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Vintage threads from the first ten years

Re: Nevermind I figured it out

5/21/2006 6:09 PM
Dave Stephens	Re: Nevermind I figured it out sorry was busy and missed that one...

5/21/2006 7:31 PM
GTarman	not a problem at all Actually my tone pot was wacked out, causing every pickup I put there to sound horrible, glass breaking bad. Replaced the tone pot and works fine now, also had a problem with my tensioner. At slow speed it felt fine or when stopped it was good. I had a brain fart and forgot to put more tension under full speed so at full speed it was almost no tension at all. Just when you think you know something about pickups, something throws a curve at you.

5/21/2006 7:31 PM

GTarman

not a problem at all

Actually my tone pot was wacked out, causing every pickup I put there to sound horrible, glass breaking bad. Replaced the tone pot and works fine now, also had a problem with my tensioner. At slow speed it felt fine or when stopped it was good. I had a brain fart and forgot to put more tension under full speed so at full speed it was almost no tension at all. Just when you think you know something about pickups, something throws a curve at you.

5/22/2006 4:25 AM
Dave Stephens	guess what, you'll never know everything about pickups, no one does. Tension is a matter of experience. AFter four years, tension to me is just below where wire stretches, you can only gauge that by feel. I don't hand tension my winds, I started out building Lollar's winder and cam deal. The cam sucked, I know it could work but I spent more time adjusting the cam than winding. I had the wire guide rod, so I threw the cam away and moved the rod back and forth by hand. I still do the same thing but by another method thas easier but same wire guide rod. I made my own end limits with those nylon spacers and a thumbscrew and moved it back and forth by hand. Guys who wind and tension by hand get a better feel for tension sooner than what I did, but I did learn about tension and its an important thing to get a clue about. Dont stretch the wire. I had a real hard lesson about bad shit pots recently. i got a Jay Turser piece of shit guitar, brand new off Ebay (sorry for the swearing but this guitar cost me a year of pain to make into something playable, I hate Mr. Jay whoever he is). I won't go into the gorey details like I usually do here. Chinese guitar, chinese wiring, chinese pots, chinese awful horrible pickups. Body is good, neck is good, rest is total crap. Anyway I took the metal covers off the pickups, did a shim job, wound my own pickups from scratch put it all back together plugged it in and my pickups sounded like mud. I know my P90s don't sound like mud and didnt know what was happening. A friend said replace the pots. I pulled the harness out and the pots that were supposed to be 500K all were wacked out random values from 400K to just under 500K. I got some cheap Stew Mac pots and replaced them and held my breath. Plugged the guitar in and bango whango, the guitar was ALIVE, my pickups sang, at the jams they all come up say wow that sounds good. Bottom line, buy a cheap guitar, GUT THE DAMN THING, get good pots, rewire it, I couldn't believe the huge difference gutting this guitar made. A guitar I hated with a vengeance is now becoming a favorite. I would never buy a Jay Turser guitar again without knowing ahead of time that they are crap but can be made into something good. Is it worth the time and money, maybe not, might be better to buy something from a hock shop that you can play and hear before you go out the door and know is good and don't have to spend hours and hours with. If you do have time, there are some guitars you can buy for cheap and turn into gems like this one. I got a Stellar guitar on Ebay brand new LP copy, lacquer finished, with hardshell case for $200. REal maple cap body, real mahogany neck and body. but had to do a fret job on the upper frets, gut the electronics, new pickups, now its a good guitar. Save on a guitar, but put a ton of time to make it right. Is it worth it? I don't know......

5/22/2006 4:25 AM

Dave Stephens

guess what, you'll never know everything about pickups, no one does. Tension is a matter of experience. AFter four years, tension to me is just below where wire stretches, you can only gauge that by feel. I don't hand tension my winds, I started out building Lollar's winder and cam deal. The cam sucked, I know it could work but I spent more time adjusting the cam than winding. I had the wire guide rod, so I threw the cam away and moved the rod back and forth by hand. I still do the same thing but by another method thas easier but same wire guide rod. I made my own end limits with those nylon spacers and a thumbscrew and moved it back and forth by hand. Guys who wind and tension by hand get a better feel for tension sooner than what I did, but I did learn about tension and its an important thing to get a clue about. Dont stretch the wire.

