Hum reduction on a Tele

Today, I'm working on a Squier Telecaster. The stock pickups were noisy and wimpy and the customer acquired a set of stacked Bill Lawrence Tele pickups to install in the attempt to reduce the 60 cycle hum. I installed the pickups a few weeks ago, but the customer claims it's still as noisy as ever!

Back on the bench it goes and this time, we're going to install copper shielding to the pickup and control cavities to reduce the hum.

The neck must be removed before the pickguard can be removed on this model! Off with the strings, off with the neck, and now we can get the pickguard off. All the electronics have to be un-soldered and removed to work on the shielding in the cavities.

The channel for the neck pickup wires was originally a tunnel leading to the cavity for the bridge pickup. I decided to route an open passage so I could apply the copper shielding in that area also.

With the copper shielding cut and glued in place, the next step is to re-mount the pickups in their cavities.

I thought it best to replace the original switch, volume and tone controls, wiring, and jack with new.

I used a switch for the Fender American Standard Tele.

Well, there we have it. All back together and strung up with D'Addario EXL-110 strings.

After a set up, this baby should quack like a good Tele should!

Repairs Rock Prices

REPAIRS ROCK PRICE LIST


$ 30.00 Basic Set up: Electric, Acoustic, and Bass Guitars:
Set up includes: truss rod adjustment, tuner adjustment, fingerboard cleaning, saddle height
and intonation adjustment, tighten loose hardware, re-string, pickup height
adjustment, test, clean.

$ 40.00 Set up with Floyd Rose Trem

$ 15.00 Jack replacement on most electric guitars & basses

$ 30.00 Jack replacement on acoustic-electric instruments

$ 30.00-50.00 Pickup replacement on most electrics *

$80.00-100.00 Re-glue bridge on acoustic

$75.00 Complete re-wire Les Paul (parts additional)

$50.00 Complete re-wire on Strat or Tele (parts additional)

$60.00 Copper shielding on electrics to minimize hum

• Custom work, such as routing body for over-size pickup install, custom pickguard mods, and other irregular modifications is subject to $ 40.00 per hour.


TELE MODS
The 4 Way Switch Drops in original slot and adds the two pickups on in Series. The other three positions stay as original.
Parts, Labor $ 60.00

Volume Control Closer to the fingertips. By re-mounting control plate 180 out and switching volume and tone control position, and turning the switch 180 out, you get from left to right, Volume, Tone, and Switch.
Way Cool for Swells!
Labor $ 30.00

Bigsby B-5 Tailpiece $250.00

Satisfied Customers


Tom Briggs Insurance Agent
tbriggs2@rochester.rr.com


John Stiles Professional Musician
jstiles@rochester.rr.com


Joseph F. Laubacker Engineer
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Albert Pacete Chaplan/Deacon
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The Broken Bauer

A friend in Lyons brought me his old George Bauer Bowl Back Mandolin, with the neck coming off and top, smashed in. I wiggled the neck a bit, and it came off, with a bit of the top still holding onto the edge of the fingerboard, which also crumbled off the bottom. It looks as though all the pieces are there but restoraton to playable condition is pushing the bar.

George Bauer was in Philidelphia, Pa and putting out stringed instruments in the late 1880's. He later joined forces with Stuart Banjo and took that company over in the early 1900's.

Our poor broken one is called model Monagram, and I see that model in later instruments too and considered entry level. With it's beautiful top, Brazilian Rosewood bowl strips, I'd hardly call it entry level! The neck joint is one I've yet to see. Not the dove-tail joint that we're used to encountering, but a crude, hand carved asymetrical joint.

Well, after consulting a luhier here in Rochester, he brought to my attention, that the neck was previously re-glued, using Gorilla Glue. The urethene glue has already satuated the wood fibers, rendering hyde or other wood glues not effective. So, at his advice, I cleaned up my joints and reglued the neck with the Gorilla Glue.

The next serious issue, is the left top bout where the fingerboard and top meet. The top is smashed down over 1/8 inch. I cut a scab to glue under my seam, and jacked and glued the left top section to the fingerboard.

