guitarmonky55

well after some playing i found that the job was easily completed, albeit slow, with a round bastard file from home depot. i just went slow and steady, the holes stayed perfectly round and no finish damage, and i used a pin vice with a 7/64 bit to drill the guide pin holes in the headstock. ive got all 6 tuners in tight, and i strung up with no problems in sight, it worked great. thanks for all the advice these tuners rock

thats comforting to hear, because it seems to me that i did an extremely neat and precise solder job on it. ill have to wait till the morning to go get some good batteries.

ok first off, what are the usual symptoms of extremely low batteries in emg pickups? i wired up, i put a battery in and tapped the pickup covers with something metal and it would only make noise on a high gain setting. i strung up, and i found the same problem, so i took out the battery to see what ti sounds like with no batteries, and found no change in sound. so i started messing with my batteries and found one that gave me slightly more volume, but no matter what, my sound is always heavily distorted(even when set on a clean channel of my amp its very distorted). i also find im getting more volume out of the neck pickup. so my question is, could this be a low battery problem(i dont have any fresh on hand all of the ones i tried were old i found around the house) or would this be the result of some wiring mistake i made? its an 81/85 zw set btw.

alright thank you much

ok ive done alot of electronic works(replacing pickups/pots/switches etc) but never a full replacement of electronics in a guitar. ive never really been taught or read about 'proper' soldering techniques i just kind of go at it. before doing this big a job i want to make sure on a few points im iffy about. 1)i have always had confusion on this. when i heat the part to solder it, do i want to heat it to the point that i can remove the soldering iron and still melt the solder on the part, or do i want to leave the iron on while applying solder? 2)what exactly is the best way to hold a wire in place while soldering it down(example ground on back of pot casing)and, further, what should i do to hold it down while the solder dries, should i put down the solder and use something else to hold the wire in place while i take the iron away so it can dry or what? 3) a good joint should look......shiny or dull or in between? 4) when i put a wire into the terminal of a pot, should i just lay the wire in so taht it stays or should the wire be bent around the loop of the terminal? thanks in advance any help will be greatly appreciated!

well im in high school but you arent allowed use of the equipment unless you are actually in the class and i have a full schedule im graduating at the highest program they offer so i dont have room for it. im liking the idea of using a reamer from both sides and filing it out so far, but i need to figure out how to ream it since the sizes dont do all of what i need.

ok that idea sounds like the safest and easiest to me so far, thank you, but i have one more question. the two reamers offered on stewmac are the sizes 7/32-3/8, and 3/8-9/16. my tuning peg holes are 11/32, and i need to get to 25/64(10mm). the actual shaft of my schaller tuners aer .390", and a 3/8 reamer will only get me to .375". i cant use the 3/8-9/16 reamer because 3/8 is larger than my current pegholes so it wont fit in..........what should i do? maybe file the outside hole with a file until i can fit the larger reamer in?

but doesnt that leave the hole in a tapered shape so the tuner wont fit in without straightening the hole?

does anyone know where i could look for a good hand drill? i cant find any at home depot/lowes/sears and i found a 13 dollar fiskars one that looks iffy at ACE hardware and a 42 dollar one at this other place, but that seems a bit expensive. im looking for this in order to enlarge my pegholes for some schaller tuners, i can find the bits just not the hand drill(im not willing to use a power drill and risk ruining my headstock). i was thinking, is there any way i could do the job with out the use of a drill, kind of rig up some type of device to use the bits with?

ok sorry to double post but ive been doing some research and ive found a way that seems to be fairly simple to do this so let me go over it to make sure it sounds legit; as opposed to spending 25 bucks on a peghole reamer i believe that a round file from home depot will get the edge of the peghole to the right size if i go slow and check the size often against my tuners. once i get it right, i will use a 25/64 drill bit in a hand drill to go about halfway through, then repeat the process on the other side. one question im finding hard to get an answer to is how would i go about clamping and placing the guitar for a sturdy drilling area, i dont have any professional setups just a table and some c-clamps, what should i do. (its an angled peghead by the way) after that, to drill the holes for the metal guides, i found a diagram with precise measurements on stewmac. i was planning on first measuring the placement out and then chalkin the tips and double checking it that way. the diameter is .096 inch, so just use that drill bit im assuming. for depth, i was just gonna go a little, then try the fit, then go a little more, then try the fit etc till it works. does this sound good or are there any serious flaws in my plan? [edit] i found another explanation that said a good way to prevent damage was to turn the drill bit backwards, would this be a good idea?

i was just talking to a very experienced luthier who told me the best way to do it would be to buy a peghole reamer and get rough size, then go through the rest with a hand drill of the size slowly. the tuners im putting in are schallers. i also noticed im going to need to drill a hole for the little metal nub that sticks out about a quarter inch from the tuner's shaft, would this best be done with a hand drill? i was thinking the best way to do it would be to mark the tip of it with some chalk, rough in the tuners and then drill from where the chalk mark shows me where it would line up...is there a better way to do this?

alright thank you much. i was figuring something like that but i wasnt sure if maybe the les paul switch had a slightly different setup, seeing as ivenever owned or worked in one i wouldnt know.

so a peghole reamer isnt what i should use? im looking at a 10mm peg hole for the tuners i want, so do i just find the matching drill bit and go at it? and would it be better to start in from the top of the peghead or bottom, or does it matter?

ok so im going to wire up my emgs into my sg, but i have a slight bit of confusion on the provided diagrams. im going to be wiring up a 3 way switch with 2 tone/2 volume controls. there is one diagram labeled for a gibson les paul, and it shows the wire from the switch going to the outer terminal of the volume pot and the hot from the pickup going to the middle terminal. there is a second diagram labeled simply 'diagram 2' and it says each volume acts as a master volume, im not sure how to take this. the wire from the switch is connected to the middle terminal of the volume pot and the hot from the pickup is on the outer terminal, but other than that the two diagrams are the same. is the gibson les paul one different for some reason of them using a different switch wiring config or is the second diagram merely an alternative for a different volume effect?

well i tried measuring them with a steel ruler and they are 11/32 according to that. arent there special tools to ream out the pegholes for a bigger size? im pretty sure ive seen them on stewmac before.

ehh.....no idea. they are the ones that came on my epiphone, the real chinsy ones with the green plasic tipped knobs.....

ok so im doing a workover on an old epiphone sg of mine, and in order to replace the tuners i need to know what size the peg holes are, but i cant seem to find the information anywhere so is there a way i could measure them myself? im not sure how they are measured so if anyone could help it would be greatly appreciated.