Replacing Wiring - What Do You Use?

[ranman106]

I'm attempting to replace the electronics and wiring in an Epiphone Les Paul. I bought the replacement electronics from Stew-Mac. What kind of wiring do you use and where do you you get it?

[wood is good]

http://store.guitarfetish.com/guhoupwi22ga.html

[ranman106]

http://store.guitarfetish.com/guhoupwi22ga.html

Cool!!!

Should I worry about noise with no shielding?

[Paul Marossy]

Should I worry about noise with no shielding?

You should always shield the control cavity and cover for it. You might get some noise if you don't shield it.

[Woodenspoke]

http://store.guitarfetish.com/guhoupwi22ga.html

Someone hooked me up with this seller, the same wire as Guitar fetish but at half the price.

http://www.allelectronics.com/make-a-store...0-Rolls-/1.html

[Keegan]

22-26ga, stranded, cloth or pvc insulation. I'd recommend 22 or 24 gauge for the majority of the work and 26 for intricate connections.

I use cloth wire on most of the wiring because it's easier to work with. I get it from Guitar Parts Resource but just because that's also where I get most of my other parts. Allparts has a decent price on it if you need a whole 25' roll of it($10 http://www.allparts.com/store/electronics-wire,Category.asp). If you just need enough to wire one guitar I'd get it from Best Guitar Parts, they have it for $0.45 a foot(http://www.bestguitarparts.com/guitar-part...overed_Wire.htm).

Edited May 16, 2009 by Keegan

[Woodenspoke]

I use cloth wire on most of the wiring because it's easier to work with

Maybe I missed something about cloth wire. I find its use other than in vintage pickup reproductions a waste of money and harder to work with. I don't see the point unless your guitar is a clear Lucite body and the wiring will show. Or you have some rich buyer who wants to pay you to install it in his guitar. Its 10x's more expensive than standard wire.

I agree with 22 gage stranded as a good overall hookup wire. Anything larger and it just seems too big. I use 28 gage for hookups to a pickup coil (just the ends of the coil) so 26 seems a bit small for general wiring unless you have lots of stuff you need to cram into your guitar.

[Keegan]

Harder? You don't need to screw around with stripping the wire and it doesn't melt like PVC. Plus it's more flexible. And the cost difference is insignificant for a guitar. You're only using like a foot of wire.

[Narcissism]

I use a spool of wire I bought at Radio Shack. Its pretty sweet.

[Keegan]

I use a spool of wire I bought at Radio Shack. Its pretty sweet.

That too. And since it came with green I can throw that in there just to confuse myself when I open it up later.

[Woodenspoke]

Radio shack does not sell 22 gage from what I remember. As far as melting the PVC you are either using too much heat or it's not a heat resistant PVC jacket. The link I provided is heat resistant hookup wire which I have soldered at 600Deg with no melting (to a pot cover). I have tried wire from things like cat 5 cable and phone cable and that stuff is not made to solder, will melt quickly.

What I don't like about the cloth is pulling it through tight wire runs from the pickups it always wants to peel back.

[Keegan]

Ah, it's probably just the cheap radioshack PVC I have. Yeah...it says 180 degrees Fahrenheit on it.

Whoops, I assumed it was all the same.

[ranman106]

Thanks for the help guys. Anymore tips, please post 'em!

[psw]

Well...I'm not a big fan of ebaying supplies for this kind of thing...generally the postage is way more than what you can get if you have a half decent electronics kind of store.

For about 5 bucks I pick up a whole bunch of suitable wire in 12 colours...afterall, it's not like you need huge lengths. For more delicate stuff I have even used rainbow ribbon cable and just pulled off the colors and number or strands that I want (got to be careful with the heat of course).

For guitars with the space, I will try to use shielded cable. This too can be found in paired or quad forms that can be easily separated and have colour coding. If enough shielded cable is used this can generally be enough to quieten down most unshielded guitars, even strats.

Generally I use stranded cable, occasionally there is a use for solid core but I don't think it is reliable and the heat transfer easily melts cables.

Heat is again something to watch...I now use a temperature controlled work station but with proper techniques and preparations you should not need that kind of heat even for the back of pots. filing and sanding soldering points, flux and tinning of surfaces before making connection and only then attempting a wire join will ensure a nice bright strong and professional join.

If you expect to make the join without such precautions, especially on pots (but even wires) where there is usually a layer of oxidization, possibly oil or protective coatings you will need a lot of heat to burn through this and even then a good join can be faulty.

You don't need a special soldering iron, but low wattage iron, preparation of the joins, good technique and practice is the order of the day.

Generally I don't like cloth, it isn't really intended to be used in guitars (unless there is some vintage stuff I don't know about or can't get)...I suspect it is solid and designed for amp construction and perhaps not the kind of choice I would personally would make.

Once all the joins and such are made, and it has tested to work, it is a good idea to use PVC tape to protect the joins. This can be important with shielded guitars. A bit of tape covering the shielding under a strat selector switch can never do any harm and save a lot of frustration or future problems and certainly won't hurt. It is not uncommon that once screwed down the selector could make contact with the shielding and short out some selections...of course when you take it apart these problems disappear. Another typical place is a shielded output jack that may find the whole guitar shorted out.