A new Tele Mod

Being a Tele kinda guy, myself, I love it when a customer has a new request for a mod on a Tele. Yesterday, a great player and new friend to me brought in a Tele for a pickup replacement job and a request to move the controls around on his Tele. He asked that I turn the control plate 180 out, so that the switch was on the other end of the plate. He wanted the volume control to be on the left side, closer to the picking hand for easier reach. It sounded like a great idea to me. He claims that guys in Nashville started doing this.
This required, turning the control plate around 180. The switch, also had to be turned around 180. The volume and tone controls had to be switched in their respectave positions also. With the guitar strapped on, looking down, the controls now were from left to right: Volume, Tone, and Selector Switch. The volume could now be much closer to swell and adjust. Genious!

Those Darn Baggage Handlers

Ya really gotta be carefull traveling with your guitar. I've seen it happen many times, many ways, but with all the string tension on your baby, if it takes a spill, it could mean a broken headstock, even in the original hard shell case. Our repair here is from not loosening the string tension and attempting to have airline baggage folks handle the instrument.

First step was to remove the tuners from the headstock. I used a two part epoxy to make the repair. Brushing it on lightly, both pieces, I reunited the headstock with the neck. Clamping it prooved to be a challenge; as I applied clamp preasure, the two parts wanted to slip off allignment. I had to loosen my clamping preasure so the two parts stayed put!

I'm a bit new to this procedure; when I removed the clamp after curing, I had overflow from the epoxy, requiring sanding the area smooth, removing my overflow.

Next, was matching the finish to create a blend. It took some oak and walnut stain to get close to the same shade as original. Next, came a few coats of clear laquer

Well, the ole girl's back in one piece; Not invisible, but quite playable.
Amy, I'd leave this baby home the next time you fly!

The resurrection of the Le Brea

Another resurrection of an old friend. Many years ago, while working in a great music store, I sold a Fender LeBrea to a nice man. 20 or so years later, I get a request to repair a friend's guitar, belonging to her father. My friend, I hadn't seen in a dog's age either! It turns out, I did know her dad and indeed sold him the guitar. She got it from her uncle in Kentucky, years later, in stowage. I got it home, opened the case to find it without strings. Further inspection showed the output jack was gone. I found some wires bundled up and tie wrapped to the pre-amp inside the body. After removing the pre-amp, I found the wires going to the pickup and the wires going to the jack were cut, the pickup itself, gone. The jack lead was now too short to go out to the end of the body. My first plan was to unsolder the short wires off the pre-amp and install a new lead of proper length. Closer inspection reveled it would be necessary to completely unsolder and remove the three pots off the pre-amp circuit board. Nah!! Way too much labor. I opted to tack on a length of wire to the existing lead. Ditto for the pickup connections. First, I assembled the entire system out of the guitar and plugged into an amp to test it. Nice, everything seemed to work fine. The original pickup must have been glued somewhere inside near the bridge plate. I had a replacement under the saddle pickup for the repair. I was happy to find out the new pickup was going to act right married to the Le Brea pre-amp! Now to install the new pickup. First, I un-soldered my test connections to the pickup. Next, I had to drill a small hole in the end of the bridge for the pickup wires to feed into the body. Next, I had to re-solder my pickup wires to the pre-amp, install a new jack, re-install the pre-amp, put a fresh 9 V battery into place and tie wrap my wires and secure them out of sight. Now for new strings and the ceremonial test through an amp. It worked fine! Sigh of relief!!! The strings were a bit high off the fingerboard so remove the saddle and sand the bottom and install. Next, the height at the nut could use some adjustment. One string at a time, loosen, move out of the way, and file each nut slot. Replace string, tune to pitch and check. Repeat the steps until the string found it's proper place in the nut slot. Repeat the steps for the remainder of the strings. Test. Nice; I could play this one all night. Tomorrow, a good cleaning and polishing and this baby's ready for Bonnie to play her little pea picken heart out!

Attack of the Teisco Cont.!!

OK, the second and final post concerning the attack of the Teisco!

As I stated in the previous post, my friend passed on to me his first guitar to be restored, an old Zenon, made by the Teisco company in Japan, most likely in the early sixties. These student model guitars are now coveted by many. In the case of this particular Zenon, by buddy just would love to have his first guitar playable once again.