I had a real hard lesson about bad shit pots recently. i got a Jay Turser piece of shit guitar, brand new off Ebay (sorry for the swearing but this guitar cost me a year of pain to make into something playable, I hate Mr. Jay whoever he is). I won't go into the gorey details like I usually do here. Chinese guitar, chinese wiring, chinese pots, chinese awful horrible pickups. Body is good, neck is good, rest is total crap. Anyway I took the metal covers off the pickups, did a shim job, wound my own pickups from scratch put it all back together plugged it in and my pickups sounded like mud. I know my P90s don't sound like mud and didnt know what was happening. A friend said replace the pots. I pulled the harness out and the pots that were supposed to be 500K all were wacked out random values from 400K to just under 500K. I got some cheap Stew Mac pots and replaced them and held my breath. Plugged the guitar in and bango whango, the guitar was ALIVE, my pickups sang, at the jams they all come up say wow that sounds good. Bottom line, buy a cheap guitar, GUT THE DAMN THING, get good pots, rewire it, I couldn't believe the huge difference gutting this guitar made. A guitar I hated with a vengeance is now becoming a favorite. I would never buy a Jay Turser guitar again without knowing ahead of time that they are crap but can be made into something good. Is it worth the time and money, maybe not, might be better to buy something from a hock shop that you can play and hear before you go out the door and know is good and don't have to spend hours and hours with. If you do have time, there are some guitars you can buy for cheap and turn into gems like this one. I got a Stellar guitar on Ebay brand new LP copy, lacquer finished, with hardshell case for $200. REal maple cap body, real mahogany neck and body. but had to do a fret job on the upper frets, gut the electronics, new pickups, now its a good guitar. Save on a guitar, but put a ton of time to make it right. Is it worth it? I don't know......

5/22/2006 7:30 PM
Ken	I do that for 'trade show guitars', I buy used mexiFenders in good shape from music stores, remove the entire electronics, and put in my pickups and CTS pots. Most of my customers all own mexiFenders, so this shows them that their guitar will sound good with my pups inside. Besides, I finally get to buy lots of guitars and they're deductible as demonstrators. I tried a 'lookalike', people wouldn't even try it. Just goes to show you people listen to music with their eyes sometimes. Ken

5/22/2006 7:30 PM

Ken

I do that for 'trade show guitars', I buy used mexiFenders in good shape from music stores, remove the entire electronics, and put in my pickups and CTS pots. Most of my customers all own mexiFenders, so this shows them that their guitar will sound good with my pups inside. Besides, I finally get to buy lots of guitars and they're deductible as demonstrators.

I tried a 'lookalike', people wouldn't even try it. Just goes to show you people listen to music with their eyes sometimes.

Ken

5/22/2006 9:30 PM
Dave Stephens	The look alike thing is funny. I have an Epiphone Dot Deluxe, not a bad guitar but the pickups were heavy metal sounding, no tone just too much output. That and the Stellar and the Turser. When I play any of these guys come up and say wow thats a great guitar, sounds great. So I say, well its because I made the pickups, the ones that don't know I make pickups or don't know me personally look at me kinda funny, like "yeah SURE you did." They walk away thinking its the guitar that sounds good And of course I always forget to hand out business cards or bring them with me, duh......

5/22/2006 9:30 PM

Dave Stephens

The look alike thing is funny. I have an Epiphone Dot Deluxe, not a bad guitar but the pickups were heavy metal sounding, no tone just too much output. That and the Stellar and the Turser. When I play any of these guys come up and say wow thats a great guitar, sounds great. So I say, well its because I made the pickups, the ones that don't know I make pickups or don't know me personally look at me kinda funny, like "yeah SURE you did." They walk away thinking its the guitar that sounds good :-)

And of course I always forget to hand out business cards or bring them with me, duh......

5/23/2006 11:25 AM
Greg Simon	Same thing happens to me when people ask about the weird guitar I made. I tell them I made it and they get this look in their eye like I'm crazy. Of course with such an odd shape with that guitar, I think half of them believe me. Maybe you should make your pickups strange shapes or colors Dave. Make them all pink or something! Greg

5/23/2006 11:37 AM
David Schwab	I get people saying "really?" when I say I made my bass, but then they believe me... I guess because it doesn't look at anything they've seen! Some of my instruments have my last name on the headstock... Pointing to that usually makes the point! I get a kick out of when people ask "how do you do that?" when I say I made the pickup.. then you start explaining, and they get that glassy stare!

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