Hi all- n00b questions

[bergdoerfer]

I have this POS strat style guitar I built when I was 14, circa 1989 during the metal hair-band years. In those days I was obsessed with making noise, and VH was my main hero, among the usual others. The body is really ****ty, from a guitar that I won from a radio station contest. I don't know what it's made of, looks like about 12 layers of cheap Luan or something. Supposedly the guitar was a Dean, with a legitimate serial # on the neck plate and everything, but it had a cheap Floyd Rose knockoff and crappy electronics. So the only thing I saved was the body, and only because of the paint job. It had Bud King Of Beers emblazoned on it in red & white. Anyway I probably wasted money building my own version of EVH's Frankenstein with it. I threw in one SD Heavy Metal Livewire(the original version)at the bridge with a normal vol/tone knob setup, a real Floyd Rose Original(back then FL's were marketed by Kramer), Gotoh non-locking tuners, and a really well-made ultra-thin compound-radiused maple neck from Hosono Guitar Works. Guys I had no idea what I was doing, but this guitar despite being the massive piece of **** that it is, and being wired by an idiot(me), managed to satisfy. It's pretty loud, I borrowed a friend's 50w Legend hybrid amp and found that with the vol knob at about halfway on the guitar playing through the clean channel on that amp I could get a nice, fat, wide overdrive a la AC/DC, just plugged straight in. So naturally I wanted to see what it would do when I turned the vol on the guitar all the way up, which blew the amp out. That was when I decided to abandon active electronics.
Anyway I've kept this thing ever since, through college and whatnot, it's beat to **** now, stickers all over it, etc. I'd like to rewire this thing with some quality electronics(pots are scratchy, only has one cap, wired the way the instructions instructed as much as I recall) and am wondering what parts I should use. It still works but I seem to always pick up radio stations with it and I'd like to tame it a bit. Do guitars with active pickups need shielding? LOL like I said before I didn't know what I was doing then and it turned out OK now I'd like to finish the job proper. Suggestions on good quality wiring, good control pots w/ proper resistance(StewMac says 25k but the online wiring diagram says 100k which are impossible to find), where I can find a good replacement capacitor would be greatly appreciated. Cap in it now is a larger cream-colored cylindrical plastic, doesn't look anything like the little round ceramic ones I've seen. Thanks loads-

berg

 

[Zhangliqun]

Re: Hi all- n00b questions

If you have abandoned active electronics, this means you are now using passive electronics, meaning passive pickups. You need pots in the 250k to 500k range, 25k or 100k will be too weak, will still let way too much signal leak to ground resulting in a faint, dull tone. RS Guitarworks (google their website) sells good pots. 250-300k is the standard for Fender-style single coils, 500k for humbuckers and P90's, but where you land between 250-500k is really a matter of personal taste.

I'm partial to Mallory caps, the yellow cylinder ones, .022 on the neck and the same or lighter on the bridge, but there's a lot of good ones out there. You can get most of them at Mouser Electronics but we have an electronics parts vendor or two in the forum that can likely hook you up with what you need.

 

[bergdoerfer]

Re: Hi all- n00b questions

Thanks for the reply - I should say that by stating I decided to abandon active electronics, it meant that I abandoned that guitar period. Now I'd like to rewire it and do a cleaner job! So I'm keeping the Livewire pickup. It's the only pickup in the guitar right now. Would RS likely have access to really good pots/caps, & wiring, specifically 100k pots which the SD active humbucker twin 9v vol/tone diagram recommends? The body cavity is painted with a black stuff I assume is shielding paint, but should I go further with some copper foil or something? Not really sure what the rules are regarding this particular active humbucker. I've always gotten a bit too much microphonic activity from this guitar. It's made some great sound but is a bit unruly.

 

[Zhangliqun]

Re: Hi all- n00b questions

Actives are outside my area of expertise. I don't think RS has such pots but I'm not sure, so go check them out. I know Stewmac has lower value pots. The black paint probably is for shielding. You can check it with a multi-meter.