THE GUITAR
MEDICINE MAN
The Doctor/Technician For Guitar, Bass, Amp, Cables & Connections.
The customer required the existing SSH standard pickup configuration wired to a HSH scratch plate configuration in the following fashion:
It is basically the same as a Suhr Guthrie Govan wiring set-up except with 2 tone controls instead of one. There would be a five way lever switch with the following selections:
1.Bridge humbucker
2.Bridge inner coil and middle pickup
3.Bridge and neck outer coils
4.Neck outer coil and middle pickup
5.Neck humbucker
A master 500k volume control, Tone one would be a 500k pot for the neck pickup with a push/push function to switch from full humbucker to the outer coil alone, tone 2 would be a 500k pot for the bridge and middle pickups. Finally there would latching push button 'blower' or 'passing lane' switch on the scratch plate that would bypass all other controls to send the full bridge pickup directly to the jack socket.
The pickups are:
Bare Knuckle Holydiver (bridge)
Bare Knuckle Apache single coil (middle)
Bare Knuckle VHII humbucker (neck.)
So a lot to do!.... The way forward was to strip the body of all hardware and wiring. Remove the neck, mark out and route the neck cavity to fit the new humbucker. Paint the body cavities with conductive paint to screen/ shield new wiring from outside noise. Remove old wiring and pickups from scratch plate, route the single coil aperture to a humbucker profile, refit and wire new pots/switches and pickups. Fault find, test, restring and setup....job done!
Gordon Smith Strat SSH to HSH project
Squire Strat Re-wiring
This guitar came in with a few wiring issues with lots of popping and crackling coming from the output. After taking the strings and removing the scratch plate, I found a DIY install of an Iron Gear pickup system. The main issues were most soldering joints were dry and could be flicked off with a screwdriver. The wires were too long and not trimmed causing short circuits.
The plan was to unsolder re trim all wires and clean up the back of the pot of blobby dry solder. Oh! .... And make a bacon roll with all that tin foil fitted for noise screening.
Then re-solder all wires with fresh solder at the correct temperature. Test wiring, re-fit scratch plate to body, restring and tune up.... Job Done! Oh and eat that bacon roll.
1960's Gibson Humming Bird
This 1960’s Gibson Humming Bird required a bit of TLC, I found the body had dried out over the years, small crack in the top near the sound hole and neck, very dull in tone and with Nitrocellulose eggshell lacquer cracks all over. I humidified the guitar over a week, cleaned the finger board, polished frets, treated the finger board, cleaned and lightly polished the body and restrung. The crack had closed up and just filled with a little thin CA glue. The guitar was back to its true tone, job done!
Ibanez 6 String Bass
This came in for a pickup upgrade to a set of EMG 45’s. Stripping down all hardware, removed old pickups and electrics, routed out to fit new EMG’s, installed pickups and rewired with a master volume, balance control and master tone. The rest are just pots with no function, restrung and setup.