In the previous installment, I stated that half of the tuners were missing, the jack loose, and many years of grunge covered the instrument. I have always kept old guitar parts in storage, to be used or re-cycled as needed. I did manage to have the parts to re-assemble the six tuners! The nut was gone and I did use a new cheap plastic variety, I'm pretty sure Teisco used at the time. I took the pickguard off and checked the wiring. I found a broken wire and loose jack. I spritzed the three controls with WD 40, soldered the broken wire back onto the switch, and replaced the output jack. The tone capacitor was gone and the wiring to the controls altered. I did not want to disturb any more of the circuit than I had to, and decided to leave the tone control alone.

I removed the primitive tremolo system under the tailpiece, and attempted to adapt a Floyd Rose part to accept a whammy bar, but the system is too primitive, so that too I left alone.

I began to string it up after re-assembling and cleaning the area, only to find the strings high off the fretboard. I removed the neck and cut two plastic shims to place in the neck pocket, and replaced the neck. The strings were nicely over the fingerboard, requiring even raising the bridge adjustment wheels up a bit. The bottom of the pickguard, housing the output jack, was broken off. I decided to use the original repaired section, but added three more screws to secure the section. It was time for the test! I plugged it in and started playing. The bridge pickup really honks nicely and the neck pickup warms the tone. One of the rocker switches, is a bit persnickety, but does work. This baby is good for another 45 years, I reckon!!!

Attack of the Teisco!!

The latest restoration project: An old Zenon from the 60's, belonging to a good friend of mine. His first guitar, he'd love to have it restored. Many folks covet these cheesey guitars, most likely manufactured by Teisco in Japan, with names like: Norma, Zenon, Teisco.

Stay tuned for the latest news on this restoration!

Multi Meter is your friend

I've found the multi-meter to be more and more useful in my guitar repairs.

The continuity setting is probably the most used. It's invaluable in tracing wiring paths. Yesterday, I installed three mini switches in a guitar with three pickups. After I completed the job, I used the tap test; hooking up a line cord from guitar to amp, I selected each pickup, one at a time and gently tapped the pickup coils for each pickup. At first, only one out of three worked. Each pickup is hooked to it's own switch, the positive and negative outputs on the switch is hooked to the other two switches in a series, and then terminates out to the volume pot, the positive going to the leg 1 input of the pot, and the negative grounded to the back of the pot. With only the bridge pickup working, I decided to take an ohm's resistance reading on each pickup to make sure the pickups were functional. Each pickup read 5.84 ohms, telling me that they all were working properly. I began with switch 3, controlling the neck pickup. Following the path of the wiring on that switch, I got positive continuity on the switch in all terminals. I took continuity checks starting with the positive output on switch 3 which travels over to switch 2, then over to switch 1. Touching the probe at the output terminal on switch 3, and the other probe at the output terminal on switch 2, I got positive continuity, so I kept my probe on switch 3 and moved the other probe to positive output terminal of switch 1. Again, I got positive continuity, so, keeping the probe on switch 3 and moving the other probe to the final destination of the positive wire output path, the volume pot, I got positive continuity again. The open circuit was not in the positive wire circuit. I repeated the test, probing the negative wire circuit, probing the negative output from switch 3 to switch 2. Ahh; no continuity! I looked with a magnifying lens and found the negative wiring at switch 2 had an open circuit. I carefully re-soldered the open connection and bingo; my pickups worked. I always use the DC voltage setting to test the 9V battery common to active pickups and pre-amps. This is one of first things I check when diagnosing a problem with no output or distorted output. In guitars or other audio systems, effect pedals, etc. the 9V battery is technically dead below 7V. I also use the voltage setting to trace the path of the pre-amp output to all points leading out to the output jack.

Adding a middle pickup to my Tele!

More Mad Mod Time, this time, with my G&L ASAT Tele, adding a middle pickup and turning it into The Nashville Tele!

Step 1: Remove strings, bridge plate, control plate, and of course, pickups!

Step 2: Mark body for routing middle pickup cavity. Carefully route the cavity, in steps, till getting the proper depth for the new pickup.

Originally, I had a 4 way switch, volume and tone control. The Mod called for a 5 way switch, and an extra volume control added to the neck pickup so I could select it, independantly of the pickup selector switch, giving me the options of any pickups (including all three) on or any other combo of selections. Cool!

