The Internet is a great place for information. In fact, without the Internet this entire project would have never happened. However, the majority of my fowl-ups are also due to the Internet (my look of despair/shame below...).
Case in point, electrical grounding. Going into this project I read numerous articles about how, in addition to the ground circuit between all the electronics, the bridge needs to also be grounded. I read numerous articles on how active pickups need not be grounded to the bridge, but passive do. I read numerous articles on how covered pickups are shielded and therefore do not need grounding to the bridge. What the hell does all this grounding do anyways?
Well, grounding the electronics is always required, and I won't go into that. However, grounding the bridge, which is really grounding the strings that touch the bridge, is done to prevent the annoying buzzing that occurs when you lift your hands off of the strings. The Internet was both right and wrong on this one. Active pickups do not need grounding, check! Passive pickups need grounding, check! Covered pickups do not need grounding, WRONG! In this style of a guitar, unless you are installing active (battery powered) pickups, you must ALWAYS ground the bridge. This is done by drilling a hole (if one doesn't already exist) between the bridge stud hole and the control cavity. Then, you shove a wire into the hole and pound in your bridge stud creating a friction fit. The other end of the wire is soldered into the ground circuit and BANG, no more buzz.
So, here's what not to do...DON'T BUILD THE WHOLE GUITAR ONLY TO THEN REALIZE YOU HAVE TO GROUND THE BRIDGE!!
Here's what TO do...DRILL THE HOLE FOR THE BRIDGE GROUND LOOOOONG BEFORE YOU POUND IN THE BRIDGE STUDS!!
OK, so what did this mean for my project? Well, today I had to REMOVE a bridge stud...not for the faint of heart. Essentially I could try to use channel locks and some leverage to pull out the stud or I could create a lever of sorts. I found the exact thread for the inside of the bridge stud and bought a bolt that matches. I also bought a large washer and a short section of PVC tube. By putting it all together like the picture below, I was able to simply screw the bolt in thereby pulling the stud out like a lever...sort of...
In the end I did a little damage to the finish around the stud...I guess we can consider that part of the "character" of this intentionally antique-like guitar. Here's a pic after the stud was removed...
You can faintly see the little rings I created in the process (the large rings are light reflections)...ugh. Next up was to drill the hole to the control cavity. This would be the same whether done early in the project or now, so here's a pic. This takes a LONG drill bit...
Drilling at that angle is crazy-making. In the end, I BARELY made it into the bottom of the control cavity...WHEW!! So, I guess some of you might be wondering where the pickups went and such...well, I wired the guitar up over the weekend. Once I plugged it in to my amp, bad things happened haha. I'm pretty sure I had some current running through me, or something. So, I took the guitar into my local shop where I know the owner is a whiz at wiring Gibson (and other styles) style guitars. He re-wired the whole thing, then called me to request that I drill this stupid hole for the bridge ground. So, today I picked up the guitar, performed the aforementioned tasks, and finally returned it to the shop for final wiring (and as you may notice in that last pic, I finally picked up a case for the guitar!).
I should have this guitar back in my hands, and completely done no later than Monday. I'm hoping earlier. I will definitely be posting a video to demonstrate the sound of this beast and I will certainly be writing the final wrap-up and lessons learned.
Until then, cheers!
Dean
holy robin eggs, batman... now you know why i am perpetually gunshy! but great tips and it's looking sicker by the update!
ReplyDelete