Removing Electronics

[Lord-of-the-strings]

Boys, it's actually time for me to start doing some work instead of loafing around imagining about working on my guit fiddle. I'm going to be refinishing (this may seem out of topic but hold on!) and am sanding her the good old fashion way, by hand. So.. I'm going to be removing all of the electronics, How do I remove the pickups? Do I just unsolder all the connections and it should be fine?

EDIT: Just remembered, when I was taking it apart and the claw out of the tremolo cavity, I noticed there isn't any of that grey insulation paint... can I simply aluminum/copper tape this sucker up?

Edited April 3, 2006 by Lord-of-the-strings

[unclej]

before you start removing stuff make yourself a detailed diagram of where each and every wire goes. then unsolder the wires, remove the electronics and get to sanding. if you're diagram is detailed and you mark each pot and pickup as to where it came from you shouldn't have any trouble at all...good luck.

[crafty]

I wouldn't take apart the electronics completely, either. If you're taking apart a Strat, you should only need to desolder the bridge ground and the jack cable. If it's a Les Paul or other type of rear-routed beast, you can take out the pickups individually and remove the control and jack setup as a single unit. It just keeps you from having a lot more headaches later and saves stressing the components too much with desoldering and resoldering.