(s) and the main guitar ground wire and
you're muh-ney.

Just make damn sure you have a GOOD ground connection. It's the only
thing keeping you playing safely - or doing the "60 Hertz Shuffle" from
a "open" ground.

Oh no - I have new pots, new switch and the new pickup for the bridge position. Seymour Duncan has a nice set of directions to wire so I will be going by that.
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EDIT:

http://www.seymourduncan.com/images/pro ... 15-100.pdf

Can't get much clearer than that!

So, after reading, watching videos, and asking questions I was feeling up to trying to renovate my guitar yesterday. That changed after I flipped the pickguard over:



It made my head hurt - single coil pickups with 500K pots - no wonder the single coils sounded thin! The switch is a poorly made circuit board switch (Good thing I got a Fender replacement!) and the wiring looks like it was done by a third grader. So I traced everything down except for the wire for the jack - I may have to ask a tech about that because I am not sure what was done there.

So I am going to tackle this on my vacation.

Is it a Mexican strat?

CygnusX1 wrote:Is it a Mexican strat?

Jay Turser Strat copy

Try this:

(I rescued my basket case Kramer by using this site)

h/t to GuitarElectronics.com

www.guitarelectronics.com/product/WDUSS ... agram.html

If you really want an amazing sound and virtually no work...

http://www.carvinguitars.com/group/prea ... pickguards

I think Carvin uses 500k pots in those, but I could be wrong. I'd go with
250k pots.

CygnusX1 wrote:I think Carvin uses 500k pots in those, but I could be wrong. I'd go with
250k pots.

Never needed to ckeck. That blue guitar in my sig pick has the best-sounding cleans of any guitar I've ever played. Definitely not thin.

Btw, my daughter has a Jay Turser Strat. I was impressed with the build quality for the price point.

Siggy:

I think I traced everything down - the jack is wired a bit goofy but I think when it was wired the factory used a two lead wire instead of a two single lead wires - I will re-check it when I start next week.

Elfie:

I looked at pre-wired pickguards and was getting a some "caveat emptor"s as far as not fitting something that looks like a Strat but isn't a Strat (dimensions slightly off, etc). I have 500Ks in the guitar now, but don't like the sound - in fact it's going to be a radical change going from a SSS configuration with 500K pots to a SS(Seymour Duncan Hot Rails) with 250K pots.

I was impressed with the build wood and hardware wise, the wiring and switch leave something to be desired though, hence the re-build.

IT LIVES!!!!!

Pics and a walkthrough tomorrow AM

YYZ30 wrote:IT LIVES!!!!!

Pics and a walkthrough tomorrow AM

Coolness! Good job Zed. Get some of this ---->