Step 3: Remove all controls from control plate.

Step 4: Mark and drill additional hole for extra tone control. I used a mini 250K push-pull pot. This would give me the Strat set-up: Master volume, tone control for middle pickup, and tone control for neck pickup. The little switch under the center tone control, was to turn on the neck pickup, even if it was not selected on the new 5 way Strat switch I was adding.

Step 5: Re-install the pickups in their positions, and route the pickup wires into the control cavity. The new pickguard did not line up with the G&L bridge plate or under the bottom of the fingerboard, requiring some grinding with the Dremel and some hand filing.

Step 6: Install the 5 way selector switch, push-pull tone control, and solder conections in place.

Of course, their was the inevitable re-positioning of the controls to fit neatly in the control cavity when the plate was re-installed.

Step 7: Test the pickups with the control plate uncovered, using a small screwdriver and lightly tapping the pickups with the switch and other controls.

Step 8: Install the modified pickguard and screw down. Install the control plate and screw down. String up and test.

Step 9: Major Twang!

The end result: 1. Switch far right: Bridge pickup
2. Switch, one click to left: Bridge & new middle Strat pickup.
3. Switch one more click to left: Center pickup.
4. Switch one more click to left: Center and Neck pickups.
5. Switch last click to left: Neck pickup alone.
By using the Push-pull switch in positions 1 or 2, you acheive Bridge and Neck, or all three at once, giving seven selections to choose from!

As it turned out in the trial run, the new middle Strat pickup was out of phase with the Tele pickups. Back to the control plate and reverse the Strat pickup wires and WOW!

High action on your Bass or Electric?

OK, so most players like the slinky strings with the action low. I said most, not all, but most. There are many ways to skin the proverbial cat, getting the action lower. Today, we are going to refer to guitars and basses with bolt on necks. The first rule in theory is: Tone and Volume are determined by how heavy the strings are and how high they are off the body. The heavier the string, and the higher the action produces more volume and desirable tone. The trick is to get the action low enough for the player's style. Fender, years ago evolved to the micro-tilt adjustment at the neck base. This allowed for pushing the heel of the neck closer to the strings. From there, it is a matter of adjusting the string height at the bridge saddles. By moving the base of the neck out, it requires raising the string saddles up to avoid buzzing. The higher saddle height gives more volume and tone, and the micro-tilt allows for lower action for better playability. With me, so far?

OK, so what if you don't have a micro-tilt at the base of your neck pocket? First check to see how straight the neck is. You want some relief, but not too big a bow, nor the neck bowed backwards. I have a previous post on adjusting the truss rod! It is in a post titled "Acoustic tough to play?" The truss rod adjustment is the same theroy as the acoustic. Loosen the strings

and unbolt the neck. Find some shim material. I like thin plastic, a bit thinner than a credit card. Cut a strip, a bit thinner than 1/2 ", the width of the neck pocket. Place your shim in the neck pocket, so that the very bottom of the back of the neck heel will rest on the shim. Bolt the neck back on, first snugging the screws lightly, taking care to keep the neck straight in the pocket. Next, tighten each screw tight. Re-tension the strings, and you'll find the strings may be resting right on the fingerboard. The next step is to raise the individual string saddle height. You may want to loosen the string you are working on before raising the saddle. Remember that the fingerboard has a radius curve to it and you want to adjust each string saddle to keep with the fingerboard radius. That means that the saddle should not be level on the bridge. One end is going to be higher than the other side of the saddle. Raise each saddle, one at a time and check each string for buzzing along each fret. Once you achieve this, every string should play on every fret without buzzing. Inspect to make sure each string is not grossly higher than it's neighbor string. Remember the radius of the fingerboard. You must mimic the relative same radius of the fingerboard at the saddles. Now that the saddles have been raised higher, you may need to raise the height of the pickups. They should not be so close to the strings that the magnets are pulling at the strings, nor each pickup, the same height. Listen to each pickup alone, and with the others and it should end up where one is not too much louder or softer than the other. You may want the bridge pickup hotter than the rest, but if they are close, it's really personal preference.

What have you ended up with? Higher saddle height for better tone and volume, and nice low string action up and down and across the fingerboard.

Rock on!!!