After the Kluson tonepros came off of back order I eagerly awaited their arival.  When they got here there was a little problem.  There was a slight over hang of the last tuner on the tip of the headstock.   After a day of debating weather or not to install them anyways and hope no one looks close enough to notice or find some tuners that will fit. I opted for the later. I decided to get  Schaller locking tuners. They are actual drop in replacements. I knew that even if no one else noticed the slight overhang of the klusons, it would bug me. So had to wait a week and a half for the other tuners to arrive. They dropped in perfectly. Not the same classic vibe as the klusons but look good and work well. Now it was time to wire this thing up and play it.

]]> http://jborges.com/2009/04/23/tuners/feed/ 0 http://jborges.com/2008/10/28/pickups-other-parts/ http://jborges.com/2008/10/28/pickups-other-parts/#comments Tue, 28 Oct 2008 20:44:51 +0000 joshuaborges http://jborges.com/?p=60
read more..]]> Some of the other parts have shown up along with the pickups.  For pups I ended up ordering a set of handwound Keystones from Bill Lawrence.  After reading several stellar reviews on the keystones I decided that was what I was wanting out a pickup.  There are a lot of different botique level handwound pickups to choose from.  There are some things that dislike about standard type telecaster pups ( even some vintage re-issues).

1.  They can sound thin and undimensional

2.  NOISE!  Hum noise on most vintage style pups is just annoying.

3.  Overly Bright.

With the keystones they are supposed to have none of those negative attributes.  I will post a review after I get some time on them.

Other parts I went with a white – black – white pickguard,  Wilkinson brass compensated bridge, and various misc. parts.  I ordered a 4 way switch for it to be able to run the pups in series.  guitarpartsresource.com sent out a 5 way switch instead.  I have emailed them about it 2x and called 2x. Still no answer or reply so I may have to order it else where.

I ordered some Kluson tonepro vintage tuners.  They are back ordered, so have to wait it out for those.

Just waiting on the switch so I can wire it all up and the tuners and it will be ready.

It was already drilled for the Fender/Schaller tuners.  I am going to add the Tonepro/Kluson vintage style split shaft tuners.  They are not a direct drop in for the current setup.  Installed they should cover all the holes so they will not be seen.

I found the neck pickup to be to muddy sounding.  Just very inarticulate and mushy. Even when played through brighter sounding amps.   Bridge was almost good.  Actually had a warmer sound compared to most standard bridge pickups.

The guitar definitely has mojo in looks.  It just needs some help in the tone department.  The first big problem is fender uses 250k pots in all their guitars.  While that is a fine value for single coils, it just doesn’t cut it for most humbucking guitars.  So I ordered all new electronics.   CTS 500k pots, orange drop caps, switchcraft switch, and some volume mods.

This whole rewire took a bit longer than I had hoped.  After getting everything all together I had a bad ground loop.  Fender did not have the bridge grounded at the factory.  I had grounded that, but still it buzzed like crazy when not touching it.  After going through the guitar several times I eneded up tracing the problem to the wires coming off the switch.  It had the vintage cloth wire.  Changed that out and all was good.  I guess the wire was picking up too much interference.

Buttoned everything back up and fired up my Vox.  Wow what a difference!  Much more dimensional sound and the neck pickup is actually usable now.  The guitar just came alive.  The Volume mods work great.  They are basically 220K resistor in parallel with a 471pf capacitor.  They are soldered in parallel on the volume pot.  It preserves the High frequencies and improves the taper when rolling back the volume.  I tried it with them in and out.  I will be adding this mod to all my guitars now.  I highly recommend them and this mod to all the tele deluxe owners.  This guitar has lots off sparkle and that high end kerrang.

Well without further adieu, Here it is.