These things are the kinds of things that have me avoiding shielding and going the extra mile with shielded cable...harder to do and space consuming but every wire is shielded right up close. Not suitable for all guitars either, but remember most pickup wires are shielded these days...another strategy for a pseudo shield is the twisted pair (twisting the hot and ground leads say from a pickup together). With some of these sheilded cable strategies it may be best to only connect them to ground at one end. Also remember that things like phase reverse switches will reverse hot and ground...you definitely don't want a hot shield so dual core shielded cable might be necessary in this case.

Generally though...each guitar is a different case and each will have their own "style". A poor shielding job may cause more problems than a very neat plain wire or twisted pair configuration and some can turn out exceptionally quiet. Care and attention to detail really helps with this kind of thing...and a little practice. If doing a bit of it a good soldering station can be great and tell you exactly how much heat you are using.

pete

ps...co0lour coding can be good...the main thing is to do be cosistant with grounds...you may well find potential ground loops as you go and makes trouble shooting easier later...but most guitars are generally simple...a color for ground (say green or black perhaps) a colour for each pickup...another colour from the selector to the controls and then onto the output.

pps...sometimes you can find some cheap rca plug leads with shielded stereo cables that are good for shielded cable jobs...but your soldering needs to be up to scratch.

ppps....I would also recommend a really good pair of wire strippers that will take the insulation off accurately with no damage to the wire itself...no using the iron or a knife to strip the ends!

[Narcissism]

The guage of wire I use isn't 22. I don't know what it is, but its bigger. I figured bigger = faster transfer, so I just went for the biggest and most flexable balance I could. I want to say its either 20 or 16 or something like that... I got it like 9 or 10 years ago.

[Woodenspoke]

The gauge of wire I use isn't 22. I don't know what it is, but its bigger. I figured bigger = faster transfer, so I just went for the biggest and most flexible balance I could. I want to say its either 20 or 16 or something like that... I got it like 9 or 10 years ago.

Fast heat transfer away from your soldering iron. It takes longer to solder a bigger wire just as it takes more heat to solder on a ground to the pot. I generally use flux and solder and start the process on a pot prior to adding any wires. As PSW says you want to tin all your wires first. That means a bit of flux then solder prior to attaching it. Same go for just about anything you solder.

After years of struggling with expensive Weller soldering irons I finally bought a station. In fact the station was only double a Weller and it has way more features. This one warms up in about a minute if not less. You can buy a digital but I don't think I needed it, this works just fine. Also has a range of tips available.

Note the high range is about 900 Deg F

[Paul Marossy]

The guage of wire I use isn't 22. I don't know what it is, but its bigger. I figured bigger = faster transfer, so I just went for the biggest and most flexable balance I could. I want to say its either 20 or 16 or something like that... I got it like 9 or 10 years ago.

Bigger wire doesn't equal "faster transfer". The gage of wire used in an electronic device should be a balance between durability and having the proper voltage rating. Electrons travel just as fast down a 10 gage wire as they do a 22 gage wire... but a 22 gage wire will fry if it trys to handle the same amount of current as a 10 gage wire could have on it. The other thing to think about is multi-strand wire vs. solid core wire. Solid core wire breaks pretty easily, so it's not something that you would want to use in anything but the most stable of environments.

My personal favorite, although a bit expensive, is multi-strand 22 gage silver coated teflon wire. I use it in the stompboxes I build. It's durable, solders really well and the insulation doesn't melt when you're soldering.

[Prostheta]

I use hanks of random multistrand which as described, doesn't melt when soldering. I have black, red, green and yellow FWIW. I mostly only use the black and red anyway.

Incidentally, when stripping back insulation before tinning the ends - save the insulation and slip it over the ends of your capacitor leads and whatever. It looks fabtastic.

Apologies for any spelling errors or miscapitalisations. I'm on a Mac today and I hate it like the plague, but not as much as a plague of Macs.

[westhemann]

I think I am guilty of heresy,then...I used to use whatever I had available back in the day when all I was doing was rewiring and modding my storebought guitars...

I once did an entire guitar of mine in solid strand copper 18 guage...I remember I loved it because t stayed where I bent it...never once had an issue with anything on that guitar coming loose...I think it may be my sabre...

[Tim37]

i just use 20 or 22 gauge stranded unshielded wire form radio shack i have never had a problem with it.

[Prostheta]

Well, given the low current at which guitars produce the gauge of the wiring in the cavity will have minimal effect so yeah - you can easily get away with using whatever is to hand Wes, and I used to do it myself. Solid core does mean that it is more likely to snap if the electronics get moved around (such as when replacing batteries, pickups, etc) but still fine. Noise is a reducible factor in builds, so given the opportunity to do so it's a good idea to use shielded wiring but again, a shielded cavity does the trick just as well, if not better.

I actually haven't had need to use shielded wire except for the convenience of "stereo" shielded wire which is useful for wiring up stereo jack sockets for active electronics. Simpler than twisting pairs or triplet of wire. Then again, having a nicely twisted pair does look awesome....the perfectionist/OCD sufferer in me :-\

[Quarter]

... After years of struggling with expensive Weller soldering irons I finally bought a station. In fact the station was only double a Weller and it has way more features. This one warms up in about a minute if not less. You can buy a digital but I don't think I needed it, this works just fine. Also has a range of tips available. ...

I love my 936, its a killer station that has served me well for about 12 years now.

For wire, I like and use stranded 22g cloth wire. For the steels I build, I don't need much and my customers like it so its an easy choice for me.