Lee's Spalted Beech Tele

[xadioriderx]

humbuckers generally have a wire that grounds the base plate anyways, so if it does, its not going to make a bit of difference...

i did a write up on using aluminum tape to shield cavities. if you take a voltmeter now and test for continuity between the separate strips of tape you used, there wont be any most likely. copper shielding has conductive adhesive, aluminum tape does not.

take your soldering iron with a pointy tip, and poke numerous dimples in the tape in places where it overlaps. this melts the adhesive and pushes pieces together. i used about 10 pieces to shield this:

and none of it had continuity anywhere, it was bad. so i found the dimple method and now all of it has continuity. its also part of the ground loop because the pots sit in it. and the control cover shielding makes contact with it (without adhesive in the way).

Edited September 22, 2011 by xadioriderx

[DarkAvenger]

Im still not so sure about leaving the pickup routes shielded. Although the base plate is grounded, fully shielding the route will still affect the tone, I don't like the result although you may. Good catch with the aluminum tape, I use copper conductive and didn't even think about it.

[iluvteles]

Here are some photos of the pickups I'm using. They are Gibson P94 humbucker sized P90's

If the shielding is not needed in the pick up cavities then I'll take it out as I dont want the potential to affect the tone.

OH SOMEBODY JUST TELL ME! IN OR OUT

PLEASE

[iluvteles]

Tried to fit the pickups today and found that the pickup cavities are about 0.5mm too small on the length so the aluminium tape is out and the chisel has gone to work.

Do things ever go right for my builds?

[xadioriderx]

been there. theres almost always something, somewhere, that holds back something else. no news to me either

i waited all night for a little clear to dry last night so i could sand out a spot i noticed. sanded it out, made sure all was good, just started clearing again, guess what i found? another one. now i have to wait again

thats life. lol

Edited September 24, 2011 by xadioriderx

[iluvteles]

All these things proove they are handmade.

After all the set backs I know that this guitar is going to turn out great.

[iluvteles]

I'm onto the wiring stage. I'm using Gibson P94's as a pair. They have black, white and a green wire and also a braid. I'm a bit stuck. I want to wire so that the matched pair will act as a humbucker when selected together. 3 way switch, 1 vol 1 tone. Any diagrams anybody?

[dpm99]

Does this help?

http://www.gibson.com/Service/PUPwiring.pdf

Those are some purty pickups!

[zyonsdream]

Absolutely stunning. I'd love to own it!

I'm a sucker for non-traditional teles

[xadioriderx]

im gonna be honest, im good at wiring pickups, but i dont understand what the heck gibson is doing with the wiring on this thing. im getting mixed answers. its not a typical 3 or 4 conductor humbucker wiring, but its not a single coil or p90 wiring either.

first do you have a p94t and a p94r? if yes, the p94r is neck, p94t is bridge, and this is how to wire it:

it SAYS this will be hum cancelling. to me it looks like it makes it out of phase, but again i dont get what they were doing (and no one on the internet appears to either).

gibson says that makes it hum cancelling, so im gonna go with that. if it for some reason ends up being out of phase (and gibson lied), then reverse the black and white wires to put it back in phase. thats the best i can do. i spent the last hour searching for someone on google that understands p94 wiring, but everyone says different things, half of them think its like a normal humbucker (which its not).

let me know how it goes! looks great!

oh and remember to ground all pots to each other, yadda yadda =D

Edited September 27, 2011 by xadioriderx

[dpm99]

Trust your instincts. If you make a mistake, it's not gonna explode or anything. You know what you're doing.

[xadioriderx]

that will be fine, the volume thing is no big deal because you only have one volume. its the difference between independent and dependent volume control. its more important if you have multiple volumes.

if its out of phase, then in the middle position with both pups on, it will sound very thin, and not very good. youll know, trust me =p

[iluvteles]

Thanks for your advice Xadioriderx. So glad I dont have to start changing it.

I just need to shim the neck because the neck pocket is too deep then I should get it wired up and get some strings on

[xadioriderx]

if the neck is too low you can probably get away with just shimming the bridge side of the neck so it angles it back a tiny bit. usually a business card or piece of sandpaper is enough, but if its fairly low it may take something thicker. but that would avoid leaving any gap or nonsense visible along the bottom edge of the neck pocket

[crazygtr]

Thanks for all the advice. Before I seen Xadioriderx wiring diagram I soldered the pots, jack and switch ready to drop into place and conect the pickups and ground wires. I also had mixed advice from google so I used the P90 diagram on the Iron Gear site. It if different form Xadioriderx diagram mainly for the Vol pot. I have the switch hot wire going to the top lug and then onto the tone pot with the hot output on the middle lug. Is this wrong or just a different way to do it.

Yes I have the P94 R and T set and will be wiring one black and one white to hum cancel as advised by Gigson. Although if it does turn out to be out of phase I'm not really sure I know what out of phase is

Here is a photo to explaine.

Be sure to separate the lead from the cap that is touching the pot side, otherwise that pot will also cut output instead of highs.

[iluvteles]

You have a sharp eye craztgtr. Thanks.

[crazygtr]

Anytime, by the way, this is one beautiful gtr.

[sdshirtman]

I'm not a big tele fan but this came out stunning. Excellent job.

[joshatatlasstands]

Awesome work would be an understatement! Thumbs up:)

[guitar2005]

That's a very nice finish you got there after all! How did you buff? Is that Nitro?

[iluvteles]

Guitar2005, I dry sanded using Siasoft foam backed pads from 320 to 2500 grit then I used a foam pad in a cordless drill and burnished with 3M Finnesse-It. The lacquer is Morrells 2pac acid catyist "440". They do nitro but they call it old style lacquer.

All I need is a truss rod cover and a control cavity cover then it will be complete.